Two people will spend the rest of their lives in prison after a Centre County jury on Monday found them guilty of murdering Penn State professor Ronald Bettig in August 2016.
After a six-day trial it took the jury about two hours to deliver guilty verdicts on all charges, including first-degree murder, against Danelle Rae Geier, 34, and George Gene Ishler, Jr., 41. They also were convicted on charges of third-degree murder, aggravated assault and tampering with evidence, and Ishler was found guilty of unsworn falsification to authorities.
‘It speaks to the hard work that State College police and state police put in on the front end,’ Centre County District Attorney Bernie Cantorna said. ‘I’m just the lawyer. They had done all the work and all the evidence was there.’
Geier and Ishler were convicted of luring the 56-year-old Bettig, of Lemont, to a Potter Township quarry on Aug. 12, 2016, when Ishler pushed Bettig off a ledge, causing him to fall 75 feet to the ground below. They later returned to the quarry to plant items to make it appear Bettig had been there alone before reporting him missing three days later.
Bettig’s body was found on Aug. 17, 2016. Forensic pathologist Dr. Harry Kamerow testified that the communications professor broke both arms, both femurs, his hip and his jaw, but may have been alive for two days before dying of dehydration.
Prosecutors said Geier and Ishler believed they would benefit financially from a will that Bettig hand wrote a few months earlier.
Karen Muir, the attorney for Ishler, contended that Bettig committed suicide in front of her client and that Ishler panicked.
Deborah Lux, representing Geier, said that Ishler acted alone and that Geier only became aware of what happened afterward. She argued that Bettig had taken Geier and her child into his home and provided for them, and that Geier had no reason to want to kill him.
Geier claimed at trial that Ishler threatened to kill her and her children if she did not go along with the plan and that he raped her twice after Bettig’s death.
After hours of questioning by police, Ishler admitted to pushing Bettig, but Muir argued the statement came under duress and with false promises. Investigators said he never claimed in interviews that Bettig jumped to his death.
Geier, meanwhile, told police in 2016 that they first planned to drown Bettig on a trip to Rehoboth Beach, Del., and when that didn’t happen took him to the Blackhawk Quarry under the pretense that Ishler had marijuana plants growing there.
Cantorna said both defendants told stories at trial that they had never mentioned before.
‘I don’t know of a case where the defendants testified in a manner like they did in this case. It’s hard to imagine another case like this and I think the jurors might have had the same reaction,’ Cantorna said.
Bettig had been in a deep depression for years and was on leave from his position at Penn State when he met Ishler in late 2015 and developed a relationship with him centered on marijuana.
Ishler introduced Bettig to Geier, who had returned to Pennsylvania from Florida with one of her two children, in early 2016. Bettig allowed Geier, her son and her then-boyfriend to live in his basement, later throwing out the boyfriend after finding him with another woman.
Bettig’s brother, friends and neighbors testified that Bettig’s mood improved after Geier began living with him and that he enjoyed having someone who cared for him. At the same time, his mental and physical health began to deteriorate.
In the spring of 2016, Bettig hand wrote a new will that would leave his house to Geier and named Ishler executor to determine if Bettig’s estranged adult children should receive any inheritance.
Geier began using Bettig’s credit card without his knowledge and during the summer of 2016 she told her half-sister that she didn’t know why he was upset about the bills because he had $1 million in Disney stock. The value of the stock was actually about $50,000.
Bettig told his brother that he was unhappy with Ishler and no longer wanted him in his life. A friend also testified he changed the locks on Bettig’s house because Bettig was afraid of Ishler.
In August 2016, prosecutors said, Ishler conducted internet searches about Disney stock and called an estate attorney. Text messages between Ishler and Geier around that time indicated an intimate relationship between the two and included complaints from Geier about Bettig reprimanding her for how she was parenting her child.
‘They took advantage of a fellow human being who was in a compromised and weakened state and they thought they could do the same thing with 12 jurors,’ Cantorna said. ‘It is one of the craziest murder cases you’ll ever see and I hope to God to never see another one like it again.’
Cantorna added that in the story of the murder plot, Ron Bettig should not be forgotten.
‘I got to know him through his writings, his brother and his daughter,’ Cantorna said. ‘He marched to a different drummer but he was a brilliant man and a man before his time. He was writing books about the media and that you need to have a critical eye and ear for the source of information because everyone has an agenda. He was writing this 10 and 15 years ago. He was very critical of social media and cell phones. If he were alive he would be talking about what we’re seeing in our society today.
‘He had years to live and he is gone all too soon.’
