The Associated Press

PRESTONSBURG, Ky. - A Pike County man has been convicted of drowning his wife in a mudhole beside the Mountain Parkway three years ago, even though her body has never been found.

A jury of 12 women deliberated only two hours on Thursday, after a four-day trial, before convicting Marcus Phillips, 36, of Pikeville, of murder.

Phillips' wife, Patricia Phillips, 30, had been missing for 14 months on May 16, 2001, when Marcus Phillips confessed to Hollywood, Fla., police that he had killed her.

Initially, Phillips said he struggled with his wife after pulling about 30 feet off the parkway near Campton in Wolfe County and forced her face down into three inches of water in a tire rut. At the time, Phillips said he knew she was dead when he left and drove off toward Lexington. When he stopped to eat at a truck stop, however, Phillips said he decided to return but could not find her body in the dark.

State and federal investigators also failed to find Patricia Phillips, who was living in Miamisburg, Ohio, with her 3-year-old son and Phillips' 3-month-old daughter. She had accompanied her husband alone to Pikeville.

"Basically, they had an argument about another woman," Assistant Commonwealth's Attorney Wayne Taylor said. "He was married to another woman and never got around to divorcing her."

Later, Phillips changed his story several times, prosecutors said, claiming she might not have been dead when he left her.

When he was indicted on a charge of murder last year by a grand jury in Floyd County - the last place from which she phoned her family in Ohio on May 16, 2000 - Phillips pleaded not guilty.

Defense attorney Carolyn Howard did not tell the jury that she thought Patricia Phillips was still alive, but she did point out there was no body and no blood in her husband's vehicle.

Taylor said guilt drove Marcus Phillips to confess in Florida, but that after he realized "this isn't the best thing for my future," he tried to change his story.