(credit: Blue Earth County Sheriff’s Office)
MANKATO, Minn. (AP) — A jury has convicted a Burnsville man of fatally shooting his ex-wife in front of their three children.
The Blue Earth County jury deliberated about 3-and-a-half hours Thursday before finding 35-year-old Joel Munt guilty of first-degree murder and 16 other counts.
Munt sat motionless and didn’t react to the verdicts.
Munt was accused of shooting his ex-wife Svetlana Munt in a Mankato park last year after ramming her car into a tree. The couple’s three young children saw the shooting.
Munt testified Wednesday that he somehow left his body and became a spectator during the shooting.
The Free Press reports the second half of the trial begins Monday, when defense attorneys will try to convince jurors that Munt was mentally ill when he killed his ex-wife.
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