VIDALIA, La. – Dennis Anderson and wife Linda told a Vidalia jury Tuesday that when three men robbed their store at gunpoint in early April, they were sure their lives were over.

&uot;One of them put a gun to my head and said ‘I’m going to kill you,’&uot; said Dennis Anderson, manager of Ferriday’s Ezy Pay Furniture, which was robbed April 4.

&uot;I didn’t know if they were going to take me and shoot me, but that’s what was going through my mind.&uot;

At first glance, the machine guns the robbers wielded looked like toys, Linda Anderson said. &uot;We thought it was a joke at first, (but soon) we really thought they were going to kill us,&uot; she said.

Their testimony began the second day of the trial of three men accused of the armed robbery of Ezy Pay as well as the April 3 armed robbery of Pizza Hut in Vidalia. The trial is taking place this week in Seventh Judicial District Court before Judge Leo Boothe.

Twins Tyrone Banks and Tony Banks, 22, of 637 Edward Drive in Memphis,Tenn., each face six counts of armed robbery. Antonio Hawkins, 21, of 500 Sycamore St. in Vidalia, faces four counts of armed robbery.

A fourth defendant, Stanton Easley, 41, of 2406 25th St. in Nashville, pleaded guilty Monday and received, including concurrent sentences, 85 years in prison on two counts of armed robbery and one count of possession of a firearm by a convicted felon.

Dennis and Linda Anderson testified a tall man and two shorter men burst into the store that day, hoisting weapons high in the air and yelling for the store’s employees to get down on the floor and cooperate – or they would be killed. They took employees’ wallets, $632 from the cash register and boom boxes from the store’s display as well as a pair of jeans from one of the employees.

Dennis Anderson testified one of the men held a silver pistol to his head before pushing him and the employees into a back room and warning them not to move. In about five minutes, an employee who had been behind the building found the group, and Linda Anderson called 911 and the Concordia Parish Sheriff’s Office.

Still, Dennis Anderson said that since he was lying on the floor during most of the incident – and since the men who burst in where wearing bandannas over the lower halves of their faces – he could not positively the robbers.

Tuesday’s court proceedings included testimony by officers who responded to the robberies. The trial continues this morning.