James Ray Walker Faces death penalty in stabbing death of Christine Anziano Myrdus Archie, 54, listens as she is pronounced guilty Wednesday in Clark County District Court. Photo by Isaac Brekken/Review-Journal

James Ray Walker groaned slightly Wednesday as a court clerk announced that a jury had convicted him of first-degree murder.

Walker, 50, now faces the death penalty for stabbing 33-year-old Christine Anziano to death in August 2003 outside a Sav-On on Bonanza Road near Lamb Boulevard.

A surveillance video from the drugstore, which prosecutors showed jurors several times, depicts a man of Walker's size stabbing her five times, stealing her purse and running away.

Authorities said the attack was one of two by Walker over a two-day period.

The jury also convicted Walker's accomplice, 54-year-old Myrdus Archie, of second-degree murder.

Walker and Archie also were convicted of conspiracy to commit robbery, burglary, two counts of robbery with use of a deadly weapon each and attempted murder.

Charles Cole told the jury how the pair had offered him and his girlfriend a ride home from a Food 4 Less near Pecos and Bonanza roads.

When they got to his girlfriend's trailer, Walker slit Cole's throat and stabbed him in the back, Cole testified.

Archie -- whose lawyer had said that she had driven away from the attack on Cole, leaving Walker there -- laid her head down on her arms as the jury's multiple guilty verdicts were read.

The maximum sentence possible for a conviction of second-degree murder with use of a deadly weapon is 20 years to life in prison. But because Archie has multiple convictions and arrests dating to 1967, prosecutors Chris Owens and Bill Kephart hope to have her sentenced as a habitual criminal to add more time.

"If she's adjudicated as a habitual criminal, she could still get life without (the possibility of parole)," Owens said.

Owens and Kephart said they could not comment on the verdicts until after the penalty phase of the trial, which starts for Walker this morning in District Judge Valerie Adair's courtroom.

Archie's lawyer, Chris Oram, said he hoped prosecutors would not pursue a lengthy sentence for her, given her age.

Oram maintained throughout the trial that Archie did not see and had no knowledge of any of the crimes for which she was accused.

Walker attorney Alzora Jackson told the jury that witnesses had conflicting descriptions of the suspect in both stabbings. She said media reports that came out after Walker and Archie were arrested on Aug. 24, 2003, influenced witness' statements and identifications of the suspects.

When one of prosecutor's witnesses to the slaying, Eloise Kline, took the stand two weeks ago and said she could not recall what she saw the night Anziano died, a frustrated Jackson unsuccessfully tried to get her to remember.

"The state of Nevada is trying to kill my client," Jackson said.

In 2003, Kline identified Walker in a photo lineup and in a preliminary hearing as the man she saw casing the drugstore and later running toward a car with a woman in it similar to Archie's description.

But when Kline testified about two weeks ago, she said she did not recognize them.

Jackson said in her closing argument that Kline, who was at the drugstore to buy beer at 3:30 a.m., had a drug and alcohol problem and was an unreliable witness.

Jackson declined to comment about the verdict Wednesday because of the upcoming penalty hearing.

In a motion filed in 2005 in District Court to dismiss the notice of intent to seek the death penalty, she argued that the state's law is unconstitutional because it permits the imposition of the death penalty for nearly all first-degree murders.

Walker's criminal history, which includes serving 22 years in prison for attempted murder, was cited as an aggravating circumstance in prosecutors' court filings to seek the death penalty.