CORALVILLE, Iowa (AP) — A man convicted in 1994 of killing his girlfriend in Des Moines has died at the Iowa Medical and Classification Center in Coralville. The Des Moines Register reports that 79-year-old Ralph Carlson died Thursday. He’d been living in the facility’s hospice center because of an undisclosed illness. Court records say Carlson was found guilty of first-degree murder for killing Rita Young. Authorities say he stashed her body behind the furnace of his Des Moines home.

His first-degree murder conviction was upheld in 1996 by the Iowa Supreme Court.