CLAYTON • Lawyers began screenings Wednesday for jurors with open minds about the death penalty and open schedules for a week in seclusion to hear the trial of a man accused of killing a University City police sergeant.

A first-degree murder charge alleges that Todd L. Shepard walked up to a parked patrol car and without warning shot Sgt. Michael King as he monitored traffic along the Delmar Loop on Halloween night 2008.

St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Robert P. McCulloch, the son of a St. Louis police officer killed in the line of duty decades ago, is personally participating in the trial, and is seeking to have Shepard executed.

Opening arguments are set for Monday in a trial expected to last through next week and possibly into the weekend. The jury will be sequestered.

Jury selection started with prosecutors and defense lawyers quizzing a pool of about 120 prospective jurors, calling them into the courtroom in Clayton in groups of 10 to ask questions such as whether they find capital punishment appropriate in some circumstances and whether the trial would pose a personal hardship. The process continues today.

Shepard, 43, is already serving a 23-year federal prison sentence on an unrelated drug charge.

Officials have said they found no connection between King and Shepard, and no motive for the murder, although the defendant was known to University City police. His record includes guilty pleas to multiple counts of felony drug trafficking and second-degree assault in a 1990s University City case.

Shepard's girlfriend told investigators that he "frequently spoke of killing a police officer and ending the unfair treatment of blacks and lower-class people by the government," according to court documents.

Police said Shepard killed King, in uniform, at Leland Avenue and Delmar Boulevard at about 10:20 p.m. that night. A stolen .38-caliber handgun was found dropped inside the marked patrol car.

According to court documents, a witness pointed to a fleeing Oldsmobile Cutlass and yelled to an arriving police officer, "That's him! That's him!" The officer was unable to catch the car but did get its license number. Investigators traced the vehicle to Shepard's girlfriend.

Four days later, a Missouri Highway Patrol trooper stopped the car near Kansas City, recognized Shepard's name from a police bulletin and arrested him. It was the day of King's funeral.

The prosecution has listed more than 150 possible witnesses for the trial, among them several University City police officers and Police Chief Charles Adams.

"We miss him," Adams said last week. "He was a great member of our department, and it was a very tragic event."

King, 50, a 25-year member of the force, was married and had no children. Friends and colleagues described him as a professional, detail-oriented, a patient and calm man who loved to hunt, fish, travel the world, and serve as mentor to younger officers.

Joe Edwards, an entrepreneur who owns the Blueberry Hill restaurant on the Loop and heard the fatal shots that night, said he takes some comfort in driving past Sgt. Mike King Drive, which runs alongside the city hall to the police station. "It's just a nice reminder," he said, "of a very nice officer."