After four years and two murder trials, homeowner Ray Lemes was acquitted by a jury Monday night of criminal wrongdoing for gunning down a college student on the asphalt of his cul-de-sac.

Lemes, 52, solemnly shook hands with his attorneys immediately after the eight-man, four-woman jury’s verdict was read and then briskly left the Cadena-Reeves Justice Center with his wife and a small crowd of supporters.

“It’s been a long road for both families. This should have been resolved a long time ago,” he said, stating that the district attorney’s office is a “disgrace” before walking away. “They would better serve us by opening up a clown academy.”

The parents of Angelo State University student Tracy Glass, who was 19 when he was shot five times in the early morning of Aug. 4, 2007, declined to comment as they left the courthouse an hour later.

The verdict, which took 7½ hours to reach, came after a morning in which attorneys suggested starkly different theories about what transpired that night.

According to Lemes’ attorneys, he was a terrified homeowner intent on keeping his wife from getting raped after chasing an aggressive intruder out of his house in the middle of the night.

But prosecutors described him as someone who was more enraged than scared — intent on using his laser-sighted pistol to deal with Glass, who was drunk and making noise in the street.

“We’re proud of our guns (in Texas). We don’t want anybody to take our guns away,” Assistant District Attorney Jason Garrahan said during closing arguments. “That’s not what this case is about. ... It’s about being responsible when you ... decide to use a gun against another human being.”

Brothers Joe James and Michael Sawyer, attorneys who represented Lemes, suggested that Glass had targeted their client’s household after looking over the fence of his sister’s adjoining house the day before and seeing Lemes’ wife, Katherine Lemes, doing yardwork alone.

“What are you doing out there at that hour (2 a.m.) of the morning? Selling Avon?” Michael Sawyer asked. “No. You’re up there because you’re up to no good.”

Lemes was “just unlucky” that he didn’t have an opportunity to shoot Glass in his home, because if that was the case there would be no trial, Joe James Sawyer suggested.

“I do want laser sight. I do want to be able to blow you to pieces,” he said. “Because you’re not allowed to hurt me. You’re not allowed to hurt my family.”

But Glass, whom prosecutors described as a “country boy” dropped off in San Antonio by his mother the day before, did not appear to have entered Lemes’ house, Assistant District Attorney David Lunan said.

There was nothing disturbed in the home and no sign of forced entry, and the Lemes’ “very heightened sense of security” makes it seem impossible that the door was left unlocked, Lunan said. It is possible that Glass, who had a blood-alcohol level of 0.10, which is above the state’s legal limit of .08, rattled the door handle thinking that it was his sister’s, Lunan said.

Lemes testified that he was standing in his driveway when Glass jumped out from behind a brush pile, charged him and got within eight feet before he was shot. But Glass’ body was found more than 40 feet from the driveway, and all the bullet casings, which generally eject backwards, were found in the street, Lunan said.

And of Glass’ five wounds, the only path of a bullet that indicated it hit Glass when he was upright entered his back, Lunan said.

“I feel as strongly as Mr. Sawyer about the principles of self-defense,” he added. “But if I shot someone in self-defense, I’d tell the truth. This was an unjustified shooting, and this man should be convicted and held responsible for it.”