NASHVILLE — A Tifton man will remain behind bars for the rest of his life after the state’s highest court upheld his murder conviction and life sentence.

The Georgia Supreme Court unanimously rejected an appeal Tuesday by Timothy Rutland, 41, who was convicted in Berrien County in 2016 of two counts of felony murder resulting from a high-speed police chase, according to court records.

In November 2013, Matthew Dean Horton, 23, and Kelly Marie Prescott, 32, both of Willacoochee, were in a black SUV at the intersection of Enigma Road and Tifton Road in Berrien County when a silver Ford F-150 pickup truck, eluding officers in a high-speed chase, T-boned the siblings’ vehicle, according to Georgia State Patrol reports at the time of the incident.

Rutland was charged with felony murder for the deaths and a count of serious injury after another SUV passenger, Heidi Nicole Mancil, was injured, life-flighted and transferred to a Tallahassee, Fla., hospital. Mancil was Horton and Prescott’s sister, according to a past article in The Valdosta Daily Times. The family was reportedly out preparing to celebrate Mancil’s 31st birthday.

Rutland had been wanted by the Tift County Sheriff’s Office after a hit and run accident in Tift County. He was pursued by police, deputies and the Georgia State Patrol across Tift, Cook and Berrien counties.