Sentencing postponed
A sentencing hearing for a Fayette County man convicted of murdering and raping a 12-year-old Dunkard Township girl has been postponed to 9:30 a.m. Sept. 17 in Common Pleas Court in Greene County. In May, a jury found Jeffrey Robert Martin, 50, of New Geneva guilty in the strangulation death and rape of Gabrielle Bechen and sentenced him to death.
The sentencing was scheduled for 10 a.m. Thursday.
Martin will be formally sentenced for the murder conviction and for the sexual assault charges for which he was found guilty.
In place of the sentencing hearing, President Judge H. Terry Grimes scheduled a hearing to determine if Martin is a sexually violent predator under the state’s Megan’s Law at 10 a.m. Thursday.
A Megan’s Law evaluation conducted by the Sexual Offender’s Assessment Board and a pre-sentence investigation have been completed.
Martin killed and raped the girl on June 13, 2006, after she rode an all-terrain vehicle from her home to a near-by farm where Martin Worked on Mount Joy Road.
He buried her body, the ATV and other evidence in different places on the farm.
Martin confessed and led state police to the gravesite after two of the hundreds of volunteer searchers found part of the ATV protruding from the ground on June 17.
At his trial, Martin testified that a man ran out of gas in a truck in front of the farm and asked him to help dispose of an ATV he had in the truck bed.
He said he noticed a body in the cab of the truck after he and the man returned from burying the ATV.
Martin said the man took a backhoe from the farm and then showed him where he buried the body.