Topeka ? A Shawnee County jury took a little more than four hours Monday before convicting a woman of first-degree murder and kidnapping in the death this summer of David Owen, a registered sex offender who lobbied for the homeless.

Kimberly Sharp, 27, sobbed at District Judge Thomas Conklin read the verdicts. Sentencing is scheduled for Feb. 2.

Owen’s family showed little emotion after the verdicts were read, and Darrell Owen, the victim’s father, said family members wouldn’t have a statement, noting they still have two more trials to go through.

Sharp’s defense attorney, Wendell Betts, said he would appeal the verdicts.

Owen was a fixture at public meetings in Topeka and had been a registered lobbyist since 2002 for Homeless Come Home, which he formed. Authorities said he sometimes confronted homeless people living along the Kansas River and urged them to contact their families.

He also had been registered as a sex offender since 1999, when he was sentenced to four days in jail and 36 months of probation in Sedgwick County on one count of sexual exploitation of a child.

On July 2, investigators found David Owen’s badly decomposed body in tall grass along the north bank of the Kansas River. Authorities during the trial said they believed he died around June 15.

Prosecutors charged four people, including Sharp, with first-degree murder.

John Ray Cornell, 35, pleaded guilty on Oct. 6 to a lesser charge of reckless involuntary manslaughter and a charge of kidnapping. He will be sentenced Feb. 9.

Carl Baker, 60, will go to trial on Jan. 8; Charles L. Hollingsworth III, 18, will go to trial on Jan. 22.

Deputy District Attorney David Debenham said Sharp could face up to life in prison and be eligible for parole in 20 years.

During the trial, witnesses testified that Sharp didn’t personally help tie up Owen, drag him to the edge of the river and leave him to die in the extreme June heat.

There also was conflicting testimony about when she actually found out Owen died.

But Debenham, in his closing statements, told jurors Sharp knew a crime was being committed and did nothing to stop it, which would make her as responsible as the others.

“When you have a basketball team, every member of the team gets credit for a win,” he said. “This was a team effort.”

Defense attorney Stacey Donovan said Owen would have died that night regardless of whether Sharp had been there.

“She was not a member of any team,” Donovan said.

She also repeated testimony from Cornell, who was with Sharp when Hollingsworth and Baker allegedly tied up Owen and carried him out of sight to the river.

“He said over and over again, ‘We didn’t know,'” Donovan said.