Wichita ? A 77-year-old man faces more than five years in prison for shooting a private eye in the back as he attempted to repossess the aging car dealer’s beloved 1951 Rolls-Royce.

John Harper, who was chastised this week for parking the classic car under the window to the jury room, expressed shock Friday after those jurors convicted him of attempted second-degree murder.

“I don’t think I should have been charged in the first place,” said Harper, who argued he acted in self-defense in the May 2005 shooting of Emery Goad.

The bullet narrowly missed Goad’s heart, leaving him hospitalized in critical condition.

Goad, who has since recovered, was wounded after he and two men went to Harper’s duplex with court papers giving them authorization to take the green Rolls.

The car had been the subject of a decade-old conflict. Goad first seized the Rolls after he was hired in 1996 to collect on a lawsuit. Harper owed $13,000 to an oil well company.

Harper, who got the car back more than a year later, claimed Goad roughed him up and threatened him with a weapon. Goad denied the assertions.

Goad again sought to seize the car after another lawyer involved in a different case contacted him about the Rolls.

After arriving at Harper’s home, Goad handed Harper the court order for the car. Harper said he couldn’t read the paper and needed his glasses. He went back inside his home and returned with a gun.

Goad and one of the men who accompanied him, David Moore, said they heard Harper say, “Emery, I didn’t think it would come to this.”

The men ran after spotting the gun in Harper’s hand.

Steve Mank, Harper’s lawyer, insisted that Harper acted in self-defense. Harper claimed he fired two shots only after he saw Bud Redburn, one of Goad’s associates, reach inside his coat and someone say, “Take him down.”

Redburn testified that he wore a pistol under his coat but never drew it.

“Who brought firepower into the home of John Harper?” Mank said. “Emery Goad.”

Goad, who was hit once, spent 29 days in the hospital.

“It missed my heart by a half-inch,” Goad testified.

Sentencing has been set for April 28.