NORTH PLATTE, Neb. (AP) — A judge has again ordered a man who killed six members of a western Nebraska family more than 40 years ago to remain in state care.

Judge Donald Rowlands ruled Thursday at the annual competency hearing of Erwin Charles Simants that Simants is still mentally ill and a danger to the public. He will stay in the Lincoln Regional Center, where he’s been since being found not guilty of the killings by reason of insanity in 1979.

Prosecutors say Simants shot and killed Henry and Audrey Kellie, their son David and three of their grandchildren in 1975 at the Kellies’ Sutherland home.

Doctors have previously testified that Simants is no longer mentally ill.