By James Prichard

Associated Press

The last time somebody was executed in Michigan was in 1938, after a botched bank robbery resulted in the shooting death of an innocent bystander.

Now federal prosecutors are seeking the death penalty for a man charged with killing a young, single mother who had accused him of raping her.

Michigan outlawed capital punishment in 1846, just nine years after achieving statehood, for all crimes except treason against the state. But certain federal crimes are punishable by death regardless of the state in which they occur.

To that end, the U.S. attorney's office in Grand Rapids wants the death penalty for Marvin Charles Gabrion II, formerly of Altona.

Gabrion, now 48, has been charged with murder on federal property in the drowning of 19-year-old Rachel Timmerman, who had accused him of raping her in August 1996.

She and her 11-month-old daughter, Shannon VerHage, disappeared June 3, 1997, two days before Timmerman was to testify against Gabrion, who was free on bond awaiting trial.

Federal prosecutors say the young woman, who lived with her father and her baby near Cedar Springs, was alive when she was gagged with tape, bound with handcuffs and chains anchored by cinder blocks, and dropped into the mucky, shallow waters of Oxford Lake in west-central Michigan.

Her body was found on July 5, 1997. There was no sign of her child.

Gabrion is being prosecuted federally because the 20-acre lake is U.S. government-owned property and the U.S. attorney's office alleges that the killing happened on the lake. It lies entirely within the Manistee National Forest near Woodville in northeastern Newaygo County, U.S. Forest Service officials say.

There was a time when Rachel's father, Tim Timmerman, didn't have much of an opinion about the death penalty. But that was before his daughter was slain and his granddaughter vanished without a trace.

``This entire case has changed my opinion, and now I support it,'' he says. ``I'm so proud to be an American, and I'm grateful that America's laws correspond with God's laws.''

Jury selection in Gabrion's trial in the U.S. District Court in Grand Rapids began Monday. Chief Judge Robert Holmes Bell will preside.

A partial gag order has been issued in the case, so federal prosecutors, defense lawyers, representatives of the Michigan State Police and the Newaygo County Sheriff's Department all declined to be interviewed.

Though Gabrion has not been charged with regard to Shannon, prosecutors say in the death-penalty notice filed with the court that they believe he's responsible for her death or disappearance.

Police agencies have also linked him to the disappearances of three men who are presumed dead, though he has not been charged in those cases, either.

Elaine Gabrion, 75, of White Cloud, says she believes her son had nothing to do with Rachel Timmerman's death or Shannon's disappearance.

``I do know that Marvin would never hurt a baby. He loves children, that's one thing,'' she says. ``He used to accept my other boys' children for his -- take them fishing, go to the library and get books for them to read and get tapes for them to hear so they can learn better at school.''

But Tim Timmerman says the authorities arrested and charged the right person in the crime.

Twelve states, including Michigan and the District of Columbia, do not have the death penalty for murder or lesser crimes.

Michigan State University researchers say Michigan was the first government in the English-speaking world to virtually eliminate capital punishment.

Marvin Gabrion, now serving a five-year prison sentence for Social Security fraud, is believed to be the first person ever charged with a capital offense in the Western District of Michigan federal court system. The system serves the Upper Peninsula and the western half of the Lower Peninsula.

Only a handful of people have faced a death-penalty charge in the Eastern District of Michigan. One, 38-year-old Anthony Chebatoris of Hamtramck, was successfully tried and executed.

Chebatoris was hanged on July 8, 1938, at the Federal Correctional Institution in Milan. A federal jury had convicted him of shooting and killing a man during a failed bank robbery in Midland.

All federal executions are now held at the U.S. Penitentiary in Terre Haute, Indiana.

Peter J. Henning, an associate professor of law at Wayne State University Law School in Detroit, says in order for the U.S. attorney's office to get the conviction and sentence it wants, prosecutors will have to prove that the killing took place on federal property.

``They're going to have to establish federal jurisdiction,'' says Henning, a former federal prosecutor with the U.S. Department of Justice. ``If they don't, the case is out. He could say, `I killed her,' but if they don't prove it was on federal land, he's then turned over to the state prosecutors.''

Uppermost on Tim Timmerman's mind at the trial will be any word of Shannon's fate. Not knowing what happened to the child has eaten away at the family for more than four years.

``It's simply a big question mark,'' he says.

The 45-year-old electrician says he clearly remembers that June 3 day when he last saw his daughter and granddaughter. Though other witnesses claimed to have seen the woman at a party the following weekend, he calls himself ``the last reliable person to see them alive.''

He was sitting outside their home as his daughter was leaving with the baby.