Suspect Faces Murder Charge in Bridge Death

Martell Welch Jr. was ordered Friday to stand trial on an open murder charge in the death of a woman who was beaten on a bridge in front of dozens of witnesses and finally jumped to her death to escape.

City bus driver Harvey Mayberry testified at Welch’s hearing that he and 40 to 50 other people watched helplessly during the attack on the nearly nude woman, 33-year-old Deletha Word.

Mayberry said the attacker, apparently angry over a fender-bender, slammed Word’s head five or six times against the hood of her car and offered to sell her to the crowd for sex as a way to get money for repairs.

The open murder charge means that Welch, 19, could be convicted of first- or second-degree murder. First-degree murder carries a mandatory sentence of life in prison; second-degree murder is punishable by up to life in prison.

Police initially said spectators cheered and egged on the attack Aug. 19, but later said that wasn’t the case. Mayberry testified that some people yelled for Welch not to toss Word off the Belle Isle Bridge over the Detroit River.

Mayberry was one of three people who testified that they saw Welch beat Word, who had been stripped to her underpants. Investigators have said her clothes apparently were caught and torn off as she was pulled from her car.

Another witness, Tiffany Alexander, 23, of Detroit, said she was riding with friends when she saw Word’s and Welch’s cars speed past about 50 m.p.h.

Alexander said that when she and her friends caught up with the two cars on the bridge, the upper half of Word’s body was hanging out of her car door and Welch appeared to be hitting her.

Alexander said that one of her friends in the car had a cellular phone, but that nobody used it to call for help. She did not say why.