Worth County murder conviction upheld by Georgia Supreme Court

ATLANTA — Among the murder convictions upheld Monday by the Georgia Supreme Court was one connected to a 2007 Worth County case.

Following a jury trial, Christopher Szorcsik was found guilty of malice murder, felony murder and aggravated assault in connection to the stabbing death of his stepfather, Richard Bentley, 33. On appeal, Szorcsik contended that the evidence presented at trial was insufficient to support the verdict, that the trial court erred in denying his motion to suppress certain statements that he made to police, that the trial court committed plain error by failing to instruct the jury on the rule of sequestration and voluntary manslaughter, and that his trial attorneys were ineffective for failing to request a jury charge on voluntary manslaughter.

The appeal was docketed in the court for the term that began in December.

On May 31, 2007, Szorcsik was indicted for malice murder, felony murder predicated on aggravated assault and aggravated assault. Following a Feb. 24-26, 2009 jury trial, Szorcsik was found guilty on all counts. On March 13, 2009, the trial court entered its Feb. 26, 2009 order sentencing Szorcsik to life imprisonment for malice murder and merging the aggravated assault count into the malice murder count for sentencing purposes, court documents said.

In this same order, the trial court also purported to merge the felony murder count with the malice murder count for purposes of sentencing, but the felony murder count was actually “vacated by operation of law” rather than “merged” with the malice murder count.

Court documents said that evidence revealed at trial showed that, on March 4, 2007, Szorcsik, then 21, was at home in a mobile home subdivision on Spring Flats Road near Sylvester with his mother, Charlene Bentley, 40, and Richard Bentley. After the mother smoked illegal drugs, she got into a physical altercation with the stepfather. Szorcsik got involved, and the mother jumped up and grabbed the stepfather — causing them both to fall to the ground.

After the pair fell, Szorcsik grabbed several knives and stabbed Richard Bentley. Evidence revealed the victim was stabbed in a “juking” motion, and that there were so many wounds that the state’s medical examiner found it difficult to count the total number of wounds to the torso and back.

In the process of stabbing the victim, Szorcsik cut his own hand, requiring him to seek medical treatment. Before seeking such treatment, Szorcsik and Charlene Bentley wrapped Richard Bentley’s body in blankets and hid it under the back porch of their home. Szorcsik and his mother called her ex-husband, Jimmie Earl Miller, and Charlene Bentley met with Miller at a Waffle House restaurant to ask him to help dispose of Richard Bentley’s body.

Miller agreed, and he and a friend named Matt Freeman assisted in digging the grave in the woods where the body was buried. Freeman overheard Charlene Bentley “laughing” as she told Miller about how she and Szorcsik had killed Bentley, the court document goes on to say.

Charlene Bentley purchased cleaning supplies and tried to clean up her home to cover the killing, but police smelled the odor of cleaning chemicals when they came to the scene a few days afterward to do a welfare check on Richard Bentley, and they found traces of blood in the home. On March 12, 2007, police took Szorcsik into custody along with his mother.

Szorcsik had indicated he did not want to speak to authorities at the time of his arrest. He re-initiated contact on his own four days later, saying he wanted to speak to then-Worth County Sheriff Freddie Tompkins. The sheriff did not ask him any questions, and Szorcsik said he wanted to take law enforcement to the area where the body was buried. The gravesite was found later that same day, the court documents said.

The court said Szorcsik told police he stabbed Bentley in self-defense, an argument he maintained at his 2009 trial. Court officials said evidence was sufficient to enable a rational trier of fact to reject Szorcsik’s claim that he had been acting in self-defense at the time he killed Bentley, and the jury found him guilty of malice murder beyond a reasonable doubt.

Szorcsik also claimed that because the statements he made to police on March 16 and 17 concerning the whereabouts of the body and that he had acted in self-defense were made after he had already invoked his right to counsel, the trial court erred by allowing the statements to be admitted as evidence — an argument the state Supreme Court disagreed with.

The high court also found no error in the trial court’s failure to give a jury charge on the rule of sequestration. They also found Szorcsik was incorrect in his contention that his trial attorneys were ineffective for failing to request a jury charge on voluntary manslaughter.

Jennifer Parks