A Marine who admitted killing a prostitute in his Waikiki hotel room last year was found guilty Thursday of "murder while engaging in an inherently dangerous act," a crime punishable by a maximum of life in prison without the possibility of parole, the Marine Corps said.

An eight-member military jury deliberated for about 90 minutes at Marine Corps Base Hawaii at Kaneohe Bay before returning the verdict in the May 16 death of Ivanice "Ivy" Harris, who was two days shy of her 29th birthday.

Her parents, Patricia Harris and Marion Greer, traveled from Oregon for the trial. She gasped and wept, and he shook his head at times during closing arguments.

Master Sgt. Nathaniel Cosby, who was in Hawaii on a temporary assignment from Iwakuni, Japan, also was found guilty of obstructing justice and attempting to patronize a prostitute, the Marines said.

The sentencing portion of the court-martial will begin at 8 a.m. Saturday, with the defense calling character witnesses.

Cosby was found not guilty of unpremeditated murder, an official said.

The conviction relates to a chokehold the 39-year-old Marine who weighs 180 pounds and has a martial arts brown belt applied to the 5-foot-3, 130-pound Harris.

The "inherently dangerous act" reference means that "he didn’t care that he might kill her," government prosecutor Maj. Douglas C. Hatch said.

Although Cosby was on trial for two murder charges, he could be found guilty of only one, Hatch said.

The two had a confrontation early on May 16 in Cosby’s Aston Waikiki Beach Hotel room. Harris demanded payment for her time, Cosby told her to get out and she cut Cosby at least twice with a small lipstick knife.

The woman wound up dead on the floor.

He dumped her naked body near a remote part of Yokohama Bay. Hatch said during closing arguments that Cosby almost got away with that murder.

"This is almost the perfect crime," he told the eight-member panel.

The body was discovered May 20 by a boy relieving himself by the side of the road.

If his family hadn’t stopped there that day, evidence might have been erased or lost, Hatch said. That includes security video showing Cosby with Harris in Waikiki the night she disappeared.

"But he got caught," Hatch said.

Cosby initially told Honolulu police he didn’t know what happened to Harris.

"I’m saying that I woke up and she wasn’t in my room," Cosby was recorded telling detectives.

This week, after the government laid out a detailed case connecting security camera images of Cosby, bank transactions and cellphone pings out to the Waianae Coast, the Marine admitted he killed Harris after a night of drinking but said it was self-defense.

Harris, an Oregon native who had been in Honolulu for about a week with another working girl and their boyfriend/pimp, identified as Mark Miles, met with another man at Kelley O’Neil’s pub before linking up with Cosby outside the bar at about 3:30 a.m.

Cosby was seen in surveillance video meeting the woman, and holding hands with her and kissing her again in security video in his hotel elevator the last day she was seen alive.

The Marine, who had been stationed on Oahu before, arrived here May 15 for a Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command mission to China.

The Alabama man was seen toting a multicolored Dakine roller suitcase to his rented white Chevy sport utility vehicle the next morning.

His explanation for the big bag was that he needed it for gear and that he had loaded it up with about 70 pounds of clothing. Cosby later admitted it held Harris’ body.

The morning when Harris was killed, a cellphone tower picked up a signal from Cosby’s recently purchased pay-as-you-go phone sometime after 6 a.m. at a tower located at the farthest residential location on the Waianae Coast, Honolulu police Detective Dru Akagi previously testified.

The self-defense claim surfaced Monday at the start of the trial.

Faced with the trail of evidence, Cosby had to conduct a "cost-benefit analysis" and admit he in fact was in all that incriminating video, Hatch said.

On Wednesday he took the stand and also admitted at least one time tearfully that after Harris produced the knife, he fought with her, put her in a chokehold from behind and killed her.

The Medical Examiner’s Office said the cause of death was injury to the neck.

Cutting off blood and air flow in a chokehold can cause someone to pass out in 10 to 15 seconds, but only briefly, according to reports. Brain damage and death can occur after four to six minutes of constriction.

Cosby said he had his left arm around Harris’ neck. His lawyer, Lt. Col. Clay A. Plummer, said the Marine didn’t intend to kill Harris.

Hatch, however, told the jury, "She goes limp. Still he squeezes."

If Cosby had let go at 30 seconds, it "would be a very different case," but the Marine went far beyond that, Hatch maintained.

Plummer said it’s not actually known what took place or "how long he held onto her."

The case is a "tragedy," the lawyer said, adding, "It’s about reactions."

"If she didn’t cut him with the knife, he wouldn’t have reacted the way he did," he said.

Plummer said Harris cut Cosby on his arm and face next to his eye but that the blade could have caught his jugular vein and Cosby could have bled out on the floor.

Cosby said he didn’t want to have to explain to family and friends how a prostitute ended up dead in his room, so he dumped her body and brought bleach and other cleansers to the hotel room.

Hatch advised the jury not to believe Cosby’s "crocodile tears" on the witness stand.

"Folks," he told the jury, "he almost got away with murder. Don’t let that happen again."