PITTSBURGH (AP) — A Pennsylvania court has rejected the appeal of a man convicted of killing two sisters who lived next door to him in Pittsburgh and were sisters of an Iowa state lawmaker. Forty-nine-year-old Allen Wade was convicted of two counts of first-degree murder in the February 2014 deaths of Sarah and Susan Wolfe, who were found shot to death in the basement of their East Liberty home.

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports that a Superior Court panel rejected his appeal arguments, including a challenge to prosecutors’ use of a hat containing his DNA found in the victims’ home five weeks before their deaths. Prosecutors sought the death penalty, but a jury deadlock led to a life without parole sentence. The victims were sisters of Democratic Iowa state Rep. Mary Wolfe.