In the pre-dawn hours of August 15, 2005, a single gunshot shattered the quiet of an isolated home at the end of Roberts Road in Sabattus, Maine. Inside, 29-year-old Melissa Mendoza was found dead, the victim of a fatal shooting. The call to 911 was made by Daniel Roberts, her 35-year-old ex-boyfriend and the father of their two-year-old daughter, Savanna. He claimed the shooting was an act of self-defense.
This tragic event was the culmination of a long and bitter custody battle over their young child.
The couple had a history of domestic problems, with Mendoza having previously sought protection-from-abuse orders against Roberts. Just days before her death, she had filed an affidavit stating that Roberts had threatened her and put a gun to her head on numerous occasions. She expressed a profound fear that he or his friends would harm her. At the time of the shooting, only Roberts, Mendoza, and their daughter were in the house.
Initially, Roberts was considered a "cooperating witness," but the investigation soon pointed to a more sinister narrative. Prosecutors argued that Roberts had lured Mendoza to his home and laid in wait for her, shooting her in the back of the head as she entered his garage. The defense maintained that Mendoza had arrived with a gun, and he had shot her in self-defense. A key piece of evidence was a. 38-caliber revolver found at the scene. Roberts claimed Mendoza had been holding it, but prosecutors contended he had planted the weapon, which he owned but had claimed she had stolen.
In February 2007, a jury found Daniel Roberts guilty of murder. He was later sentenced to 55 years in prison. Over the years, Roberts has made several unsuccessful attempts to appeal his conviction and petition for a new trial. One such attempt in 2019 was based on new DNA extraction techniques that he claimed could show Mendoza s DNA on the gun. However, a judge ruled that this new evidence only proved that she "could have touched the gun" and was not sufficient to overturn the jury's verdict. The Maine Supreme Judicial Court has repeatedly upheld his conviction.
