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HOUSTON (AP) — Texas' highest criminal court has rejected an appeal from a man condemned for killing two teenagers near Austin during a 2007 crime binge that left six people dead. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals declined Wednesday to rule on the merits of the appeal from 52-year-old Paul Devoe, saying only the appeal was improper. The same court in 2011 upheld Devoe's conviction and death sentence for the August 2007 slayings of 15-year-old Haylie Faulkner and 17-year-old Danielle Hensley in Jonestown in Travis County. Faulkner's mother and Devoe's ex-girlfriend, Paula Griffith, also was killed with her boyfriend, Jay Feltner. Prosecutors also tied Devoe to the slayings of a bartender in Marble Falls and an 81-year-old Pennsylvania woman whose car Devoe stole. Devoe was captured in his native Long Island, New York.

New York man condemned for Texas slayings loses court appeal