Aubran Wayne Martin; Convicted in Union Slayings

Aubran Wayne Martin, 42, one of three people convicted of murder in the death of union leader Joseph A. (Jock) Yablonski and his family in 1969. Martin maintained that he only drove the getaway car the night United Mine Workers opposition leader Yablonski and his wife and daughter were killed in their Washington, Pa., home. He and two others were convicted of murder and given life terms. Six others convicted in the murder conspiracy served various sentences. Martin was functionally illiterate when he entered prison in 1971, but later obtained a degree from Pennsylvania State University. He also wrote “Caesar’s Gladiator Pit,” a book comparing life inside a maximum-security prison with Rome 2,000 years ago. In a Huntington, Pa., hospital, where he had been transferred from prison, on Sunday of stomach cancer.