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Defendant In Craigslist Murder Trial Tells Jurors He Didn't Do It, But He Knows Who Did

By Steve Tawa

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- The defendant accused of shooting and killing a man two years ago in the West Oak Lane section, when the victim responded to a Craigslist ad for an all terrain vehicle says he didn't do it. But he knows who did.

He took the stand in his own defense.

Twenty-five-year-old Thomas Coffee spent 90 minutes telling jurors he only 'marketed' the Craigslist ad for an ATV, for a guy he knew as Stead, short for Winstead - and that Stead killed the victim - Daniel Cook.

Coffee also denies the armed robberies of two other people who responded Craigslist ads, and a teenager in the days leading up to the murder.

A dubious Assistant D.A. Guy D'Andrea said after the testimony that Stead was a "fictional character," and Coffee "was lying through his teeth." He says investigators traced more than 500 text messages and phone calls to and from Coffee just before and after the murder, and never came upon that name.

D'Andrea also notes that a .40 caliber gun from one of the robbery victims was used in the murder, and investigators recovered a matching .40 caliber round and another robbery victim's cellphone in Coffee's Abington home.

Judge Glenn Bronson earlier allowed fired former homicide detective Ron Dove to testify. Dove was the 'assigned detective,' the lead investigator in the Cook murder. But the defense wasn't allowed to bring up unrelated obstruction of justice and misconduct charges pending against the ex-cop. The judge told defense attorney Evan Hughes he was "trying to dirty him up," by "creating an inference to jurors" that Dove may have obstructed justice in this case. The judge added, "there's not one scintilla of evidence of that."

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