BEDFORD —
About 200 Bedford County residents each spent around 90 minutes answering nearly 150 questions Friday during the initial stage of jury selection in the case of a man accused of killing his estranged wife.
Defendant John Gerholt, wearing a light blue dress shirt and tie, nodded to potential jurors as they entered the courtroom for the first day of what is expected to be a two-week trial.
The selection process involved bringing 40 to 50 people at a time into the county’s largest courtroom. Bedford County Senior Judge Daniel Howsare made brief comments, then had the prospective jurors answer the often-probing questions contained in a half-inch-thick document.
Individual questioning will begin Monday morning. A panel of 12 plus four alternates will be seated, hopefully by Friday.
Gerholt, 41, a native of Huntingdon County, is charged with first-degree murder in the Nov. 9, 2008, shooting death of Karen Gerholt, the mother of two of his children. Two weeks before her death, she was granted a protection order against her husband by a Bedford County judge.
Karen Gerholt was employed at the McDonald’s restaurant in Snake Spring Township. Police say she walked out of the restaurant on a break and Gerholt, who was waiting in the parking lot, shot her twice with a sawed-off shotgun. She died a short time later.
Gerholt does not deny killing his wife, but maintains it was an accident.
Citing the alleged crime of violating the protection-from-abuse order and what could be viewed as an apparent lack of concern over the welfare of people at the restaurant, Bedford County District Attorney William Higgins has said he will seek the death penalty if Gerholt is convicted of first-degree murder.
A number of questions on the jury questionnaire deal with death penalty and the ability to sentence someone to death. Other questions pertain to the person’s religion, family, education, employment, health and whether the individual can stand by his convictions when under pressure.
Gerholt is being represented in the guilt phase of the trial by court-appointed defense attorney Thomas Dickey of Altoona. If convicted, he will be represented in the penalty phase by Ebensburg attorney David Beyer.
The trial has been postponed a number of times, primarily due to difficulties with the defense finding experts to analyze Gerholt and the evidence, and delays in receiving reports.
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