The latest, and widely publicized, case the Englert Forensic team worked on came in the form of an officer-involved murder in Florida. Englert Forensics traveled to Broward County Florida to testify in the murder trial for the slain Broward County Sheriff Deputy Brian Tephford. Deputy Tephford was shot to death during a routine traffic stop at the Versailles Gardens apartment complex in Tamarac, Florida. Tephford was a six-year veteran of the Sheriff’s office and was working an off-duty detail for extra income. A second Deputy, Cory Carbocci was also injured, but he survived the attack.
The defendants, Bernard Forbes, 33, Andre Delancy, 31, and Eloyn Ingraham, 40, were arrested the day after the shooting. Prosecutor’s argued Ingraham was the passenger in a Toyota that had been pulled over by Deputy Tephford late on Nov. 11, 2006. Ingraham gave the deputy a fake name and called his co-defendants with his cell phone. Forbes and Delancy, who showed up with guns blazing, firing at Deputy Tephford and Deputy Carbocci. Carbocci, only survived his five gunshot wounds because he was wearing his bulletproof vest- Tephford was not. After the shooting, the three men fled from the scene, enlisting the help of Ingraham’s girlfriend and a neighbor who said he helped them drive away. Detectives caught up with the defendants the next day at a Dania Beach motel.
During the trial, Delancy’s lawyer, H. Dohn Williams, argued there was one shooter and that it was probably Forbes. Forbes’ lawyer, Hilliard Moldof, argued that Forbes was at worst guilty of helping the other two escape, but that he did not participate in the planning or the shooting. Eloyn Ingraham’s defense attorney argued that Ingraham wasn’t trying to avoid capture and had no reason to want Tephford dead. He gave a fake name because he was cheating on the mother of his son with the driver of the car that had been pulled over He claimed his phone call to Bernard Forbes was simply to complain that he was being pulled over, but he never expected them to shoot Tephford and Carbocci.
After examining all the physical evidence from the case, and visiting the scene of the incident, Rod Englert testified for the prosecution and was able to help persuade the jury that there was, in fact, more than one shooter. Englert’s forensic team conducted a reconstruction of the events, which included repositioning the Deputy’s actual patrol cars and placing shell casings where they were photographed after the murder. The team ran timing drills and trajectory analysis of the bullets, which conclusively proved there were multiple shooters that day.
With the help of Englert’s expert testimony that both Delancy and Forbes both participated in the deadly shooting, the jury was convinced of the defendant’s guilt. In March 2018, nine months after the trial began, the jury convicted the three men of first-degree murder. These same jurors later returned to court to consider whether the men each deserve the death penalty for their actions.
On Monday, July 15th, 2018, more than a year after opening statements in their trial, the jury reconvened and failed to sentence the three defendants to death. Their lives were spared; however, all three men were sentenced to life in prison for Tephford’s murder. They were also sentenced to 30 years in prison for conspiracy to commit murder and attempted murder for the wounding of Deputy Carbocci. The men will get twelve years’ time served for the time they have spent behind bars thus far.
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