Man convicted in Greene County murder asks judge to vacate death sentence
Lawyers for Jeffrey Martin claim he is intellectually disabled
A hearing later this year will determine if a man sentenced for death of killing and raping a 12-year-old girl in Greene County was intellectually disabled.
If defense attorneys can prove Jeffrey Martin, 67, was, a judge could convert his death sentence to life in prison.
Martin, originally from New Geneva in Fayette County, was convicted of first-degree murder in 2008 in the strangulation death of Gabrielle Bechen. The girl had ridden an ATV to the horse farm in Dunkard Township where Martin worked.
Five days after Bechen’s murder on June 13, 2006, a search party found her ATV on the property, buried under manure. Her body was found buried nearby.
Martin originally confessed to killing Bechen and using a backhoe to dig the grave. He later recanted and blamed another man for Bechen’s death.
Since his conviction, Martin’s lawyers have filed a number of appeals, both in Greene County Common Pleas Court and in federal court in Pittsburgh.
A visiting judge in Greene County denied Martin’s appeal in 2023, in which Martin’s attorney made a number of claims that his trial attorney was ineffective. In December 2024, the state Supreme Court remanded the case to resolve the appeal.
Before the case was remanded, Martin had filed an appeal in federal court in Pittsburgh. A 2023 court filing in that appeal takes issue with his death sentence.
Mitigating evidence in Martin’s sentencing hearing a defense expert testified Martin tested at a third grade reading level and spelled at a second grade level. The expert also testified Martin is “likely to be functionally illiterate” and said his IQ test put him in what “used to be called the mentally retarded range.”
The federal case remains on hold until a visiting judge in Greene County resolves the appeal the state Supreme Court remanded. Martin’s criminal docket lists a November hearing to determine if he was intellectually disabled when he killed Bechen.
Senior Judge John F. Wagner Jr., in an order filed last week, gives Martin’s attorneys until Oct. 21 to file additional arguments.