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(AP) -- Georgia's top court has upheld the conviction of a man charged with shooting a 19-year-old Savannah debutante to death during a Christmas Eve mugging. 

Webster Wilson is serving a life sentence for the 2005 slaying of Jennifer Ross, a Mercer University student. 

Ross was shot in the back hours after she had been presented as a debutante at Savannah's Christmas Cotillion. She died a week later, on New Year's Day, at the hospital where her father is an executive. 

The slaying sparked a public outcry among Savannah political and business leaders. 

Wilson argued that his trial counsel was ineffective. He had been seeking a new trial.

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