SKOWHEGAN (AP) – A Canaan man who waived a jury trial in the slaying of his 37-year-old girlfriend two years ago was found guilty of murder Wednesday by a judge.

Shannon Atwood, 38, faces a minimum of 25 years in prison and a maximum of life for the beating death of Cheryl Murdoch.

A charge that Atwood also murdered his estranged wife, Shirley Moon Atwood, had been dropped by prosecutors last year, but relatives of both Moon Atwood and Murdoch were present during the trial. They expressed relief when Justice Nancy Mills announced her verdict in Somerset County Superior Court.

“We can all rest a little easier now knowing that Shannon will not be able to hurt or murder another woman,” Murdoch’s mother, Lucille Hoxie, told reporters afterwards.

Moon Atwood’s sister, Candy Daniels, said she is convinced that Atwood murdered his wife. She expressed hope that he will someday reveal the location of her body so she can be given a proper burial.

In explaining her verdict, Mills spent nearly a half hour detailing the evidence and testimony presented by both sides.

Murdoch’s decomposed body was found in a wooded area in Canaan in August 2006, about a month and a half after her family reported that she was missing. Witnesses testified that she and Atwood had planned to drive to Arizona to pick up her daughter and return to Maine.

Assistant Attorney General Andrew Benson said the evidence against Atwood was compelling and overwhelming, but defense counsel John Alsop argued that it was all circumstantial and did not directly link Atwood to Murdoch’s death.

Alsop raised an alternative suspect theory, suggesting that Moon Atwood had murdered Murdoch out of jealousy and then disappeared to leave Atwood to take the blame.

Atwood was returned to the Somerset County Jail, where he is being held without bail pending a pre-sentence evaluation. He is expected to be sentenced in two to three months.

Prosecutors said they plan to consider whether to renew the charge that Atwood murdered his wife. The state had sought to try both cases together, but dropped the Moon Atwood case after Mills denied that motion and set a trial schedule in which the Moon Atwood case would be first.

“Obviously, we didn’t want to try that case first,” said Deputy Attorney General Bill Stokes. “That was a deliberate decision on our part. We didn’t want to try it without a body.”

AP-ES-07-02-08 1311EDT

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