Baltimore County jurors needed less than an hour yesterday to convict a married Parkville man of killing a pregnant woman and the pair's unborn baby on a shopping center parking lot in June - the first time Maryland's fetal homicide law has been used to charge someone in the death of an unborn child.

David L. Miller, 25, hung his head as guilty verdicts were read yesterday afternoon.

Across the courtroom, friends and family members of Elizabeth Walters wiped away tears and quietly hugged one another.

The victim's father, Don Walters, reached back and squeezed the hand of one of his daughter's closest friends - a woman who had moved with Liz Walters into a larger apartment in Baltimore so that the baby would have her own room.

Miller was convicted of first-degree murder for killing the pregnant woman but also attempted first-degree murder for shooting her best friend.

That woman, Heather Lowe, drove Walters to the defendant's Parkville home June 11 so that the pregnant woman could try to speak to him about the baby.

"There's no place in this society for someone who does something like this - no place - to two innocent women and a baby," Don Walters of Rosedale said outside the courthouse yesterday afternoon.

Prosecutors will ask Baltimore County Circuit Judge Dana M. Levitz to sentence Miller to life in prison without the possibility of parole at a hearing in July.

Defense attorney Alvin Alston said he will ask for something less.

A state medical examiner and Walters' obstetrician testified that she was about 32 weeks along in her pregnancy. A full-term pregnancy lasts 40 weeks.

Baltimore County State's Attorney Scott D. Shellenberger, who prosecuted the case, said it offered a perfect opportunity to use the state's 2 1/2 -year-old fetal homicide law.

"Liz was so far along in her pregnancy and, equally important, the defendant knew she was pregnant," he said in an interview after the case wrapped up. "Frankly, the motive for the murder was the pregnancy."

Several other states have laws similar to the one enacted in Maryland in October 2005.

In perhaps the most famous use of such a law, California prosecutors charged Scott Peterson in the 2002 deaths of his wife, Laci, and their unborn son in Modesto, Calif., one month before she was due to give birth.

Laci Peterson's mother, Sharon Rocha, submitted written testimony to the Maryland Senate committee as it was considering a bill similar to the federal law passed in the name of Laci Peterson and the unborn boy she had planned to name Conner.

Scott Peterson was sentenced to death for the murders. Under Maryland's fetal homicide statute, the death of an unborn child cannot be considered an aggravating factor that makes a murder case eligible for the death penalty.

Shellenberger said the question of abortion rights, which was raised when the law was considered by Maryland legislators, was not a factor in his decision to file charges against Miller.

"The statute specifically creates exceptions for medical procedures. We were only looking at the criminal murder of a viable fetus," he said. "I view those things as completely separate."

The verdicts - announced shortly after 1 p.m. in Baltimore County Circuit Court - capped a trial so emotionally wrenching at times that the lead homicide detective in the case broke down on the witness stand.

He had been trying to describe Lowe's condition when he first saw her at Maryland Shock Trauma Center.

Three of Walters' closest friends tearfully testified about her death and the plans they had all made for a baby girl that was to be named Olivia.

Lowe, who attended Catholic High School with Walters and had been her best friend since then, offered a vivid account of driving the woman she called "Lizzie" to see Miller and sitting by helplessly as he first shot Walters and then fired two bullets into her face.

Prosecutor Allan J. Webster introduced as evidence a photograph that was taken of the fetus after a medical examiner removed it from Walters' abdomen during an autopsy.

Webster did not ask the jury to look at the picture Monday when it was admitted as evidence. But he asked the panel members to do so yesterday - "as hard as it may be," he added.

"That picture speaks volumes," Webster said in his closing argument. "That baby has hair. Ten fingers, 10 toes. It's a baby girl."

Walters, 24, a waitress at the Charles Village Pub in Baltimore, grew up in a household full of children.

Her parents had both adoptive and birth children and served as foster parents to more than 40 children.

When she found out in late 2006 that she was pregnant, she decided to give birth with or without the support of the child's father. But as she neared her Aug. 16 due date, she became increasingly agitated over what role Miller would play, prosecutors said.

For three days in a row, Walters' girlfriends testified, they took turns driving her to the home Miller shared with his wife. Her countless phone calls to him went unanswered, her repeated voice mail messages unreturned.

"David Miller knew ... that these girls weren't going to leave him alone," Webster said in his closing argument. " ... The calls kept coming. And instead of just clearing it up, he decided to end it."

On June 11, Miller told Walters to meet him at a nearby shopping center. There, he climbed into the back seat of Lowe's car.

"I thought you got rid of it," Lowe quoted Miller as telling the mother of his unborn child. "You are not going to ruin my life."

Miller pressed a gun to Walters' left cheek and pulled the trigger, Lowe testified, then turned the gun on her and fired twice - including once after he saw her reach for her cell phone.

In addition, testimony by Miller's cousin and a friend also tied him to the shootings. A gun that the cousin said Miller gave him after the shootings was tested and determined to have fired the bullets that struck the women.

Defense attorneys for Miller, who worked as a car salesman for six months before the shootings, offered little evidence of their own and asked only a handful of questions of the prosecution's 17 witnesses.

"We were up against a tremendous amount of evidence," Alston said. "We put up the best fight we could. There were no surprises with the verdicts."

Walters' friends and family said Miller deserves the maximum sentence - but that no punishment for him could change what happened.

"These past nine months, we were supposed to be celebrating a new life," said Elizabeth's mother, Vivian Walters. "But now she's not with us nor is her mother with us."

jennifer.mcmenamin@baltsun.com