Testimony set to begin in Barrios murder trial

“The only way to celebrate my mother's life is to focus on the love,” her son, Louis Barrios, said last week. “Otherwise, my mother would be defined by the last 10 seconds of her life.”

But today, attention will again turn to those final moments as the first day of testimony begins in the capital murder trial of Joe Estrada Jr., 19. He's accused of killing Barrios, 76, as he burglarized her Northwest Side house April 24, 2008. The two were neighbors.

The trial was moved to Victoria late last year after defense attorneys Therese Huntzinger and Patrick Hancock argued that the case had created such a media frenzy that it would be impossible to find unbiased jurors locally.

Even as jury selection has taken place over the past four weeks in Victoria, some people have had to be dismissed because they knew too much about the case, the attorneys said. But both the prosecution and the defense have agreed on a 10-woman, two-man panel.

If the trial gets to a punishment stage, the Barrios family will likely be on hand as jurors decide whether to assess the death penalty for Estrada, despite statements from Louis Barrios that his mother wouldn't have ever wanted such a conclusion.

“She would have wanted him to go to jail — don't get me wrong,” he said. “But my mother would have found out when his parents were visiting him, and she would have cooked something. That's the kind of woman she was.”

Estrada, who turns 20 next Monday, has been described in the past as a high school athlete who enjoyed stylish clothes, dancing and bow hunting with his father.

But his life seemed to spiral from that of a normal teenager in the months leading up to Barrios' death, according to previous reports.

He was kicked off the Clark High School cross-country team for stealing during an off-campus run, a teammate told the San Antonio Express-News in 2008. He later dropped out of school.