Circuit Judge J. Hasbrouck will issue the final ruling on his sentence at a hearing in December, though Elledge cannot be given more than 28 years per the jury’s recommendation.

Mengqi Ji married Elledge after moving from China to the U.S. to attend the University of Missouri. He reported Ji missing in October 2019, and her remains were ultimately discovered in a park near Columbia, Missouri, in March after months of extensive searching.

Elledge admitted during the trial that he had buried Ji’s body and misguided authorities for more than a year about the status of his wife, AP reported. The jury deliberated for seven hours before delivering the guilty verdict. Hours later, they issued their recommendation that he face 28 years in prison for the crime.

Despite his second-degree murder conviction, Elledge was acquitted of a first-degree murder charge. The jury said that they would only contemplate the charges of second-degree murder, voluntary manslaughter and first-degree or second-degree involuntary manslaughter in his case, according to AP.

For more reporting from the Associated Press, see below.

First-degree murder requires the state to prove that Elledge killed Ji intentionally after deliberating about it, and Elledge’s intent was central to arguments throughout the trial.

Boone County Prosecuting Attorney Dan Knight had asked for life in prison, while Elledge’s attorney, Scott Rosenblum, asked for 10 years, KMIZ-TV reported.

The jury heard evidence from both sides before returning the recommended sentence, television stations KMIZ and KOMU reported.

An attorney for Ji’s family told the Columbia Daily Tribune before the trial started that they didn’t plan to provide a statement, but said on Wednesday they’re pleased with Knight’s efforts.

During closing arguments on Thursday, Knight told the jury that Elledge was a “stone cold killer” who was guilty of first-degree murder because he intentionally killed his wife.

Rosenblum argued that his client was awkward and made “unbelievably dumb” decisions after she died. But he said Elledge never intended to kill his wife and should never have been charged with murder.

During his trial, Elledge said Ji’s death was accidental. He said she fell and hit her head on Oct. 8, 2019, after he pushed her during an argument and he found her dead in bed the next morning. He said he panicked, put her body in the trunk of her car and did not report what happened while he tried to decide what to do.

He did not tell anyone, including Ji’s mother, about her disappearance.

On Oct. 10, with the couple’s young daughter in the car, Elledge drove to Rock Bridge State Park about 5 miles (8 kilometers) south of Columbia, where they lived. There, he dug a grave and buried Ji at a site a half-mile from where he proposed to her. He then returned home and reported her missing.

Prosecutors used social media posts, audio tapes and a journal Elledge kept to document the couple’s volatile relationship. The evidence showed them frequently yelling at each other and arguing, with Elledge often criticizing his wife for her appearance and for how she treated him.

Elledge said that in the days before her death, he discovered Ji had been exchanging sexually suggestive messages with a man from China via social media. He also testified that the couple’s relationship suffered because of tension caused by her parents who moved from China to live with them after their daughter was born on Oct. 3, 2018.

The couple met in 2015 at Nanova, a company that makes dental products, where Ji was Elledge’s supervisor. They began dating the following year and eventually traveled to China, where he asked Ji’s parents for permission to marry her. The couple married in 2017.

Ji earned a master’s degree in mechanical and aerospace engineering from the University of Missouri in December 2014. Elledge was a student at the university when his wife died.