AUGUSTA (AP) — A man convicted of killing the mother of his four children and one of his friends has lost his appeal to regain parental rights.

Joel Hayden had appealed to the Maine Supreme Judicial Court seeking to regain parental rights while he serves two life sentences for killing Renee Sandora and Trevor Mills at Sandora’s New Gloucester home in 2011. The 33-year-old Hayden, of New Bedford, Massachusetts, shot the victims in front of his 7-year-old son.

Hayden argued he shouldn’t be stripped of his parental rights because he did not physically harm the boy.

The Portland Press Herald (http://bit.ly/1yJFpOa ) reported that the Supreme Judicial Court, in upholding a lower court’s decision, said Thursday that Hayden acted in a “heinous and abhorrent” manner, failing to protect his son from “profound emotional injury.”