SALT LAKE CITY » A jury has found a Utah doctor guilty of murdering his cancer researcher ex-wife while in a bitter custody dispute with her in 2011.

Jurors delivered the guilty verdict Thursday night in the case of 51-year-old Salt Lake City pediatrician John Brickman Wall. They began deliberating earlier in the day.

Wall faces up to life in prison in the killing of 49-year-old Uta von Schwedler.

Prosecutors say Wall attacked his ex-wife with a knife, dosed her with an anti-anxiety drug and drowned in her bathtub.

His lawyers had maintained that the theory is unbelievable, and it was more likely von Schwedler killed herself.

Her death initially was treated as a suicide. Wall’s arrest came more than a year later, after friends and family pushed for more investigation.