A central Pennsylvania judge rejected an appeal by a former pastor convicted of having killed two wives.
The Lebanon Daily News reported that Lebanon County President Judge John Tywalk earlier this month rejected the appeal of 66-year-old Arthur Schirmer.
Schirmer was sentenced in September to 20 to 40 years in the 1999 death of 50-year-old Jewel Schirmer, his wife of 21 years.
Among the defense arguments Tywalk rejected was the public defender's contention that Schirmer's no-contest plea to third-degree murder was improperly interpreted as a failure to take responsibility.
Schirmer was already serving a life term in the 2008 death of his second wife, Betty, in Monroe County. Authorities said he killed her with a crowbar and staged a car accident to try to conceal the crime.
