Dominic Robinson took the stand in his own defense Thursday, looked directly at the jury then at the family of murder victim Samantha Jaume and with a raised, passionate voice, declared his innocence.

“I did not kill Samantha Jaume. I did not. I was not in Mandeville, La., July 4, 2001. I was not in Mandeville at all in July. I did not kill Mrs. Samantha. I did not. I did not,” he said.

Robinson, 28, of Waggaman, is charged with first-degree murder in the death of Jaume, a 25-year-old mother of four who was shot to death in her Mandeville home during a botched carjacking. If convicted, he could face the death penalty. Robinson is accused of following Jaume from Wal-Mart to her home in a truck driven by Jason Gainey with plans to take her 2001 Ford Expedition to sell for money to by heroin.

Gainey, who made a deal with prosecutors and was expected to testify against Robinson, changed his story on the stand earlier this week and said Robinson was not the killer.

The defense is expected to wrap up its case this morning, and closing arguments are expected to begin.

During his testimony, Robinson admitted he was at the Covington Wal-Mart in February 2001 with Gainey, but not in July of that year. He said he was at a family barbecue that day swimming, shooting fireworks and spending time with his son.

Robinson is already serving a life sentence in Angola for a Houma carjacking and kidnapping that took place later in 2001. But he said that case doesn’t make him a murderer.

“I’ve made mistakes in my past. I’ve made terrible mistakes,” he said. “I can’t change that. It haunts me.”

He said investigators kept asking him about the Terrebone case and told him if he could get in that kind of trouble he was capable of killing Jaume.

“I’m not a murderer,” he testified. “I might appear to be because of my appearance. But you can’t judge what’s inside me until you know me.”

Robinson voluntarily gave investigators a DNA sample before his arrest because “once I did that I thought I wouldn’t be involved in the case.”

He said officers told him they had DNA evidence and he thought by giving his DNA he would be cleared.

“I raise my hand to God,” he said, “I did not kill that woman.”

On Wednesday jurors heard taped interviews with two of Jaume’s children who witnessed the murder.

Moments before Jaume was killed, her then 9-year-old daughter peered downstairs clutching her newly bought doll and watched in horror as a killer bulldozed into their house. A “dirty” black man with gold earrings, gold teeth, a long T-shirt and “splotchy skin” clutched Jaume’s shoulder with one hand while holding a “shiny, silver” gun to her head with the other, the child said.

Colleen Jaume was face to face, within 5 feet, of the killer.

Colleen, the eldest of four children, shared her account in a videotaped interview with the Children’s Advocacy Center of Covington days after her mother’s murder. Her brother, Jason, then 7, also was interviewed. Besides a 911 call by Jason played earlier in the week, the tape is the first published account of Samantha Jaume’s death from the children’s perspective.

On the tape, Colleen described how she lunged for a knife in the dishwasher and brandished it against her mother’s attacker. She quickly put it down when the killer said, “Go away before I kill,” she said on the tape.

She fled to a closet, where she waited in fear.

“Then I heard the gunshot. Then I heard something fall to the floor,” she told the interviewer, identified only as “Miss Amy” in the tape.

“I knew he shot my mom,” she said.

“What did it sound like?” the interviewer asked.

“Loud, very loud. A bang,” she said. “Like if I was to bang on the wall as hard as I could.”

Slowly, she emerged from her hiding spot before discovering the gruesome murder scene. Her mom lay in a pool of blood on the kitchen floor.

“She had blood all over herself,” Colleen said. “She had a hole in her neck. I started yelling, ‘Oh my God! Oh my God!’”

Prosecutors Scott Gardner and Bruce Dearing played the hour and a half-long tape recorded on July 6, 2001, two days after the murder, to likely garner sympathy for the family. One audience member dabbed her wet eyes while Colleen explained how she ran back into the closet after the shooting and waited in fear.

The next thing she heard were cops yelling outside. She looked out a window’s blinds.

“I saw cops put their guns up all around,” she said.

Within minutes, the ordeal was over. Jaume’s single gunshot wound to her head was “unsurvivable,” Assistant Coroner Mike DeFatta testified.

Robinson was one of more than 318 leads generated by investigators before his arrest nearly two years later. But Special Agent Wyatt Evans with the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms testified Wednesday afternoon Robinson fit the description better than most. While interviewing Robinson in the Houma case, Robinson admitted he was at the Covington Wal-Mart on the day in question, Evans said. Coupled with an artist sketch of Robinson made from Jaume’s children’s description, “I almost fell out of my chair,” Evans testified.