The capital murder trial of a member of the Texas Seven opened with tears Monday as the widow of a police officer slain during a robbery by the prison escapees recalled the last time she saw her husband alive.

"He put his hand on my back and said, 'I'll see you in the morning and I love you,'" said Lori Hawkins, of her husband, Aubrey. Moments after they parted on Christmas Eve 2000, the patrolman interrupted the holdup of a sporting goods store and died in a hail of bullets.

Donald Newbury, 39, a three-time felon who boasted the longest rap sheet of the seven escapees, faces the death penalty if convicted of Hawkins' murder. He is second of the inmates, who staged one of Texas' boldest maximum-security prison escapes, to be tried for the crime since the gang's capture in Colorado a year ago. Ringleader George Rivas was found guilty and sentenced to death in August.

Newbury's conviction is considered likely, and courtroom observers say the real battle may be the penalty phase when his lawyers try to convince jurors to spare him from lethal injection. Prosecutors have ample evidence that he participated in the fatal robbery, including a three-page confession in which he admits firing three shots.

Newbury's lawyer, Doug Parks, admitted during his opening statement Monday that he agreed with much of the prosecutor's account. But, Parks told the panel of seven men and five women, Newbury never intended for anyone to be killed. In fact, the defense lawyer said, the robbery of Oshman's sporting goods, which yielded the escapees $70,000 and 44 guns, was designed to avoid violence.

"The evidence is going to show this was a robbery planned in very detail just so something like this would not happen," said Parks.

Most of the nine witnesses who testified Monday offered details of the robbery, but the most emotional testimony came from Lori Hawkins. The blond software consultant recounted how her husband took a special break from his Christmas Eve shift to have dinner with his family. After a meal at the Olive Garden restaurant with his mother, grandmother, wife and 9-year-old son, Andrew, he returned to his rounds.

Prosecutor Toby Shook placed before the jury an enlarged photo of Hawkins in his uniform and another of him snuggling his smiling son as his wife described learning of his death. She said she was cleaning her house in anticipation of the next day's festivities when she noticed a crowd of people forming on her front porch. At first, she said, she thought they were carolers, but when she saw the police chief, she knew the news was bad.

"He was dead. I just knew," she said. She began to cry as she related her stepson's reaction to his father's death. "Andrew wanted his dad's T-shirts to sleep in so I gave them to him," she said.

Store employees who followed Hawkins to the stand described how they gradually realized that bumps in their end-of-the-day routine were actually the beginnings of an intricately planned robbery. Four escapees entered the store just before closing time posing as customers.

Store manager Darren Ojeda said he was walking through the store gently pointing dawdling customers toward the register when he encountered a man, later identified as Newbury, filling a basket with purchases. Newbury, he said, was acting "real calm, just like a regular customer on Christmas Eve." He even joked about how much trouble he would get in with his wife for overspending on gifts.

At about the same time, employee Wesley Ferris testified, Rivas and another escapee flagged him down in the front of the store posing as security guards. The men said they were investigating smash-and-grab robberies and had photo arrays they wanted all store employees to view. Ferris accommodated them, assembling the staff of 17 near the front registers.

"At that point, Mr. Rivas said, 'Everybody listen up this is a robbery,'" Ferris said. He drew a gun and was quickly backed up by the other phony security guard and customers, who were also armed. Ferris and other employees said Rivas told them that if anyone made a false move, the robbers would shoot them all. Each of the inmates seemed to have a job, Ferris said. They communicated with radios, and one of them seemed to be posted outside the store as a lookout.

After gathering up the store's guns and the cash, the employees were herded into their break room, and some inmates began tying their hands, witnesses said.

Employee Sandra Rodriguez testified that the inmates robbed the co-workers of their wallets and jewelry, and hurled insults while they did it. One inmate called her fat and others remarked that the group only had "cheap jewelry."

But the robbing and tying up of the employees came to a sudden halt when one of the inmates called over the radio for the rest to "hurry, hurry, hurry" and get out.

"We've got company," the witnesses recalled the voice on the radio saying.

The escapees rushed out and seconds later, gunfire erupted. Hawkins, Shook said in his opening statement, was struck 11 times by bullets from five different weapons.

"He walks into an ambush. The gunfire is immediate, it is rapid and it is without mercy," said Shook.