The state Supreme Court has denied permission for an appeal from Michael Stephanic Jr., convicted of gunning down his ex-girlfriend outside the Eastern Sintered Alloys plant in 2013 in St. Marys.

Stephanic, 48, is serving a life sentence for the September 2013 shooting death of June Talmadge, 48, of Emporium, outside the plant where both of them worked.

He appealed his conviction to state Superior Court, alleging he should get a new trial because he was denied the assistance of a court-appointed neuropharmacologist at trial.

Taking the stand in his own defense at trial in Elk County Court, Stephanic claimed to remember nothing of the shooting. His attorney claimed that extreme intoxication and rage from an earlier fight with Talmadge prevented Stephanic from understanding his actions or the consequences at the time of the murder.

Stephanic was convicted and sentenced to life in prison. Through appointed attorney George Daghir, Stephanic filed a post-sentence motion seeking a new trial. He alleged that although his family paid for his private attorney, he was indigent and the court should have provided him funds for experts. A neuropharmacologist could have conducted “relation back evaluations” to show Stephanic’s level of intoxication at the time of the murder, he argued, and President Judge Richard Masson erred by denying the request.

Superior Court judges agreed with Masson. According to the court’s decision, Stephanic “had the burden to show that such an expert was necessary for him to present an adequate defense, how much retaining the expert would cost and that he was unable to pay for that necessary expert.” However, the judges found that Stephanic “established none of those prerequisites.”

The state Supreme Court declined to hear the appeal, effectively bringing the appeals process to an end.

At 2:46 a.m. Sept. 3, 2013, police were dispatched for an “active shooter” at the powdered metal plant. Upon arrival, officers found Stephanic being held to the ground by plant employees with a big-game rifle on the ground nearby.

Talmadge, also known as June Andrus, was found lying on the ground near the building’s entrance with a gunshot wound to the abdomen. She later died as a result of the shooting.

Stephanic was taken into custody at which point he allegedly admitted to shooting Talmadge, police said.