FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. – The first Broward Sheriff's Office deputy who arrived at the scene of a 2006 shooting that left a fellow deputy dead testified Thursday against three men who are charged with murder.
One of the suspect's girlfriends who was inside a vehicle with her boyfriend during the traffic stop and shooting also testified, saying that she heard gunshots, but did not see who shot Deputy Brian Tephford.
"I heard the shots, so I looked back and then I turned around and just started screaming and put my head down," Shante Spencer said.
Spencer said Eloyn Ingraham, 28, was on his cellphone in the seconds before Tephford and Deputy Corey Carbocci were ambushed.
She said she didn't know what he was saying on the phone because he was speaking Patwa.
Broward County State Attorney Michael Satz told jurors that Ingraham called Bernard Forbes, 31, and Andre Delancy, 29, during the traffic stop.
Ingraham's attorney, however, said evidence will show that while Ingraham was in the car with Spencer, he couldn't have taken part in the shooting.
"Did Mr. Ingraham ever say anything when the shots were fired?" the attorney asked.
"I don't recall," Spencer said.
Earlier in the day, jurors heard from a deputy who was called to the scene outside an apartment complex in Tamarac.
The deputy found Tephford dead inside his patrol car and Carbocci bleeding on the ground.
"I was trying to look at him and where his gunshots were and what needed pressure on it," Lt. Rodney Brimlow said. "He was unresponsive to me. So I pulled him out of the car and started doing CPR on him."
The trial is expected to last three to six months.
All three defendants face the death penalty if they are convicted.