A man who beat and strangled his girlfriend in the months before blowing off her face with a shotgun was found guilty Thursday of attempted first-degree murder.
Thomas McBride, 50, was led handcuffed from a Denver courtroom after a jury convicted him of the attempted murder and first-degree assault of Martha Clark.
The damage caused by the gun required surgeons to reconstruct Clark’s face with six metal plates, bone from the top of her skull and skin from her thigh, Dr. Michael Lepore testified during the trial. If the plates were taken out of her face, Lepore said, her face would collapse.
McBride, who had been out on bail, faces up to 48 years in prison when he is sentenced in October.
Prosecutors David Lamb and Matthew Wenig praised Clark for her courage in coming to court and testifying calmly for hours. She told the jury that she had known McBride for years as a friend. During that time, she said, he was kind and caring. But when she moved in with him in May or June 2004, he became an abusive bully who hit, slugged and strangled her, she said.
He shot her on Christmas Eve 2005.
“We are extremely proud of Martha Clark and her family,” Lamb said. “Our thoughts and prayers are with her and her family as she recovers from this horrible, violent crime.”
Clark testified that behind the physical abuse was McBride’s constant warning that she had left him once but would never leave him again. If she did, he warned, he had one bullet for her and one for himself.
Clark, who chose not to speak after the verdict, said she was puzzled by the threat because she had never left McBride previously.
McBride’s attorney, Jason Cuerdon, claimed that the shotgun discharged accidentally and that McBride did everything he could to save Clark’s life after Clark was shot. McBride was the person who called 911.
Staff writer Howard Pankratz can be reached at 303-820-1939 or hpankratz@denverpost.com.
