Upper Darby man guilty of killing cab driver

After deliberating for more than 18 hours, a Delaware County jury reached a guilty verdict in the trial of an Upper Darby man accused in the Christmas Eve 2007 killing of a cab driver.

Ramir Steve, 19, was found guilty of first-degree murder in the shooting of Gregory Cunningham. The body of the 42-year-old Clifton Heights man was found in a walkway between two buildings of the Park Lane East Apartments in Upper Darby, hours after he was dispatched to the 7400 block of Rogers Avenue, where Steve lived.

A cab-company dispatcher testified that a man - not Cunningham - had answered the driver's radio call and said Cunningham would not be going to pick up his next fare.

"I shot the [cabdriver], and he is dead," she recalled the man saying.

The jury will reconvene Wednesday to begin the penalty-phase portion of the death penalty trial.