The Associated Press reports that 30-year-old Antun Lewis has been sentenced to 35 years for setting a fire that killed a woman and eight children on May 21, 2005, at a house in Cleveland, Ohio.

According to Reuters, Antun was first convicted in 2011 of arson, but a judge overturned the verdict due to concerns about the reliability of some of the witnesses. After being granted a new trial, Lewis was convicted a second time.

During the trial, Lewis’ lawyers presented evidence that his IQ is too low to face the death penalty.

Evelyn Martin, the mom of 33-year-old Medeia Carter, who was killed in the fire, spoke at the sentencing.

“I had to stand there and watch them bring them out one by one,” Martin said of her grandchildren, recounting how she had to watch the skin fall off one of her grandsons.

“I hope you live long enough so all the skin falls off your damned body,” she told Lewis, according to The AP.

Prosecutors had argued that Lewis started the fire because he was upset about the drug debt, while Lewis maintains that he was never there and his lawyers say there was no drug debt.