WEST PALM BEACH — One week, Down South Customs owner Charles Seager was starting on a candy green custom paint job for a van belonging to one of his best customers, a guy he knew as “D.V.”

The next week, he was calling the Crimestoppers hotline, saying he believed he was working on the vehicle that had become the center of an investigation into the slayings of a family of four along Florida’s Turnpike.

A husband, wife and two children from Greenacres were found shot to death off turnpike in northern Port St. Lucie.

Seager testified Thursday in the federal death penalty trial surrounding the deaths of the Escobedo family, rarely looking at his former customer Danny Varela.

Varela’s attorney Robert Gershman drilled him on a number of changes in his story between the time he talked to investigators in 2006 and his testimony in court.

“Were you brought up to tell the truth?” Gershman asked.

“I was brought up to tell the truth, but I was also brought up to stay out of harm’s way,” Seager answered, adding that he had not told investigators some things he knew about Varela and others involved in the case because he didn’t want to be implicated in any crimes.

Varela is accused of heading up a drug ring for which Jose Luis Escobedo provided a cocaine connection. Escobedo, 28, had moved to Greenacres from Brownsville, Texas with his wife, Yessica, 25, and his sons Luis Julian, 4, and Luis Damian, 3, several months before the family was found executed south of Fort Pierce.

Two men, Ricardo Sanchez Jr. and Daniel Troya. face the death penalty if convicted on charges related to the killings. Varela and Liana Lee Lopez both face up to life in prison if convicted on related drug charges.

Jurors in the case on Thursday heard an audio recording of an interview after the killings between investigators and Sanchez, who said he hadn’t been on the turnpike “in a long time.” But a fingerprint expert testified that palm prints belonging to Sanchez and Troya were found on turnpike toll receipts on the night of the murders.

Prosecutors say the receipts are linked to video footage of the Escobedo family’s Jeep Cherokee, which entered the turnpike and exited after the killings, followed both times by a maroon conversion van.

Seager identified the van as the same one Varela had someone drop off at his shop.

Testimony in the case is expected to resume Monday. The trial could last up to three months.

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 29th, 2009 at 8:09 pm and is filed under Stuart. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.