But, as the high profile murder trial got underway in Portland, they told the jury different stories about Williams’ state of mind when he fired the gun at Cpl. Eugene Cole that day. And the version the jury chooses to believe will determine whether Williams is convicted of murder.

Assistant Attorney General Leane Zainea said the evidence will show that Williams intended to or at least knew that he would kill Cole when he fired the gun. She said the gun was fired at close range, very close to or touching Cole’s neck. She said Williams recognized Cole as the officer who had arrested his girlfriend days before. And she said he later told police that he “eliminated” Cole.

“If you apply your common sense and reason and conclude that as Cpl. Cole was on the ground begging for his life the defendant pointed the gun directly at his neck and fired, then he must have intended or at least knew that death would occur,” Zainea said in her opening statement.

Defense attorney Verne Paradie said Williams was too intoxicated to intend to kill Williams or know he was going to do so. He said a doctor will liken Williams to an animal who would chew off his own leg to get out of a trap without thinking about the consequences. And he said Williams was weak and afraid when he was captured, so he would have said anything to the police to satisfy them.

“The state cannot prove that his intoxication did not interfere with his ability to think intentionally and knowingly, and I’ll ask you to return a not guilty verdict on the murder charge,” Paradie said.

The case was moved to Cumberland County because of the volume of news coverage in central Maine.

Superior Court Justice Robert Mullen again warned the 12 jurors and three alternates on Monday to avoid news reports about the trial so they can base their verdict solely on the evidence presented in the courtroom.

Testimony should reveal more details about the shooting than have been disclosed so far, and the defense attorney has said Williams himself is expected to testify.

An affidavit says that friends dropped off Williams at a home in town that day around 1 a.m. He was carrying multiple bags and a bulletproof vest, and one woman in the car described him to police as “tweaked.” The group saw a Somerset County Sheriff’s Department vehicle near the home. Soon after the friends left, Williams called one of them and said he had shot a sheriff’s deputy in the head.

Police allege Williams then stole Cole’s pickup truck cruiser, drove to a nearby Cumberland Farms and stole cigarettes. He drove off but soon abandoned the truck. More than 200 law enforcement officers from multiple jurisdictions joined the search for him in the days that followed, and he was arrested shortly after noon on April 28.

Williams confessed to shooting Cole, during an interrogation by police. Defense attorneys later asked a judge to throw out all statements Williams made to law enforcement on the day of his arrest, arguing that he was beaten by police and experiencing severe withdrawal from opiates at the time.

The judge issued his ruling in April, one day after the one-year anniversary of the killing. Mullen decided that police did not coerce the confession and could use it at trial, but barred prosecutors from showing the jury a videotaped reenactment of the shooting.