Teacher:In this task, you are given a text of many news articles seperated by special token "|||||". Your task is to summarize them.
Teacher: Now, understand the problem? Solve this instance: BELLEFONTE -- A popular Penn State professor died slowly after being pushed from a rock quarry ledge, possibly remaining alive and immobile for days, according to testimony heard Wednesday in Centre County Court. 
  
 That testimony from a state police investigator also revealed more details about what police say was an attempt on the life of Penn State associate professor Ronald Bettig that occurred a few days before he fell from the quarry ledge. It also hinted at a romantic relationship between his two alleged killers -- 32-year-old Danelle Geier and 39-year-old George Ishler Jr. -- whom police say are related as niece and uncle. 
  
 Grier on Wednesday waived her preliminary hearing on the charges against her. The testimony came during a preliminary hearing for Ishler. When it ended, counts of murder and related offenses were bound over for trial in county court. 
  
 The lead investigator in the case, state Trooper Brian Wakefield, said Geier and Ishler killed Bettig because they thought they stood to inherit money from him. They had tried and failed to drown him on a trip the trio took to Rehoboth Beach in Delaware on Aug. 10. 
  
 "When they were in Delaware, [Ishler] stated that he did dunk Bettig while in the ocean, but that he felt he couldn't do it [hold him under] and didn't continue," Wakefield said. 
  
 Wakefield added: "[Ishler] stated he was to dunk Bettig and Danelle was to wrap her legs around him to hold Bettig down under water." 
  
 According to the trooper, the trio returned to the State College area on Aug. 12, and went directly to the Blackhawk Quarry in Potter Township, luring Bettig with the promise of a marijuana harvest. It was there that Wakefield said Bettig was pushed from an 80-foot ledge. Police believe Ishler pushed him, while Geier waited in the car with her toddler son. 
  
 It took five days for Bettig's body to be discovered. But Wakefield said a pathologist believes he may have remained alive for up to two days, immobile and possibly unconscious. A medical examiner has ruled the cause of death "blunt force trauma due to a fall." 
  
 Wakefield said Bettig was likely still alive then when Geier and Ishler returned to the scene eight hours later to plant Bettig's belongings and vehicle there. They had hoped to make it look as though Bettig had been there on his own and accidentally fallen, Wakefield added. 
  
 Police say investigators first found the professor's car at the quarry days after he and the vehicle were first reported missing. His body was found soon after, with buzzards hovering above it. 
  
 Police say it was Geier and Ishler who filed the missing persons report days after their return from Delaware. 
  
 According to Wakefield, they went from concerned friends to prime suspects after someone reported seeing a woman matching Geier's description at the quarry on that date. 
  
 Geier and Ishler were arrested and charged. Police say they confessed in conversations with law enforcement. 
  
 In an informal conversation with a trooper after his arrest, Ishler claimed that while he had carried out the murder, Geier was the driving force, Wakefield said. Wakefield said Ishler told the female trooper that Geier's sway over him derived from the "power of [a female private part]." 
  
 Bettig had befriended Geier and Ishler months before his death, and she had moved into his home in Lemont with her child at the beginning of the year. Since then, there have been conflicting reports of Bettig's romantic involvement with Geier, and Ishler's romantic involvement with her. 
  
 More consistent are the reports of an increasingly fraught relationship among the three of them in the days and weeks leading up to his death. 
  
 On Wednesday, Wakefield said Geier told him that she and Ishler had grown to resent the professor's sharp tongue and criticisms of them and Geier's child-rearing habits. 
  
 "She said she was upset because Bettig criticized the way she raised her child and was belittling Ishler, saying there were many things she had had enough of." 
  
 But while it may have been personal for Geier, police say Ishler told them that he sought to claim an inheritance from the media studies professor. He said Bettig had recently updated his will to include them. 
  
 Wakefield said officials found such a handwritten document in Ishler's home. But the trooper said it's not clear if Bettig's signature on the item is valid, while the rest of the note was admittedly penned by Ishler. 
  
 Ishler's defense questioned the proof behind such claims in Wednesday's hearing, saying the investigation of this case is far from finished. 
  
 They also argued that some law enforcement claims against their client, or about the things he's alleged to have said while in their presence, lack documentation. ||||| Starting in 1996, Alexa Internet has been donating their crawl data to the Internet Archive. Flowing in every day, these data are added to the Wayback Machine after an embargo period. |||||
Student:
Penn State professor Ronald Bettig may have taken as long as two days to die after he was pushed from a ledge and fell 80 feet to the bottom of a quarry, a court heard Wednesday. The lead investigator on the case testified that a pathologist believes the 56-year-old professor died slowly and was probably immobilized by the fall, PennLive reports. State Trooper Brian Wakefield was testifying at the preliminary hearing of 39-year-old George Ishler Jr., who is accused of pushing Bettig into the quarry on Aug. 12. Wakefield said Bettig was probably still alive eight hours later, when Ishler and alleged accomplice Danelle Geier, 32, returned to plant his possessions and vehicle at the scene to make it look like an accident. His body was found Aug. 17, with buzzards circling over it. Wakefield testified that Bettig had been romantically involved with Geier, who had moved into his home along with her infant son, reports the Centre Daily Times. But there was tension between Bettig, Geier, and Ishler, who was described as a friend of Bettig who was also romantically involved with Geier—despite being her uncle. Wakefield testified Geier told him that in the weeks leading up to the killing "she was upset because the professor criticized the way she raised her child and was belittling Ishler." He testified that Ishler told police the killing was to claim an inheritance from the professor and that on Aug. 10, they had planned to drown him during a beach visit and make it look like an accident but found that they couldn't go through with it.