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A jury convicted Camp Lejeune Marine corporal Jonathan Gould after investigators said he stabbed himself with a small paring knife to fake an intruder attack and cover a hammer assault on his pregnant wife in Onslow County, North Carolina.

Gould, then 24, called 911 before dawn on Dec. 20, 2008, telling dispatchers a stranger had attacked him outside his home, according to the Onslow County Sheriff's Office. Deputies found him with a knife wound and Erin Gould, 26, badly injured inside the house.

Gould told investigators a man confronted him as he tried to get into the house and knocked him unconscious, Sheriff Ed Brown said. He repeated the account to deputies who took him to the hospital, but investigators said the physical evidence at the scene did not match his story.

Deputies determined Gould had stabbed himself to make it look as though a third party had attacked him, the sheriff's office said. Confronted with the inconsistencies, Gould admitted he had struck his wife in the head with a hammer, investigators said.

Erin Gould was taken to New Hanover Regional Medical Center with life-threatening head injuries. Her uncle said days after the attack that she was in stable condition and responding to treatment. She spent more than a month in a coma and lost the unborn child she had been carrying, according to court records.

Onslow County prosecutors initially charged Gould with attempted murder and held him on a $1 million bond. A grand jury indicted him in May 2009 on charges of attempted first-degree murder and assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill inflicting serious injury.

A jury convicted Gould on both counts on Oct. 7, 2009, following a trial in Jacksonville. He was sentenced to two consecutive terms that add up to a minimum of nearly 18 years and a maximum of about 23 years, North Carolina Department of Adult Correction records show.