On July 16, Meghan Funk asked for a protection order against her husband, claiming he threatened to shoot her and commit suicide.

Eight days later, police allege he fired at least five shots at a car she was driving, before slashing his wrists and stabbing himself in the chest. One of the bullets struck the finger of a child in the back seat.

Thursday, prosecutors charged Funk with attempted murder, aggravated assault and burglary. He faces a possible life sentence if convicted.

Funk, 25, appeared in Natrona County Circuit Court for his initial appearance Thursday. He wore a hospital gown and his wrists were heavily bandaged. Before deciding on bail, Judge Steven Brown asked Funk if he had anything to say.

"I'm sorry for what I did," Funk replied.

Funk's bond was set at $500,000.

Tuesday night, police say Funk broke into his wife's home on the 2800 block of Cherokee Lane, on Casper's west side, and waited for her to arrive home. She had asked him for a divorce on June 28, and on the day of the shooting, divorce papers were filed against him in Natrona County District Court, records show.

Shortly before midnight, Meghan Funk, 24, pulled her 1995 Oldsmobile Aurora into the driveway. In a police affidavit, she described to a detective what happened next:

She saw a light in the house that she didn't leave on and told the children, aged seven and eight, to get back into the car. Her husband then came out of the home with a pistol, which he began banging against the driver-side window.

As his wife backed the car out of the driveway, he began to fire toward the front of the car. One of the bullets severed the finger of the 7-year-old boy.

Surgeons later reattached the boy's finger, but the children are still fearful that Eric Funk will come and get them, Meghan Funk said in a phone interview with the Star-Tribune.

"They are still having a hard time understanding why he wanted to kill me," she said.

She estimated that her husband fired at the car from a distance of about five feet.

"We were lucky," she said, adding that her only thought at the time was getting the children to safety.

The boys belong to Meghan Funk's former husband and the woman said she considers them her step children.

After Meghan Funk drove off, her husband barricaded himself into the home. When he came out, he had cut his wrists and stabbed himself in the chest, the affidavit said.

Officers found .45-caliber bullet casings outside the home and an unidentified gun inside.

Both Funks told a detective that he had threatened to kill her in the past, the affidavit said. Eric Funk also told the detective that he would have killed her new boyfriend had the boyfriend been with her.

Meghan Funk said she last heard from her husband on July 14 when he left a message on her cell phone. Two days later, she asked for a protection order against him, according to court documents. In her petition, she said she had to call the police on July 10 to remove Eric Funk from her workplace.

Funk threatened her with violence after she told him she wanted a divorce, the petition said.

"Eric told me that if my ex-husband and I were to get back together, that he would shoot us both in the head," she wrote. "He has also threatened suicide if I would ever leave him."

Under the protection order, which was granted July 19, Eric Funk was supposed to surrender his gun to the Natrona County Sheriff's Office. He was also supposed to stay away from his wife's Cherokee Lane home.

Police contacted Eric Funk's mother after the shooting, and she told them two pistols - .38- and .45-caliber handguns -- were missing from her gun safe, the affidavit said. Eric Funk had access to that safe, she told police.

Court records show the Funks married in October 2006. They didn't have any children together.

During his Thursday court appearance, Funk told the judge that he had lived in Casper for two years and had worked at a pizza restaurant.

Reach Joshua Wolfson at (307) 266-0582 or at josh.wolfson@casperstartribune.net.