(Radio Iowa) – A 55 year old man serving a life prison sentence for shooting his wife to death in their central Iowa home has died in state custody. In April of 2014, Vallerie Cory’s co-workers at the Firestone plant in Des Moines asked police to do a welfare check because she had missed work. Her husband, Jeremy Cory, told a policeman who went to the couple’s home in Cambridge that he didn’t know where she was.

During a search, police found her body upstairs. She’d been shot 18 times and the rifle used in the shooting was found in a closet. State prison officials have announced that Jeremy Cory was pronounced dead Monday night at the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics, but the agency’s news release did not reveal the cause of his death. He was 55 years old.

Cory appealed his first degree conviction twice, arguing his lawyers were ineffective. He also appealed the amount of restitution he was ordered to pay his wife’s estate.