Fayette man convicted in slaying
WAYNESBURG – A Greene County jury convicted a Fayette County man Thursday on first-degree murder and rape charges in the June 2006 death of 12-year-old Gabrielle Bechen. The six-man and six-woman jury deliberated for a little more than an hour Thursday morning after deliberating for about four hours Wednesday and found Jeffrey Robert Martin, 51, of New Geneva guilty.
Attorneys in the case began presenting testimony about aggravating and mitigating circumstances, which the jury will consider when deciding whether to sentence Martin to life in prison without parole or the death penalty.
The jury could sentence him to death if they find aggravating circumstances existed when he killed the girl.
In addition to first-degree murder and rape of a child, Martin was convicted on charges of aggravated assault, statutory sexual assault, aggravated indecent assault, sexual assault, abuse of a corpse and four counts of tampering with evidence.
He was found not guilt of third-degree murder.
Martin showed no reaction when the verdict was read while the victim’s parents, Christopher and Blanche Bechen, and other family members struggled to hold back their tears.
“No thank you,” said Christopher Bechen when the swarm of media asked him to comment outside the courtroom.
“I’m very happy with the verdict,” said Greene County First Assistant District Attorney Linda Chambers. She credited state police for the successful prosecution.
“I couldn’t done it without these fine police officers,” she said.
“Go get it off somebody else,” Martin responded when asked to comment.
His attorney, Greene County Public Defender Harry Cancelmi, declined comment.
According to a recorded confession Martin made to police, he strangled Bechen on June 13 after she rode an all-terrain vehicle to the farm where he worked and threatened to tell her parents he molested her.
The farm is near the Bechens’ home in Dunkard Township.
He then buried her body, the ATV and her helmet and shoes in different places on the wooded farm property.
They remained hidden until some of the hundreds of volunteers who helped police and the FBI search for the girl, found the ATV on June 17.
Martin led police to the body after the ATV was found.
In the sentencing phase of the trial, Greene County District Attorney Marjorie Fox said aggravating circumstances existed when the killing occurred.
She said Martin killed the girl to prevent her from telling anyone he raped her. Killing someone to avoid prosecution is an aggravating circumstance, she said.
“Gabby was killed to silence her,” Fox said.
Killing someone during the commission of a felony is another aggravating circumstance and, Fox said, the charges of rape, aggravated indecent assault and statutory rape are felony offenses.
The witnesses Cancelmi called to testified about mitigating circumstances included Martin’s sister, Debbie Martin, brother, Donald Martin, and Marc Tabackman, a psychologist at the Clifton T. Perkins Hospital Center, a maximum-security psychiatric facility, in Maryland.
Debbie Martin and Donald Martin described a dysfunctional upbringing with alcoholic and abusive adults.
Debbie Martin said she was placed in foster care when she was 11 year old after her stepfather molested her.
“I spent most of my time in a car while my mother was in a bar,” she said.
Donald Martin said he was 12 year old when he ran away to live his biological father.
He said his mother and stepfather’s house was dirty; family slept on mattresses with no blankets on the floor and food was scarce.
“It was a struggle: No food, dirty clothes for school, no lunch,” Donald Martin said. “I remember going two days without eating.”
He said his mother “drank up the money.”
Before his parents divorced, he said he witnessed an accident in which a car hit and injured Jeffrey Martin, in 1963 when he was 5 or 6 years old, after he ran into the street chasing a football.
Jeffrey Martin dropped out of school in 10th grade and was in special education, according to earlier testimony.
Tabackman said he interviewed Jeffrey Martin and his mother and reviewed some of his past medical and psychological reports.
From those interviews and reports, Tabackman said he determined Martin is a victim of many negative external forces since his early childhood and he would pose a low risk of committing violence in a state prison.
Tabackman said Martin told him that his female kindergarten teacher, one his older brothers and inmates in a prison he was in a number of years ago sexually assaulted him.
He said Martin said he suffered a permanent brain injury, skull fracture, a broken arm, broken leg, was unconscious for three months and was in a body cast for a year as a result of the car striking him.
Martin also told him he suffered at home for days with a ruptured appendix when he was 15 years old because his mother and stepfather didn’t notice due to their heavy drinking.
He said Martin’s mother told him she smoked marijuana and cigarettes, and drank while she was pregnant with him.
Under cross examination from Fox, Tabackman said medical records show Martin had a broken leg, a broken arm and spent eight weeks in a hospital after the accident.
He said he has no records to confirm he had a brain injury, was in a body cast or was unconscious.
Tabackman said another medical report shows Martin was admitted for an appendectomy one day after the onset of symptoms.
The report does not indicate the procedure was an emergency or that he was in pain for days before he was admitted, Tabackman said.
He said none of the reports on Martin he read mentioned him being sexually assaulted by his kindergarten teacher. He said Martin first told him about that during their August 2007 interview.