A jury has convicted a Kern County man of killing and attempting to rape his 14-year-old niece.
Forty-three-year-old Phillip Ellison of California City was convicted of first-degree murder and attempted rape Thursday.
Prosecutors say he faces a minimum prison sentence of 25 years to life.
Ellison's niece Jamesha Terry went missing March 19, 2007, and neighborhood children found her badly decomposed body in a field near her uncle's apartment complex two weeks later. Police say forensic evidence linked him to the crime and led to his arrest in California City, a town of about 12,000 people about 70 miles southeast of Bakersfield.
Ellison's defense attorney argued the evidence was "speculation and conjecture."
Information from: The Bakersfield Californian,
The Associated Press