(Radio Iowa) – The Iowa Court of Appeals has denied an Ottumwa man’s request for a new murder trial. Christopher Yenger was found guilty two counts of first-degree murder for throwing a Molotov cocktail at a rural Wappello County house after getting his nose bloodied in a fight there in 2006. Two men died in the fire. Yenger appealed the convictions, saying his attorneys were ineffective for not calling an expert witness to challenge the state’s arson investigation.

The Appeals Court ruling says his attorneys made a strategic decision to not call the expert witness because there was no reasonable likelihood that the outcome of the trial would have been different if the expert testified.

Yenger was not arrested and convicted until ten years after the fire when a witness came forward to tell what happened. He is serving life in prison without the possibility of parole in the deaths of Nathan Messer and Seth Anderson.