Attorney General Chris Koster’s office reports a Benton County jury has found 26-year-old John Michael Loomis guilty of first degree murder and armed criminal action in the 2007 stabbing death of 19-year-old Christopher Cornell of Bolivar.

Witnesses testified that Loomis pepper sprayed Cornell and then hit him with a bottle over a drug debt dispute. Later that night, the defendant and his fiancée cleaned up the victim’s blood and put his body in his pick-up truck.

Cornell’s body was found in the bed of the truck at a Bolivar apartment complex two days later, covered with trash and furniture. Cornell had eleven deep lacerations to his head, had been shot numerous times in the head with a pellet gun, and his throat had been slashed.

Loomis will be sentenced in January — He faces life in prison without parole.