The state Supreme Court has declined to consider the appeal of a Byrnedale man accused of causing a woman’s death in a fatal car crash in Elk County in 2012.

Brandon Weidow, 28, was convicted in Elk County Court in December 2014 of vehicular homicide while driving under the influence of alcohol and related offenses in the 2012 death of Savannah Straub, 23. He was sentenced to four to nine years in prison.

Straub, a St. Marys resident, was killed after the car she was riding in careened off Route 255 in Byrnedale in the early morning hours of July 11, 2012. The vehicle hit a guardrail, tree and bridge before coming to rest and bursting into flames.

The first people to arrive at the scene said Weidow’s legs and feet were lodged in the driver’s side footwell, with his stomach on the center console, and his head and arms were across the front passenger seat. Straub had been ejected from the car, according to court records.

Weidow was pulled from the car by the two people who stopped, the records read.

The state troopers on the scene smelled alcohol on Weidow, and one of the two who pulled him from the car said she had been drinking with him and Straub prior to the crash, court records said.

Police charged Weidow as the driver, citing alcohol and speed as primary factors in the crash.

His first trial ended in a hung jury after the defense challenged evidence placing Weidow behind the wheel at the time. But a December retrial saw him convicted on all counts.

He appealed the decision to the state Superior Court, challenging the validity of search warrants and testimony in the case, and saying the prosecution had failed to prove he was the driver of the car.

The Superior Court rejected his appeal in June, with the judges’ decision indicating, “Sufficient evidence supported the conclusion that (Weidow) was the driver of the vehicle at the time of the crash.”

Weidow remains incarcerated at State Correctional Institution at Camp Hill.