Arkansas jury finds ex-Douglas County man guilty of murder

By AP

CONWAY, Ark. — A jury in Faulkner County has found a doctor guilty of killing two men at a Conway home in 2002.

The panel deliberated about an hour on Friday before convicting Richard Conte, 63, of two counts of capital murder. Conte was accused in the shooting deaths of 49-year-old Carter Elliott and 25-year-old Timothy Wayne Robertson.

Little Rock television station KTHV reports prosecutor Cody Hiland did not seek the death penalty. That leaves the only sentencing option of life in prison without parole.

Prosecutors charged Conte in 2011 as he was being released from prison in Nevada, where he was serving time for kidnapping his ex-wife, Lark Gathright-Elliott — who was once married to Carter Elliott.

Prosecutors used a fast food receipt to tie Conte to the scene.

Both Conte and Elliott had been married to Lark Gathright-Elliott. Conte’s marriage to her in 2001 lasted three months.

A month after the pair were slain in Arkansas, Conte kidnapped Gathright-Elliott from Utah and took her to his Clear Creek Canyon subdivision home in Douglas County. A contract physician with Carson-Tahoe Hospital, he drugged her. Sheriff’s deputies rescued her.