“We’re satisfied with the verdict,” said Assistant Webster County Attorney Bailey Taylor. “Law enforcement worked extremely hard on the investigation and apprehension of Mr. Hurdel. On the flip side of this, a mother, a sister, and a friend, her life was lost too soon, so we hope that this verdict will start to bring them some closure.”

Friends and family of Flint sat together in the gallery of the courtroom through the entire trial and the reading of the verdict.

“I’m exhausted,” said Flint’s daughter, Justice Flint-Bozeman, after the verdict was read. “I feel like this was an unnecessary process that he put all of us through. We’re very thankful for how it has played out, but I’m upset with Justin as a human for putting us through this.”

Flint, who was 38 when she died, was shot by the defendant with a sawed-off shotgun in a garage at 526 S. 19th St. on the afternoon of Aug. 5, 2020. She had been in the garage, which was owned by her friend Robert Baker, to work on her pickup truck, when Hurdel, 44, came and told her he had signed their divorce papers that morning.

-Messenger photo by Kelby Wingert
First Assistant Webster County Attorney Ryan Baldridge points toward defendant Justin Hurdel while giving his closing arguments to the jury on Thursday morning.

After a few moments of arguing, Hurdel left and went to his mother’s house, a few blocks away. Flint and Baker also left to go to an auto parts store to pick up some parts for Flint’s truck.

Hurdel testified during the trial that he was hurt by Flint’s lack of a reaction to hearing he signed the divorce papers and he decided he was going to kill himself in front of her. It was the third time Flint had filed for divorce from the defendant, whom she married on Jan. 1, 2018.

When Hurdel returned to the garage a short while later, Baker and Flint had not yet returned, so he went into the garage and waited. After Baker and Flint returned, Flint and Hurdel talked for a few minutes before Hurdel shot her in the back, witnesses Baker and Gary Spencer would testify.

Hurdel then removed the spent shotgun shell from the firearm and fired again — this time in an attempt to end his own life. The gun reportedly malfunctioned and left Hurdel alive, but with severe soft tissue damage to his face and nose. He then fled, leading local law enforcement on a 17-hour manhunt before he was apprehended on a property just north of Coalville on the morning of Aug. 6, 2020.

Hurdel’s trial was moved after an order for a change of venue in April when the court was unable to select a jury from the Webster County jury pool. The trial was moved to the Boone County Courthouse in Boone.

-Messenger photo by Kelby Wingert
Defense attorney Katherine Flickinger gives her closing arguments to the jury on Thursday morning.

Throughout the trial, which started on June 22, the jury heard from witnesses like Baker, Spencer, law enforcement at the scene, a state firearms expert, medical examiner and even Hurdel himself.

The argument from the prosecution was that Hurdel murdered his estranged wife in cold blood because she had asked for a divorce, escaping their rocky relationship, and did not seem upset when she learned he had signed the divorce papers.

Hurdel’s argument was that he was planning to shoot himself in front of her so she could “see his pain,” but that when he pumped the shotgun, it went off and accidentally hit Flint in the back.

This was a theory First Assistant Webster County Attorney Ryan Baldridge aimed to poke holes in when delivering his closing arguments on Thursday morning.

“In order for Maggie to get shot in the back and killed — killed by the defendant, by his own admission — the gun would have had to have been pointed directly at her,” Baldridge said.

-Messenger photo by Kelby Wingert
Defendant Justin Hurdel listens to the closing arguments of his first-degree murder trial at the Boone County Courthouse on Thursday morning. After two hours of deliberation, the jury found Hurdel guilty of first-degree murder.

He also took care to highlight that Hurdel reportedly never told anyone in the immediate aftermath that Flint’s shooting had been an accident.

“We never heard that this was an accident,” Baldridge said. “Nobody, no police officer, nobody that the defendant talked to. It was never said it was an accident. Detective Hedlund gave him every occasion, ‘I want to hear your version, tell me what happened, tell me your side.'”

Baldridge called the wound Flint sustained by the shotgun blast “massive.”

“Was it an accident that the defendant was able to find a gun that was easily concealable and was able to cause this much damage?” he asked.

Baldridge also pointed out Hurdel’s 17 hours on the run from law enforcement after the shooting.

“For something that was an accident, he sure went a long way to hide himself,” Baldridge said.

Instead of staying and telling officers that it was a “terrible accident,” Hurdel fled, got help from friends, dressed in camouflage clothing and hid.

“On Aug. 5, 2020, everything went wrong for Mr. Hurdel, everything went wrong for Maggie Hurdel,” defense attorney Katherine Flickinger opened her closing arguments with. “An accident happened. Mr. Hurdel shot his wife, but it wasn’t murder. It was involuntary manslaughter.”

Flickinger went through arguments to show that the fatal gunshot was reckless and not intentional, highlighting that the wound was on the back of the left shoulder.

“If Mr. Hurdel was trying to shoot Maggie Hurdel, why is the shot so bad?” Flickinger asked.

“Bottom line on all of this, just as Mr. Hurdel said, he shot his wife, then he tried to shoot himself, but he botched it,” Flickinger continued, wrapping up her closing arguments. “The first shot was an accident. The second shot was a failure. He regretted it instantly.”

Baldridge had an opportunity for rebuttal before the jury would leave to deliberate.

“He loved her to death,” Baldridge said. “Loved her to death.”

The jury left to deliberate shortly before noon, and returned with the verdict at about 2 p.m.

“Our prosecution and our side did a very good job,” Flint-Bozeman said. “I think that they worked day and night on this case and it shows.”

Flint’s death was a “huge loss for the Fort Dodge community,” said Drew Marr, Flint-Bozeman’s boyfriend.

With the guilty verdict, Flint’s family is finally getting the justice they’ve waited nearly a year for.

“We’re glad that it’s over so that maybe we can start with a little closure, for sure,” Marr said.

Hurdel’s sentencing hearing will be 2 p.m. on Aug. 9 at the Webster County Courthouse. With the conviction of first-degree murder, he faces a mandatory setnence of life in prison without the possibility of parole.