DAYTON, Ohio - A former State Highway Patrol trooper was found guilty on Wednesday of shooting and critically wounding his sleeping wife and then trying to cover it up.

        After a week of testimony and three days of deliberations, the Montgomery County Common Pleas Court jury convicted Luther McCormick, 37, of felonious assault and tampering with evidence.

        As the verdict was read, Mr. McCormick glanced back at family members and then put his head down. His wife, Tara, who testified in his defense and called the shooting an accident, broke down in tears as he was led away in handcuffs after Judge Dennis Langer revoked his bond and ordered him taken into custody.

        Mr. McCormick, who did not testify, faces up to 16 years in prison. Sentencing was set for Aug. 12.

        Mrs. McCormick, 39, was shot in the face as she slept on the family room couch in the couple's suburban Miamisburg apartment in the early morning of July 24, 2001. The bullet entered her lip and left her neck.

        Her husband, a nine-year patrol veteran, was found later at the patrol's Xenia post, about 20 miles away.

        The patrol fired him for dishonesty after its administrative investigation of the shooting.

        During the trial, defense attorney Jon Paul Rion said Mr. McCormick's gun accidentally discharged as he was trying to unload it and that he panicked and fled the apartment because he thought he had killed his wife.

        David Franceschelli, assistant Montgomery County prosecutor, said the jury obviously didn't accept McCormick's account that the shooting was an accident.

        “There's no question this defendant point-blank shot his wife in the face, and that's the conclusion the jury came to,” Mr. Franceschelli said.

        He said he doesn't know why McCormick's wife believes it was an accident.

        “Maybe he shared the same version and tried to sell her the same story that they tried to sell this jury,” he said.

        During the trial, Mr. Franceschelli didn't discuss a possible motive for the shooting.

        “We can't always explain why people do things,” he said.

        Prosecutors said the bullet was not one issued by the patrol and that Mr. McCormick wiped the gun off to try to make it look like he hadn't fired it.

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