An El Paso County jury determined Thursday that the man accused of stabbing University of Colorado Colorado Springs Professor Haleh Abghari in 2024 was responsible for the killing.

Ceasar Wilson, 54, was found guilty on all charges, including second-degree murder and aggravated robbery, by the jury Thursday afternoon after hearing closing arguments from the defense and prosecution earlier that day.

He is likely to serve the rest of his life in prison.

Wilson told the court that incidents that happened during the trial made him lose “faith” in the judicial system, prompting him to invoke his right not to testify for an ongoing trial that will determine if he will face a harsher punishment since he has been convicted of several other felonies.

Prosecutors said during closing arguments Thursday morning that the evidence presented throughout the trial “overwhelmingly” pointed to Wilson. The jury seemed to agree, bringing a verdict to the court in a little over an hour after the arguments.

Senior Deputy District Attorney Brien Cecil told the jury that Wilson snuck in through Abghari’s open garage on the night of Aug. 7, 2024, with the intention of stealing from the home.

That is when he encountered the longtime visual and performing arts professor in her bathroom, getting ready for bed.

Cecil said a struggle ensued, showing pictures of defense wounds found on Abghari and a scratch mark on Wilson. She was stabbed five times, dying from a fatal blow to the chest.

But Wilson “left a clue,” Cecil said. A picture of a bloody palm print on the bathroom counter and findings of DNA on Abghari, including in her fingernails, matched Wilson’s DNA.

After the killing, Cecil said Wilson took off in Abghari’s car, taking her cell phone and other personal belongings with him.

Minutes after the stabbing, Wilson is spotted on surveillance footage parking Abghari’s car at a Phillips 66 gas station before getting out and going into the store.

“He’s looking over his shoulder. He’s constantly glancing outside … He’s obviously afraid of the police. At one point, he accuses the clerk of calling police. A man with a guilty conscience,” Cecil said.

The defense countered Cecil’s statements by arguing that, while Wilson may have stolen Abghari’s car, it doesn’t make him a murderer. Instead, Defense Attorney Beau Worthington said the defendant was a witness to it.

“This is the face of someone who witnessed something he wasn’t supposed to see,” Worthington told the jury. “This is someone who is genuinely concerned. Who’s scared.”

Worthington also referred to prior testimony from a DNA expert, who said the bloody palm print found in the bathroom was hard to connect to Wilson because it was on a rounded surface. Blood droplets found along a staircase to Abgharhi’s basement were also never tested, leading Worthington to wonder if another person could have been present.

The prosecution responded by doubling down on Wilson’s DNA found on Abghari’s forearm and fingernails, which they say indicates that she blocked her attacker and scratched them.

If Wilson wasn’t the attacker, the only way for Wilson’s DNA to be in her fingernails is if he had picked up her arm after the killing, then used it to scratch himself, a prosecutor part of Cecil’s team said.

“And that just doesn’t make sense,” the prosecutor said.

What happened after the stabbing

Over the course of two days after the killing, Cecil showed the court that Wilson and Abghari’s car was spotted throughout Colorado.

After leaving the Phillips 66 gas station, Wilson left for Denver in Abghari’s car. The next morning, he drove to a King Soopers. Transaction records show that Abghari’s card was used to purchase items at the store.

That same morning, a photo of Wilson shows him purchasing more items, including clothing, with Abghari’s card at a Walmart in the city. Dressed in different clothes, he was spotted buying more items at several other stores after. At one point, surveillance footage captures him pulling out a knife that Cecil believes was the murder weapon to help a gas station clerk with something.

“He went on this shopping spree over two days,” Cecil said. “Using Haleh’s credit card, using her car to drive around … He knows what he is doing.”

Records show Wilson was on a crime spree

Days before the murder, Colorado Bureau of Investigation records previously obtained by The Gazette show that Wilson had bailed out of jail in Fountain after facing kidnapping and assault charges for allegedly hurting his own mother.

After killing Abghari, Wilson was arrested in Lincoln County by local law enforcement on Aug. 23, 2024. Records indicate that Wilson stole a vehicle and tried to flee law enforcement, injuring someone in the process. He took a plea deal for those crimes and was sentenced to one year of prison.

That November, investigators announced he was a suspect in Abghari’s death and that he was on the loose. Seven months later, they learned that he was already in custody.

It was difficult to identify and then find Wilson because he used his brother’s name, Charlie, as an alias for decades.

A Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office captain told The Gazette in April 2025 that the brothers would swap names in North Carolina and Georgia to commit dozens of crimes, which ranged from armed robbery to stolen vehicles to narcotics.

It was revealed in court on Thursday that Wilson had more than a dozen felony convictions in North Carolina that date back to 1990.

Wilson is scheduled to appear in court again on Friday morning so that the jury can determine if he will face a harsher punishment as a habitual offender.