Nearly two years after the shocking 2001 murder of Mandeville mother Samantha Jaume, the suspect, Dominic Robinson of Waggaman, thought he would never be charged.

From reading newspaper reports and watching television news reports, Robinson knew there was no DNA evidence linking him to the crime, then St. Tammany Parish Sheriff’s Office Detective Ralph Sacks testified Tuesday in day three of Robinson’s first-degree murder trial.

“I’ll never forget the way he looked me dead in the eye. He knew the case couldn’t be solved,” Sacks testified. Robinson is accused of trailing Jaume’s 2001 Ford Expedition out of Covington’s Wal-Mart parking lot on July 4, 2001, in an attempt to carjack her SUV to sell for money to buy heroin. The robbery went awry, and Jaume was shot with her children, then 2, 4, 7, and 9, inside her home at 624 Woodridge Drive off Louisiana Highway 22.

Jason Gainey, also of Waggaman, is believed to be the driver of a Ford Ranger pickup truck seen on video surveillance footage trailing Jaume’s vehicle out of the Wal-Mart parking lot. The car was later linked to Gainey and found at his mother’s house in Waggaman with switched plates, Sacks testified.

While Robinson was confident early on, Sacks said the suspect was shocked when investigators presented him with more damaging evidence in an interview in a jail library at the Claiborne Hill Detention Center in Homer on Jan. 10, 2003, where Robinson was being held on separate charges of carjacking and kidnapping. He is now serving a life sentence at Angola for that crime.

“What do you have on me?” Sacks said Robinson asked investigators.

Sacks, now with the Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office, showed Robinson a picture of the Ford tuck spotted trailing Jaume’s Ford Expedition out of Wal-Mart’s parking lot. Earlier Robinson had admitted to investigators he was at Wal-Mart on the day in question to meet with a local gun dealer.

The interview was over, Sacks testified, adding he left and saw through a one-way mirror Robinson slouch his head forward into his hands.

“Oh, f*#k,” Sacks testified he heard Robinson say.

The testimony was among the first evidence presented by prosecutors that indicated Robinson felt he was pinched. Earlier in the investigation, Robinson had freely submitted DNA swabs to investigators, a move defense attorney Maurice Tyler said was indicative of an innocent man.

Because of the lack of DNA evidence or fingerprints at the crime scene, prosecutors have based their case on corroborating evidence of those close to Robinson, including an interview with his brother, Jeffrey Milton Robinson, who goes by Milton.

Dressed in an orange prison jumpsuit, his hands shackled in handcuffs, Milton testified Monday he and Robinson were at a family party July 4, 2001, from 2-7 p.m. during the time Jaume was killed.

But in a taped interview, Milton’s story was different. Milton said on a tape played for jurors that he saw Gainey and his brother leave in the black pickup truck on July 4, 2001, and return the day after Jaume’s murder on July 5.

Milton testified Monday that investigators said he would face 10 to 15 years in a federal prison for obstruction of justice if he “did not tell them what they wanted to hear.”

“It hurt me in the long run because it hurt my brother, knowing my brother didn’t do that,” Milton testified. “It made me feel lost.”

“If I did cooperate they told me I wouldn’t get nothing. So I said it,” Milton testified.

Robinson was finally arrested nearly two years after Jaume’s murder.

And on Monday, detectives involved with the carjack/kidnapping case in Terrebonne and Jefferson parishes lambasted St. Tammany Parish Sheriff’s Office deputies for the amount of time it took to make an arrest.

Robinson was investigated in that case by Maj. Darryl Stewart of Terrebonne and Detective Todd Rivere with Jefferson Parish.

Both investigators testified they were disgusted when they called a St. Tammany detective (they can’t remember who) after a Sept. 26, 2001, interview with Robinson to say they may have St. Tammany’s murder suspect.

Both Rivere and Stewart testified Robinson’s response to where he was during the day of Jaume’s murder was “spontaneous,” with “no provocation that he was at the Mandeville/ Covington Wal-Mart” on July 4, 2001.

That admission, plus an artist sketch that resembled Robinson, led Rivere and Stewart to contact St. Tammany authorities.

“St. Tammany was lackluster in their pursuit,” Rivere testified Monday. “When they have that information what was done? Not enough. Not enough.

“I’m no genius, but as an investigator I’m going to jump hot and heavy at that lead,” Rivere said.

Robinson’s trial resumed before noon Tuesday.

Gainey, accused of driving Robinson to Jaume’s residence, is expected to testify this week against Robinson in exchange for a plea deal with prosecutors. Originally charged with first-degree murder, he pleaded guilty to armed robbery and faces between 10 to 99 years when sentenced in early September.

If Robinson is convicted, prosecutors will seek the death penalty.