Sentence of 20-40 years for Pa. student’s death

Gearhart pleaded guilty to third-degree murder in the September 2007 killing.

READING, Pa. (AP) — A 24-year-old man who took part in the fatal beating of a university student in Pennsylvania Dutch country was sentenced Monday to 20 to 40 years in prison.

Timothy Gearhart, of Allentown, was one of three men charged with murder in the death of 19-year-old Kyle Quinn, a Kutztown University sophomore.

Quinn was attacked at random after the three men left a bar looking for someone to beat up, police said.

The Sept. 7, 2007, killing was Kutztown’s first homicide since 1982 and only the third since 1968, officials said.

“If we can’t be safe walking home in a place like Kutztown, then there’s no place one can feel safe,” Judge Paul Yatron said before handing down the sentence Monday morning.

Quinn, 19, was from the Philadelphia suburb of Warminster. More than 40 friends and family were in the courtroom and several of them read statements, which Yatron ordered Gearhart to bring to prison with him.

Quinn’s mother, Denise, said she still makes trips to the cemetery to convince herself her son is dead. “What he did to Kyle was cold-blooded and cruel,” she said. “No one deserves to die that way.”

Gearhart apologized to Quinn’s family.

“Please know that I’ve thought of your son every day and will every day of my life,” he said to Quinn’s parents. “I’m sorry to have put so many people through pain, but I’m not just sorry for Kyle’s family, I’m sorry for my family and friends as well.”

His public defender, Glenn D. Welsh, had been seeking a 10- to 20-year prison sentence for Gearhart.

Gearhart was initially charged with first-degree murder, but prosecutors agreed to drop the most serious count when he pleaded guilty Aug. 6 to third-degree murder. He admitted he struck Quinn in the head with a scrap of wood from a piece of furniture on Main Street a few blocks from campus.

Two Allentown brothers, Kenneth and Terry Kline, are charged with third-degree murder in the attack. Their trial is scheduled for November.

Prosecutors have said Gearhart has made no promises to testify against the brothers. Their attorney has denied the two took part in the beating.