The trial of Roger Bentley Thursday included graphic testimony from officers who investigated the disappearance of Jetseta Gage last March. Sergeant Michael Scheetz of the Johnson County Sheriff’s Department described a photo of the ten-year-old girl that was entered into evidence, showing where she was found inside an abandoned mobile home in Johnson County. He says she was, “Stuffed underneath the sink with her legs bound in white tape and with a bag that had been placed over her head and also taped.”
Prosecutors from Johnson County say Roger Bentley kidnapped the child from her home, raped her, and suffocated her in the trailer house on the remote lot. Defense attorneys say nobody saw him take the child, and nobody saw her being killed. A woman who heard an Amber Alert on the radio that day took the stand Thursday and said she was going through her daily routine with her boyfriend when she heard a mention of Roger Bentley.
Robin Walker says that gave her a “bad feeling.” “I told him ‘it’s Roger,’ and he goes ‘Roger who?’ and I said ‘the Roger we know,” and he said ‘it can’t be,’ and we were just horrified.” The jury heard the tape of Walker’s call to the 9-1-1 dispatcher. She’s heard to say “We know Roger Bentley, really well, and I’m negotiating to purchase some land in Johnson County and we took him down to that land a couple days ago, and there is a trailer there that they could get into.”
On the 9-1-1 recording, Walker says she has permission to be on the land and she gives permission to deputies to go onto the property and search it. When they went there, they charge that officers found Roger Bentley, wearing blood-spattered clothing — and a police dog found the body of Jetseta gage, tied up and stuffed into a cabinet.