SCRANTON -- The prosecution has rested in the murder trial of Neil Pal, and first on the stand for the defense was Neil Pal himself.
He told the Lackawanna County jury he had no idea Frank Bonacci was going to be shot.
Scranton Police zeroed in on Neil Pal as one if the suspects for Frank Bonacci's murder and then went to pick him up for a final interview only hours after Pal left Bonacci's viewing last July.
Detective James Pappas testified that Pal was confident when he came in to the interview room wearing a suit from the viewing with an orange ribbon on his lapel. The color orange covered Lackawanna County when Frank Bonacci was missing and shortly after his death.
But Pal told police, "I'm sick of the whole Frankie thing. I'm upset that I lost one of my best friends. I'm more upset everyone thinks I had something to do with it."
Pal and his friend Jason Dominick were charged with Bonacci's murder the next morning.
The prosecution rested and then Neil Pal himself took the stand. He testified about how he remembers the party at his house the night before Bonacci's murder.
Pal testified that Dominick threatened to fight Bonacci. That's what Pal said he had in mind when he started driving Bonacci's Jeep toward Step Falls in Scranton.
With a calm voice and a straight face on the stand, Pal testified that he was shocked when Dominick shot Bonacci from behind.
Then he said, "put yourself in a haunted house and the guy with the chainsaw is behind you. Multiply that feeling, multiply it by a million."