WAYNESBURG -- Jeffrey R. Martin, who earlier today was convicted of raping and murdering a 12-year-old Greene County girl nearly two years ago, should not be put to death because of a traumatic brain injury and a dysfunctional family life, a psychologist testified.

Dr. Marc J. Tabackman of Townsend, Md., will retake the stand tomorrow as a defense witness as the penalty phase of the trial for Mr. Martin, 51, of New Geneva, Fayette County, continues.

Mr. Martin was convicted this morning of first-degree murder, rape of a child and numerous other offenses in the strangulation of Gabrielle Miranda Bechen on June 13, 2006.

Mr. Martin, a farmhand, showed no emotion as the verdict by the Greene County jury of six men and six women was read. Jurors, who deliberated for a little more than six hours over two days, also found Mr. Martin guilty of aggravated indecent assault of a child, statutory sexual assault, sexual assault, aggravated assault, abuse of a corpse and four counts of tampering with evidence.

In returning the verdict on the sixth day of the trial, the jury obviously rejected Mr. Martin's testimony that the murder was committed by a mysterious man who ran out of gas near the farm where the defendant worked.

Conversely, they accepted Mr. Martin's taped confession to the crimes. He confessed nearly two years ago that he killed Gabby, as she was known, after she rode her small all-terrain vehicle from her home in Greensboro, Greene County to the nearby 300-acre farm where he worked as a laborer.

He later told authorities Gabby had threatened to tell her parents he had molested her, an allegation he claimed was false but one that nonetheless sent him into a panic, causing him to strangle her.

After the penalty phase concludes, jurors must then decide whether Mr. Martin should be put to death or be sentenced to life in prison.

More details in tomorrow's Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.