The latest appeal of convicted murderer Ernest T. Freeby has been denied by a Carbon County judge.

Freeby, 42, of Lansford, was convicted on Jan. 30, 2012, of murdering his estranged wife, Edwina Onyango, 34, a native of Kenya. On May 14, 2012, President Judge Roger N. Nanovic II, who presided at the trial, sentenced Freeby to life in prison without parole.The case was unusual in that the victim's body has never been found.Freeby's latest appeal was filed Sept. 25, 2015, under the Post Conviction Relief Act, claiming his trial counsels were ineffective.Freeby was convicted of killing his wife in the basement of his home and disposing of the body.The trial was one of the longest in the modern times for the county court. It lasted 19 days from the day the jury selection process began until the jury reached a verdict in finding Freeby guilty of first-degree murder, tampering with physical evidence as part of a cover-up to conceal and remove evidence of his wife's death and his involvement.Freeby filed post-trial motions, which were denied by the court. He then appealed to the state Superior Court, which affirmed judgment of sentence. Re-argument was subsequently denied. Re-argument was subsequently denied. He then asked for the state's highest court, the Supreme Court, to review the decision of the Superior Court, but on July 9, 2014, that court denied the request for review.Freeby filed the PCRA claim pro se, so the court appointed an attorney to represent him because Freeby said his trial counsels, attorneys George T. Dydynsky and Paul J. Levy, of the public defender's office, were ineffective.Since the body was never found, then District Attorney Gary F. Dobias used entirely circumstantial evidence to convict Freeby.The caseTrial testimony showed that the marriage of the two was one of convenience. Freeby wanted a wife to increase his chance of gaining custody of his two children from a previous relationship, and Onyango, a native of Kenya whose legal status in this country was in question, hoped to increase her chance of becoming a U.S. citizen by marrying Freeby.At the time he was charged, Freeby and Onyango were separated and living apart.Onyango disappeared on Dec. 9, 2007, and was first reported missing on Dec. 10 by family members. She was last seen at Freeby's home on Dec. 9. The two married in 2001. By Dec. 10 Freeby had entered into a new relationship with another woman and had three children with her.Freeby told investigators at the time that Onyango came to his home on Dec. 9 to get a phone bill. He also said she left a car with him which he jointly owned with her. He said he made numerous calls to her cellphone after that date to contact her but never could.The trial included testimony from about 60 witnesses, most of them for the commonwealth. There was also witness testimony of DNA collected in the case from experts in the field along with experts in blood patterns. That testimony supported the state police probe which indicated Freeby killed his wife in the coal bin in the basement of his home in Lansford and then disposed of the body.State police and experts called by Dobias established blood stains and patterns in the basement area and coal bin in particular, compared to a sample taken from one of the victim's brothers, were hers.Onyango was in the country since September 1998. Freeby was arrested in August 2009.Appeal addressedNanovic wrote that "the petitioner must demonstrate that counsel's performance was deficient and that such deficiency prejudiced him."To prevail on his claim, Freeby had to establish that his counsel was ineffective and his conviction resulted from the ineffective counsel. Counsel is presumed effective, and it is up to Freeby to rebut that presumption.In the appeal Freeby made several allegations to support his claim of ineffective counsel such as the selection of jurors and failure to call an expert witness previously listed as a possible witness, among other contentions.Nanovic ruled that Freeby failed to overcome the presumption that his counsel was effective and has failed to prove that his convictions resulted from the ineffective assistance of counsel. Therefore, his petition for Post-Conviction Collateral Relief was denied.Freeby can appeal Nanovic's decision to the state Superior Court.