The Pennsylvania Superior Court has ruled a Huntingdon County man serving a life sentence for a homicide that occurred 36 years ago is not entitled to further review of his case.

Kim McMullen, an inmate at the State Correctional Institution at Somerset, asked for a review of his 1999 conviction for the killing of Dominic Barcelona, 30, whose body was found on March 4, 1985, in a stream.

The killing, according to police, occurred the night of Feb. 23-24, after McMullen burglarized a Grocery Box store that was near Black Log Creek.

Barcelona was described as a man who liked to take walks during the night, and after an initial investigation, the coroner declared his death was due to accidental drowning: Barcelona having fallen from a bridge into the stream.

But in 1989, state police reopened the case due to rumors that the burglary and the drowning were related and that McMullen had thrown Barcelona off the bridge and into the water because the victim had witnessed the burglary.

McMullen was interviewed while in prison for another incident, and he admitted being at the scene of the crime, but he stated that an accomplice had thrown Barcelona from the bridge.

Investigators cleared the other man and used McMullen’s statement to charge him with second-degree murder and burglary.

McMullen, now 58, was convicted in 1990 of both crimes, but the Pennsylvania Superior Court vacated the convictions, noting the prosecution had not proven that a crime had been committed.

The forensic pathologist who autopsied Barcelona refused to retract his ruling that death occurred due to accidental drowning, and the Superior Court indicated the trial judge had erred in permitting the use of McMullen’s statement as evidence in the trial.

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court then upheld the Superior Court’s decision to vacate the conviction on the homicide charge but reinstated the conviction on the burglary charge.

In preparation for a retrial of McMullen on the homicide charge, Barcelona’s body was exhumed and a second autopsy was conducted. This time a forensic pathologist ruled the manner of death was homicide.

The question then became whether McMullen could be retried in view of the constitutional bar against double jeopardy.

The Superior Court decided he could be retried in view of the new ruling that Barcelona was the victim of a homicide, and McMullen’s statement to police placed him at the scene of the murder.

In 1999, McMullen was again convicted of murder, and the double jeopardy question was appealed through the state courts and to the U.S. 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals.

By a 2-1 margin, the federal appeals court upheld the verdict and ruled the retrial did not violate the bar against double jeopardy.

McMullen then filed his latest attempt to have the state courts again address his complaints of ineffective counsel and double jeopardy.

McMullen claimed the Huntingdon County judge hearing his post-conviction petition, George N. Zanic, a former Huntingdon district attorney, did not provide him with “a meaningful opportunity for review of his claims” and that he improperly dismissed the appeal because it was not filed in the appropriate time frame.

Superior Court Judges Victor P. Stabile, Carolyn H. Nichols and Gene Strassburger this week ruled that McMullen, who was serving as his own lawyer, has had “a full opportunity to litigate his claims and he had failed to establish that the (post-conviction judge) deprived him of any relief.”

The court also upheld the time bar on appeals.