TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — A state board in Kansas has denied parole to a man who’s spent three decades in prison after being convicted of killing a state Highway Patrol trooper.

The Kansas Prisoner Review Board rejected a request from George Rainey. The board won’t consider paroling Rainey again until July 2017.

 

Rainey, 53, an inmate at the state prison in Hutchinson, is serving a life sentence for the shooting of Trooper Ferdinand “Bud” Pribbenow in July 1981 in Butler County. Pribbenow stopped a car speeding on the Kansas Turnpike north of El Dorado and was shot six times.

During a hearing in May, members of Pribbenow’s family asked the board to keep Rainey in prison. Also, Highway Patrol Superintendent Ernest Garcia submitted a letter opposing Rainey’s parole.