A Tama County man, sentenced to 50 years in prison for murdering a woman 19 years ago has been denied on his appeal for the new trail.

The Cedar Rapids Gazette reports that Tait Purk argued his previous bad acts and other evidence should not have been allowed at trial, and a guilty verdict made by a judge during a bench trial in February of 2018 was not supported by sufficient evidence.

Purk was accused in the disappearance of Cora Okonski in 2000, while she was living with Purk in Tama. Purk had told authorities she had left to buy cigarettes and never returned.

A former fellow inmate of Purk’s testified that Purk told him he had killed his fiancee during an argument, kept her body in a bathroom closet overnight and then buried her.