WAYNESBURG, Pa. -- The trial of a farmhand accused of raping and killing a 12-year-old Greene County girl resumed on Tuesday with the farmhand taking the stand.

Jeffrey Robert Martin, 50, of New Geneva, is charged with homicide and rape in the June 2006 death of Gabrielle Bechen.

Martin told jurors that he did not kill Gaby. He said a young man with long brown hair, who was driving a white truck, asked for his help burying an all-terrain vehicle, claiming he wanted insurance money.

"He said he got this four-wheeler he'd like to get rid of for the insurance, and he offered me $100," Martin said.

So, Martin testified, he went along with the plan. He told the jury he and the stranger dug a hole for the ATV together. Martin then told the jury that the man said, "You finish putting the dirt back. I got a helmet and a pair of shoes to get rid of."

Martin told the jury that was when he first became suspicious.

Martin told the jury that was when he first became suspicious.

Martin testified he had a chance to look in to the strangers truck.

"I looked in and over on the passenger side of the truck, there was a gray coat, and I seen some hair and a hand sticking out from the coat," Martin told the jury. "I couldn't see who it was, because the face was covered. I said, 'Who is this?' He said, 'Oh, it was an accident.'"

Martin told the jury he got scared, confused and didn't know what to do.

Then, Martin said he left, but later the man showed him the spot where he had buried Gaby's body.

But in a taped confession that was played in court on Monday, Martin admitted to strangling the sixth-grader before burying her body under 100 pounds of lime in a 5-foot-deep grave.

Martin explained in the confession that he killed Gaby because she was going to tell her parents he molested her. He said it was a lie but that he panicked, chased her, choked her and buried her and her all-terrain vehicle.

"I'm still scared, panicking," Martin said in the confession. "I don't know what to, and I started choking her."

"How long did you choke her for?" Martin was asked in the confession.

"It was a good while," he said.

Defense attorneys deny Martin sexually assaulted the girl and say none of his DNA was found on her body. They also said Martin was denied his right to an attorney before the confession. But state police said he waived those rights.

Also on Monday, Martin's wife, who was headed to court to testify for the prosecution, collapsed at the metal detectors and had to be taken out, investigators said. She is expected to be OK.

In court on Friday, farm owner Tracy Hammond described Gaby as a nice girl who would ride her ATV down the road to visit Hammond's 300-acre farm. Hammond said she and her husband were not at home the morning Gaby disappeared and was killed but cried in disbelief when police told her they were focusing their investigation around Martin.

Former Allegheny County coroner Cyril Wecht also took the stand Friday, talking about the autopsy performed on Gaby and the sexual assault.

"The cause of death is quite clear," Wecht said. "Manual strangulation. In this case, there is nothing to suggest a passage of a long period of time (during the attack). I think all of the injuries occurred in a rather quick period of time. I think the young girl died and was buried."

On Thursday, Bechen's father came face to face with Martin, talking in court about the frantic search for his daughter the morning she disappeared.

"I immediately jumped on my quad," he said. "I went to the horse farm, riding on the trails looking for her, yelling for her. I rode up to where the house (on the farm) was at and before I got turned around, I saw Mr. Martin on the mule. He asked what I was doing. I said, 'Looking for Gaby.' He said, 'I hadn't seen her all morning,' then said he was in a hurry."

During the trial, Bechen's family requested that police ask Martin to stop turning from his table to look at them. There were also complaints that Martin was snickering at the family, too.

The girl was reported missing after she went riding on her all-terrain vehicle near her family's home in Dunkard Township. Her body was found buried on a nearby horse farm several days later. It took searchers four days to find her buried ATV, too.

Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty for Martin.

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