Updated at 4:18 p.m.
MIDDLEBURY — A Brandon man wanted on a first-degree murder charge in Delaware was arrested Thursday night during a traffic stop in Leicester.
Trent Reilly Ingalls, 20, appeared Friday afternoon in Addison County Superior criminal court in Middlebury via video from Marble Valley Regional Correctional Facility in Rutland.
He had been arrested hours earlier on a fugitive from justice charge and Friday’s hearing began the process of his return to Delaware to face the murder charge, as well as a charge of possessing a firearm during the commission of a felony, according to court filings.
James Gratton, a defense attorney representing Ingalls, told Judge David Fenster that his client intended to waive extradition and agreed to be returned to Delaware to face the charges.
However, Fenster said paperwork needed to be signed in person before the judge, so he set a hearing for Monday where Ingalls can formally waive extradition to Delaware in person in court.
In the meantime, the judge said, Ingalls would be held without bail.
Ingalls was arrested Thursday at about 8:50 p.m. when state troopers conducted a traffic stop after seeing a motor vehicle violation near the intersection of Route 7 and Fern Lake Road in Leicester, according to a state police press release.
According to an affidavit filed by Trooper Taylor Demick and made public Friday, the right passenger brake light was out in Ingalls car, and Demick stopped the vehicle.
According to the affidavit, Ingalls told the trooper he was traveling from a friend’s house in Middlebury to his residence in Brandon.
The trooper wrote that inside the vehicle he could see a large glass bong, and as he spoke to Ingalls noticed his eyes were watery and bloodshot. The trooper asked Ingalls to perform field sobriety tests and he agreed, according to the affidavit.
During that screening, another trooper told Demick of a possible arrest warrant for Ingalls, the affidavit stated.
Based on his observation of Ingalls and results of the testing, Demick did not arrest Ingalls for driving under the influence, according to the affidavit. However, dispatchers had confirmed that a warrant had been issued from Georgetown, Delaware, for Ingalls’ arrest on the murder and weapons charges and Ingalls was taken into custody, Demick wrote in the affidavit.
According to an indictment out of Sussex County, Delaware, Ingalls and another person “did intentionally cause the death of Carl Pedone” on Oct. 11, 2022. Pedone’s death occurred while Ingalls and the other person were “engaged in the commission of a burglary,” the indictment states.
According to Delaware Online, just before midnight Oct. 11 in a residence in Seaford, Delaware, Pedone was shot multiple times in the torso and a 19-year-old woman was shot once in a “lower extremity,” police said. Pedone was pronounced dead at a hospital, the news outlet reported, while the woman was treated and released.
Delaware Online reported that investigators found that several suspects forced their way in through a back door and went directly to Pedone’s bedroom, according to Delaware State Police; they brandished handguns and “demanded an unknown item” before shooting the man and woman.
