HANFORD -- Jurors convicted Dave Hawk on Friday of killing his ex-wife, with the foreman noting afterward they got "chills" from a secret recording in which Hawk talked hypothetically of dropping her body in a river.

On their third day of deliberations after a two-week trial, a jury of 10 women and two men found Hawk, 51, guilty of first-degree murder in the death of Debbie Hawk and of embezzling more than $300,000 from trust funds set up for the couple's three children.

But the verdict didn't solve the mystery that has transfixed Kings County since Debbie Hawk disappeared from her north Hanford home in June 2006: no sign of the 46-year-old has ever been found.

The murder conviction includes a special finding -- the crime was committed for financial gain -- that will land Hawk in prison for the rest of his life. Prosecutors alleged that Hawk killed his ex-wife to keep her from exposing his misuse of the trust funds set up by his parents for the children.

Prosecutors last fall opted not to seek the death penalty for Hawk, who showed no emotion as the court clerk read the verdicts.

Judge Daniel Creed, a visiting judge from Santa Clara County who presided over the trial in Kings County Superior Court, ordered Hawk back to court for sentencing Dec. 4.

The jury also convicted Hawk on five counts of tax evasion for failing to file tax returns from 2001 to 2005 and one count of perjury for falsely stating under oath that he had filed a tax return. Hawk pleaded no contest earlier this month to a charge of loan fraud.

Hawk's attorneys agreed that Hawk mixed money from the trust funds with a household bank account but denied that he killed his ex-wife. No physical evidence tied Hawk to her disappearance and murder, his attorneys said.

But jurors said other evidence outweighed the absence of a body.

Jury foreman Kenny Knutson, 33, of Lemoore, said that when a neighbor testified about hearing screams the night Debbie Hawk disappeared, Dave Hawk's reaction seemed to be as if he "was almost remembering, yeah, that's exactly how it happened."

"That's when I first started to think he was connected to it," Knutson said.

Knutson said jurors spent time in deliberations listening to a conversation between Hawk and a friend, Keith Marshall, who secretly taped the conversation for investigators, including a passage in which Knutson recalled hearing Hawk say that "if he was a bad guy, he'd drop the body in the river."

"For some of the people, that just gave them chills," Knutson said.

In the same conversation, Hawk denied killing his ex-wife.

Juror Dee Reed, 35, of Lemoore was persuaded by other evidence.

"For me, the deciding factor was his youngest daughter stating she saw her father the month before driving by [Debbie Hawk's] house taking pictures," Reed said. "If you've been divorced that long, why would you drive by your ex-wife's house taking pictures?"

Prosecutors never elaborated on why they presented Savannah Hawk's testimony.

The defense team was "tremendously disappointed" by the verdict, said Mark Coleman, one of Hawk's attorneys.

Coleman said Creed should have granted a defense motion to move the trial out of Kings County because of the intense publicity the case had attracted in the Valley. Once Creed denied the motion, Coleman said, the defense knew the trial would be hard to win.

He said the defense plans to file a motion for a new trial.

Deputy District Attorney Larry Crouch, who prosecuted the case, alluded to a civil case that Debbie Hawk brought against her ex-husband -- but did not live to see concluded -- over Hawk's theft from the trust funds. "Today is the day Debbie Hawk finally got her hearing," Crouch said. "I'm happy about that."