Eric Funk, 25, charged with attempted murder, waived his right to a preliminary hearing this morning in Natrona County Circuit Court. He will appear in district court at an as-yet undetermined date.

The hearing came a week after his initial appearance in circuit court, where faced with charges of attempting to shoot and kill his estranged wife before slashing his wrists and stabbing himself in the chest, Funk said, "I'm sorry for what I did."

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

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 a 7-year-old boy, one of two children at the scene who Megan Funk considers her stepchildren.

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