A wealthy dentist accused of fatally shooting his wife in the heart with a shotgun at the end of an African safari was found guilty of murder and mail fraud on Monday. A jury of six men and six women reached the verdict for Lawrence “Larry” Rudolph after a three-week trial and a day and a half of deliberations. Rudolph, 67, was charged with murder of a foreigner in the 2016 death of Bianca Rudolph in Zambia, as well as mail fraud to cash in $4.8 million in life insurance claims, which prosecutors describe as a premeditated crime. Some of the money was paid by Colorado, so he was tried in federal court in Denver. He faces a maximum sentence of life in prison or the death penalty when he is sentenced in February. Rudolph maintained his innocence and the two grown children he had with his wife sat in court to support him during the trial. One of Rudolph’s defense attorneys, David Marcus, said they will appeal his conviction. “We believe in Larry. We believe in his family,” she said outside court. The defense suggested Rudolph’s 34-year-old wife, a nervous traveler, shot herself while trying to hastily pack a shotgun as they prepared to return from Zambia to the United States in 2016. But prosecutors countered that the evidence showed that was impossible because the wound to her heart came from a gunshot from a distance of 2 to 3.5 feet (60 centimeters to 1 meter). The couple’s longtime hunting guide, Mark Swanepoel, told investigators Rudolph had unloaded the shotgun the day before the fatal shooting, but Rudolph testified he couldn’t remember whether he had it or not. When he returned home to Phoenix days later, Rudolph said he put the shotgun in his garage not wanting to look at it. Then sometime in 2018, as he prepared to sell his house and before he knew the FBI was investigating his wife’s death, he said he took the gun apart, put it in two cardboard boxes and paid a man to transport it. along with other garbage. Prosecutors also charged Rudolph’s girlfriend and the manager of his Pittsburgh-area dental franchise, Lori Milliron, with lying to a federal grand jury and being an accessory. She was found guilty by the same jury on Monday of being an accessory after the fact to murder, obstructing a grand jury and two counts of perjury before a grand jury. He was found not guilty of three other counts of perjury. Rudolph waved to Milliron as he was led out of court and back to jail after not having any interaction with her in the courtroom in the past few days. Milliron will remain free with an ankle monitor until she is sentenced. Prosecutors alleged that Rudolph decided to kill his wife to regain control of his life after Bianca Rudolph demanded more say in the couple’s finances and demanded that Milliron be fired. Rudolph said his wife agreed to an open marriage, and the defense argued there was no financial motive for Rudolph, who was worth about $15 million at the time, to kill his wife. Investigators in Zambia and for insurers concluded her death was an accident. Prosecutors noted that Rudolph hung up on an insurance investigator who tried to speak with him and refused to participate in a voluntary interview with an FBI agent. Colorado District Attorney Cole Fingan thanked the FBI for traveling around the world to gather evidence and interview witnesses in the case and said he hopes the verdict brings some peace to Bianca Rudolph’s family. “Bianca Rudolph deserved justice,” he said.