BEDFORD, Pa. —
Jury selection gets underway in the capital murder trial of a man police say nearly four years ago shot and killed his estranged wife in the parking lot of a Bedford County McDonald’s.
About 250 people have been summoned to the county courthouse for the first step in the process which is expected to take upwards of a week.
When the 12 panel members and four alternates have been seated the testimony in the trial of John L. Gerholt Sr., formerly a resident of Huntingdon County, will get underway.
Gerholt, 41, is charged with homicide and related charges in the Nov. 9, 2008 shooting death of Karen Gerholt, 24, and the mother of two of his children.
Two weeks prior to the shooting a Bedford County judge had issued a protection from abuse order requested by Karen Gerholt because she feared her husband would harm her.
On the day of her death, police say, she walked out of the McDonald’s where she worked and her husband shot her twice with a sawed off shot gun. She died a short time later.
Gerholt continues to maintain that the shooting was an accident.
Selecting a jury will be time consuming with each potential juror questioned at length regarding their views of the death penalty and where, if the defendant is convicted of first degree murder, they could sentence him to die.
The juror questionaries, to be filled out by those who are not excused early on by Bedford County Senior Judge Daniel Howsare, is a 42-page missive with 141 questions.
Those questions want to know the most elementary facts about each person including family, education, work history, medical problems, mental health, opinions about law enforcement and seeks in depth information regarding religion, the death penalty and if they can stand by their beliefs when under peer pressure.
District Attorney William Higgins said Thursday that he has sent out more than 125 subpoenas to potential witnesses in an attempt to cover all basis because of the time frame between the crime and the trial.
He speculated that he will not call all of those witnesses, including two dozen state police officers, and a laundry list of medical and emergency personnel, to the stand.
It could not be determined the number of witnesses planned by court appointed defense attorney Thomas Dickey who will represent Gerholt during the guilt phase of the trial.
Should the jury convict Gerholt of first degree murder, Ebensburg attorney David Beyer will represent Gerholt in the penalty phase.
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