Jurors at the trial of an ex-con accused of murdering two Brooklyn detectives might have seen a message from the grave yesterday in the form of one slain cop’s handcuffs.
The silver cuffs, bearing the late Detective Patrick Rafferty’s name on the side, were entered as evidence for the prosecution, along with a photo of them at the crime scene: the victims’ unmarked police car.
“Photo No. 16 shows the handcuffs on the front passenger side,” said NYPD crime-scene unit Detective Victoria Burton.
The manacles, which were inside the bloodstained vehicle, show Marlon Legere was aware the men he was shooting at in the car were cops, prosecutors noted.
“[Legere] meant to kill them,” said Assistant District Attorney Mitchell Benson in his opening statements Monday. “He intentionally killed two … police officers.”
Legere has admitted he shot the men, but said he thought he was being robbed.
The troubled ex-con was sitting in the driver’s seat of his mother’s 1987 blue Mazda, according to witness testimony, when he was approached by Detectives Robert Parker and Rafferty, who were not in uniform.
They were responding to a domestic-disturbance call placed by Legere’s mother.
But “[the evidence] in the car is consistent with a violent struggle,” said defense lawyer Wayne Bodden. “Our client wasn’t aware of their status as detectives.”
Jurors also saw other evidence collected from the car, including a shell casing, watch, Rafferty’s pay stub and Legere’s bag.
Also yesterday, a cab driver took the stand to recount how he chased the fleeing suspect.
Charles Brown, 52, was sitting in his car when he was startled to hear gunshots ring out.
He said he saw “a guy on the opposite side of where I’m parked … He was limping, going up the street.”
Legere, who was wounded when the dying Rafferty shot him in the foot and ankle, then yanked another livery driver out of his green van across the street, Brown said.
He leaped into action, grabbing his carjacked colleague and chasing the impromptu getaway car for a short distance, he said.
jennifer.fermino@nypost.com