GREENE COUNTY, Pa. -- Police say a farmhand charged with strangling a 12-year-old girl told them he did so because the girl said she planned to tell her parents that he molested her.

Jeffrey R. Martin was ordered Wednesday to stand trial on criminal homicide and related counts in the death of Gabrielle M. Bechen. The girl vanished June 13 when she left her rural home to ride her all-terrain vehicle to a farm where she often visited the horses and where Martin worked as a farmhand.

During Martin's preliminary hearing, prosecutors played a recording of what they said was a conversation between Martin and police.

"She just came out of the blue and said, 'I'm going to tell my mom and dad that you molested me,"' he said. "And I just panicked."

Martin, a 48-year-old man with a record of petty crimes, did not confess to molesting the girl, authorities said.

On the recording, police said Martin told state troopers the girl jumped off her four-wheeler and ran down the farm's driveway after confronting him. He said he chased after her and, when she fell on loose gravel, jumped on top of her.

"I'm still scared, panicked, and I started choking her," the recording stated.

Martin told the troopers it was a "good while" before the girl stopped moving, according to the recording.

Bechen's body was found in a shallow grave beneath some rocks on the farm. Authorities said Martin strangled her and then used farm equipment to move her body to the field where he buried her. He then buried her ATV, helmet and shoes in separate locations elsewhere on the farm, police said.

"I didn't throw her in the hole," Martin told state police. The recording stated he placed the girl's body as carefully as he could before covering it with two bags of lime and refilling the hole.

Martin told police that after he buried the girl and her belongings, he went back to work, cleaning the barn and gathering a load of horse manure, which filled the hole where he hid the girl's ATV, the recording said.

Martin, of New Geneva, also will stand trial on an aggravated assault charge and four counts of tampering with physical evidence.

Public Defender Harry Cancelmi did not directly contradict the charges against Martin, but after the hearing attempted to explain why his client had trouble holding jobs and had a criminal record.

Martin was badly injured in an accident when he was about 12 and spent two years in a body cast. He fell behind in school and the episode may have affected him mentally, Cancelmi said.

Cancelmi argued unsuccessfully for a postponement because Dr. Cyril Wecht, the former Allegheny County coroner, was not available to testify about the autopsy he performed on Bechen. Instead, the district judge allowed Greene County Deputy Coroner Mary Ann Lewis to read Wecht's finding that Bechen was strangled by hand.

About 30 people attended the hearing, including Bechen's parents, Christopher and Blanche Bechen, who wept quietly as Martin's confession was played. They declined to comment.

Donations for Bechen's family are being accepted. They can be dropped off at any Community Bank in Greene County.

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