Greene County man on death row files federal appeal

A Greene County man on death row for sexually assaulting and killing a 12-year-old girl in 2006 has asked a federal judge to review his conviction and sentence.
Jeffrey Robert Martin, 58, of New Geneva was convicted of strangling Gabrielle Bechen in a remote area of Dunkard Township. The girl was riding an all-terrain vehicle (ATV) at a farm near her home when she encountered Martin, who was a hired hand at the farm.
After killing her, Martin covered the girl and the ATV with lime in a makeshift grave and later told jurors it was someone else who killed her and wanted help disposing of the evidence.
Martin filled out paperwork for the federal appeal last month, but the case was filed in Western District Court in Pittsburgh this week.
Though the paperwork asks for specific grounds for appeal, Martin listed one: “Any and all federal constitutional claims to challenge my convictions and death sentence.”
The filing does not list any supporting facts, as requested in the paperwork, and he indicated he does not have an attorney representing him.
Jurors convicted Martin in 2008 of first-degree murder, aggravated assault, rape, statutory sexual assault, aggravated indecent assault, sexual assault, abuse of a corpse and four counts of tampering with evidence.
After a years-long review, the state Supreme Court upheld the conviction and sentence in 2014. Martin claimed in that appeal that there was not enough evidence to support a sexual assault conviction, as well as alleging various constitutional violations.
His attorneys asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review the case, but that request was denied in October.
In an attached motion to his federal appeal, Martin asked the court to find he is indigent, and should be appointed an attorney. Martin wrote that he receives between $14.20 and $21 monthly in prison wages. He also indicated that a “pen pal” sent him $110 in the last year, and said as of Nov. 27, he has less than $20 in his prison account.
Martin confessed killing Bechen to police, according to court paperwork. He told them that Bechen had appeared on the farm on her ATV and, for no apparent reason, according to Martin, said she was going to tell her parents that he had just molested her. Martin said he had “panicked” and grabbed at the child, who ran away down the driveway. He was able to catch up with her and, once he did, “jumped on top of her” and strangled her to death.
An autopsy revealed that the girl had been sexually assaulted.