A Shelby County man on Tuesday chronicled in detail how he fatally stabbed and bludgeoned a Vietnam veteran nearly six years ago.

Randall Anthony Gargone, a handyman and four-time convicted felon, said he killed 68-year-old Tracy Ward Austin only after Austin delivered the first blow with a claw hammer and attacked him.

“He had a grip on my arm and out of the corner of my eye, I seen something silver coming at me,’’ Gargone said when he took the stand in his own defense in his capital murder trial.

“It was a hammer,’’ the now-68-year-old Gargone said. “He kept swinging that hammer.”

Austin was killed in his family’s Chelsea home on March 5, 2018.

Shelby County District Attorney Matt Casey, and assistant district attorneys Ben Fuller and Brooke Grigsby, are seeking the death penalty for Gargone if he is convicted.

Prosecutors contend Gargone planned to burglarize the home and unexpectedly encountered the victim.

Gargone’s attorneys, Mickey Johnson and Victor Portella, claim Gargone killed Austin in self-defense.

Gargone’s parole on previous convictions was revoked after Austin’s death and he has been in state prison since then.

Testimony in the case began Thursday after three days of jury selection. The case was investigated by the Shelby County Sheriff’s Office and is being tried before Shelby County Circuit Judge Bill Bostick.

Gargone was the only defense witness, and jurors are expected to soon begin deliberations.

The brutal crime happened that Monday in the 5800 block of Shelby County Highway 39.

Gargone said it was October or November of 2017 when he saw the victim’s elderly mother struggling to take her garbage can to the street. He said he was on his way home from McDonald’s and stopped to help her.

He then asked her if she needed any work done around her home. She asked for his help fixing an ATV that she used to drive her garbage to the street.

Gargone said he wasn’t able to determine what was wrong with the ATV but asked if there was anything else he could do to make some money, and she asked him to install a storm door.

Austin’s mother had Gargone fix a broken kitchen door, but the family was not pleased with Gargone’s work. He said it was missing a part and would not open from the outside.

He said he encountered the victim’s brother that day in the home.

“He throwed his hands up and said, ‘Man, you messed that door up,’’’ Gargone said.

Gargone said he returned to the home a couple more times in the following months looking for work, but to no avail.

On March 5, he said he again returned to the home and knocked on the door. He said a man – later determined to be Austin – said, “Up here. I’m up here.’’

Gargone said he then went upstairs to Austin’s bedroom. Austin, who prosecutors said had numerous health issues, was sitting in his recliner.

“When I first go in there, something came over me,’’ Gargone testified. “I didn’t feel right because I seen several guns laying around.”

Gargone said he kneeled down beside the victim so as not to appear disrespectful standing over him and put his left hand on Austin’s leg. He said he started to introduce himself when Austin grabbed his left wrist.

That’s when he said Austin hit him with the claw hammer.

Gargone said Austin moved toward the edge of a chair like he was going to stand up, and a knife dropped from Austin’s lap to the floor. He said he pushed Austin back into the chair.

“I grabbed that knife and came back up and started stabbing him,’’ Gargone testified.

Gargone said he had hammer wounds to his own head, as well as injuries to both arms.

“I didn’t know where I was stabbing,’’ he testified. “It was like the stabbing wasn’t doing no good.”

“After all the times I’d done the stabbing and nothing was happening, I cut him across the neck and that didn’t do no good,’’ he said.

Gargone said Austin’s arm began to relax and he dropped the hammer. Gargone picked it up and hit Austin.

Austin’s autopsy showed he was stabbed more than 12 times and bludgeoned in the head. He had multiple stab wounds to the chest and abdomen area, as well as in his eye.

“When I felt I could get out of there, I got up and started out the door,’’ he said.

Gargone testified he left the hammer there and threw the knife in some pine trees before he drove away.

He said the entire ordeal lasted about 30 to 45 seconds, and that Austin appeared to still be breathing when Gargone left.

“He was moving,’’ he said. “I don’t know when he died.”

He said he did not take any weapons into Austin’s home.

After he left, Gargone went to the home he shared with his son and said he cleaned up his own wounds.

“I had to sit down because I was really disturbed at what happened,’’ he said. He said he then “got himself together and drank a glass of tea, and then went to the store to buy some Skoal tobacco.

He was later seen washing his car at Mr. Car Wash in Inverness, to which he admitted.

Gargone – who was on parole for two life sentences for robbery – said he went to see his parole officer the following day for a scheduled meeting and then spent the next couple of days visiting his brother and two sisters, one of whom lived in Georgia.

He said he did so because, “I knew I was going back to prison.”

He told his family members, and later investigators, that his injuries were from cutting down trees.

He was arrested three days later when he returned home from Georgia.

During cross examination, Fuller asked Gargone about a Google search on his computer about how long it takes DNA evidence to come back. Gargone said that search was in relation to a Forensic Files episode he was watching, not Austin’s killing.

“I didn’t think it was bad to Google that,’’ Gargone said. “I used to Google all the time because I watched that show all the time.”

Prosecutors also showed a text message conversation which Gargone said was between him and his son. That conversation included Gargone saying he “had a plan” and that they would have to worry about bills for a while.