Wichita ? A 42-year-old Wichita truck driver faces a possible death sentence after a Sedgwick County jury convicted him Monday of killing a housekeeper whose decapitated body was found two years ago in an apartment where she worked.

Douglas Belt was convicted of capital murder, attempted rape and arson for the 2002 slaying of Lucille Gallegos, 43. Investigators have said the killing — in which Gallegos was beheaded — was one of most gruesome crimes in the city’s history.

After a two-week trial, the jury took about five hours to reach its verdict.

Belt buried his face in his hands Monday when the verdicts were read.

The penalty phase of his trial is to begin this morning, when jurors will hear testimony on aggravating and mitigating circumstances in the case. Belt faces a minimum “hard 50” sentence, or 50 years in prison without parole, if the jury decides not to sentence him to death.

Prosecutors have said Belt had a pattern of violent behavior that began in the late 1980s and ended with the death of Gallegos.

Last year, the Kansas Bureau of Investigation admitted an error involving a blood sample taken after a 1991 rape. The mistake was discovered after Belt’s arrest in 2002 for Gallegos’ death when a DNA sample matched the blood evidence from the 1991 case, as well as several other rape cases.

The error at the KBI lab in Great Bend — acknowledged in June 2003 — prompted KBI Director Larry Welch to make a public apology earlier this year.

“The bottom line was, and is, that our mistake in 1991 may have contributed to a situation which permitted a prime suspect to remain free and to continue criminal activity,” Welch said in April.

Belt faces seven counts of rape in four Kansas counties and three counts of aggravated criminal sexual assault in Illinois. He could still stand trial on those charges.