Neighbor describes how he helped murder suspects

The neighbor who prosecutors say helped three men flee the scene of the murder of a Broward Sheriff’s deputy in 2006 took the stand Thursday to tell the jury what he saw and heard that night.

Roger Del Prado said he heard loud popping noises near his unit at theVersailles Gardens apartment complex late onNov.11, 2006, but he didn’t know what they were. A few minutes later, Del Prado said he was approached by aman he knew as “Bossy,” who was sweating, nervous and in need of help.

“He said, ‘I need a ride,’ ” Del Prado recalled. He identified Eloyn Ingraham as “Bossy,” the same man other witnesses said was in the passenger seat of a Toyota that had, minutes earlier, been pulled over by Deputy Brian Tephford. Tephford waskilled inanambushduring that traffic stop, and another deputy, Corey Carbocci, was injured.

Del Prado also identified two men who hurriedly packed some belongings into his Geo Metro and fled the scene with Ingraham. The two men, he said, were co-defendants Andre Delancy and Bernard Forbes.

Del Prado’s testimony is the first from an eyewitness placing Forbes and Delancy in Versailles Gardens the night Tephford was killed. As the three men left the complex in Del Prado’s car, with Del Prado in the driver’s seat, other deputies began searching for the shooters.

Key parts of Del Prado’s testimony are not in dispute. Defense lawyers for the three man have all indicated that their clientswere in Del Prado’s car. But other testimony is sure to come under fire when Ingraham’s lawyers cross examine Del Prado on Friday.

Del Prado said that while the three men were in the car, Ingraham seemed agitated. When an undercover patrol car activated its lights behind the Geo, Del Prado said Ingraham told him not to stop.

“Just keep going. These crackers are going to kill us,” Ingraham said, according to Del Prado. Then Ingraham pulled a gun out of a towel he was carrying and positioned himself to shoot at pursuing police, Del Prado said.

That turned out to be all Del Prado wanted to be a part of, he said. He slowed the car down, opened the door and jumped out.

“I just looked back, saw [Ingraham] jumpinthe driver’s seat and take off,” said Del Prado.

Del Prado conceded to defense lawyer H. Dohn Williams that Delancy said nothing in the short time they were together that night, and defense lawyer Hilliard Moldof was in the middle of his cross examination when Broward Circuit Judge Paul Backman dismissed jurors for the day and instructed them to return Fridaymorning.

Thethreedefendantsface the death penalty if convicted ofTephford’s murder.

rolmeda@SunSentinel.com, 954-356-4457, Twitter @SSCourts and@rolmeda