Lyndon ? A prosecutor has filed notice that a former Columbia, Mo., city official could face the death penalty if he’s convicted of killing his estranged wife, two daughters and wife’s grandmother in Kansas.

James Kraig Kahler, former director of the Water and Light Department in Columbia, is accused of killing his family members during Thanksgiving weekend 2009.

Kahler, 48, was ordered in December to stand trial on four counts of capital murder after his 11-year-old son described at a preliminary hearing how his dad killed his mother with a deer rifle on Nov. 28, 2009.

Kahler was arraigned Monday in Osage County District Court in Lyndon, Kan. During that arraignment, Assistant Attorney General Amy Hanley filed the state’s notice of intent requesting a separate sentencing of Kahler if he is found guilty in the deaths.

The Topeka Capital-Journal reported Monday that the formality gives prosecutors the right to pursue the death penalty if Kahler is convicted. Kansas law requires the notice to be filed within five days of arraignment or Kahler automatically would have been sentenced to life without parole if convicted of capital murder.

Prosecutors said two aggravating factors make Kahler eligible for execution: the victims were killed in an especially heinous, atrocious or cruel manner, and Kahler knowingly killed or created a great risk of death to more than one person.

Kahler — who goes by his middle name of Kraig — is accused of killing his wife, Karen Kahler, 44, daughters Lauren, 16, and Emily, 18, and 89-year-old Dorothy Wight, Karen Kahler’s grandmother.

Karen Kahler filed for divorce in March 2009 after an altercation for which Kraig Kahler was charged with assault. His lawyer, Tom Haney, told the Columbia Daily Tribune in December that Karen Kahler had carried on a romantic relationship with a woman in Texas after she and her husband moved from that state to Columbia in July 2008.

Haney said Kahler’s work at the Columbia water department began to suffer because of marital problems, and the city’s manager asked him to resign in September 2009.

Haney said Kahler eventually reached his tipping point.

His trial is scheduled to begin Aug. 8 and is expected to last two weeks.