WAYNESBURG, Pa. -- A Greene County jury will resume deliberations today at 8:30 a.m. in the capital murder trial of Jeffrey R. Martin, the farmhand charged with raping and strangling 12-year-old Gabrielle Bechen in 2006.

The jury of six men and six women deliberated for five hours yesterday, the fifth day of the trial, until President Judge H. Terry Grimes sent them home for the night.

Before the jurors is the question of whether Mr. Martin, 51, of New Geneva, Fayette County, was the person who sexually assaulted, killed and buried Gabby, as she was known, on June 13, 2006.

Five days after Gabby went missing, he confessed to state police he had killed her. But during his trial, Mr. Martin testified that his taped confession, played for jurors by the prosecution on Monday, was a lie and was coerced by police who physically and verbally abused him.

He testified the real killer was a mysterious young man in a older model Ford truck who ran out of gas near the driveway of the Dunkard Township farm where he worked.

In the taped confession, Mr. Martin said Gabby rode her ATV to the 300-acre farm from her nearby home. He said he panicked and strangled her because she said she planned to tell her parents he had molested her, an allegation he denied.

He said he buried her body, ATV, shoes and helmet in separate sites on the farm. Mr. Martin showed authorities the burial sites for all but the ATV, which had been found by that time.

However, in his testimony, Mr. Martin said all he did was help the mystery man bury an ATV that he didn't recognize as Gabby's because the stranger offered him $100 to do so. The man alone buried the body, the shoes and helmet and showed him where. Only after Gabby went missing did he realize she may have been the body the man buried, he testified.

In his closing, Public Defender Harry Cancelmi told the jurors his client's inaction in not telling authorities about the man sooner was due to "fear and confusion." And even when he did tell them after his arrest they didn't want to hear it; he only confessed because of coercion, Mr. Cancelmi said.

First Assistant District Attorney Linda Chambers scoffed at Mr. Martin's story about the mystery man and a coerced confession.

"Ladies and gentleman, he lied to you," she told the jury. "He raped her and when he realized she was going to tell, he chased her down and killed her.

"Common sense and everyday knowledge should be screaming, 'He's guilty.'"