The Broward Sheriff’s Office has identified the three men who drove into a lake while fleeing after allegedly burglarizing cars in a Deerfield Beach neighborhood on Tuesday.
Two of the men, Weekenley Felix, 22, and Ashly Rosier, 20, drowned in the lake. A third, Pledidson Jeansam Philibert, 21, was arrested after he escaped the submerged car and swam to land. He is now charged with five counts of burglary of unoccupied conveyance and three counts of conspiring to commit burglary of an unoccupied conveyance.
Felix and Rosier had troubled histories, court records show; in 2023, Felix was charged with attempting to murder his father. Philibert does not have prior publicly available cases in Broward or Palm Beach County.
Deputies had originally responded to a 911 call just before 4 a.m. about a group of people burglarizing unoccupied cars in a community near the 700 block of Emerald Way West, according to Carey Codd, a spokesperson for the Sheriff’s Office. When they arrived, the men fled in a white SUV. A few minutes after 4 a.m., a deputy reported that the car was in a canal, according to archived police radio recordings.
“The car is 40, 50 feet out in the middle of the canal and they just went down with the vehicle and are not coming back,” one deputy can be heard saying.
Codd did not say if BSO was actively pursuing the car when it drove into the water.
A deputy tried to enter the water to save the men, but did not succeed, according to the Sheriff’s Office. BSO’s Dive Team later pulled the car and the bodies of Felix and Rosier out of the water. Their investigation was focused on the portion of the lake near the 300 block of Deer Creek Lakeside Way, which culminates in a dead end.
Criminal histories
Both Felix and Rosier had criminal histories, records show.
Felix was previously charged with attempting to kill his father in Boynton Beach in 2023, according to a probable cause affidavit. The father, whose name was redacted from records, had kicked Felix out of the house because he didn’t want to “work or go to school,” the affidavit said. The two had an argument about this that led the father to call the police on Felix, who was 19 at the time. The next day, the father said he was riding his bicycle when he came across his son and two other people. He fell from his bike while trying to escape, at which point he looked back and witnessed his son shoot at him. He managed to get up and run away.
Felix was charged wtih attempted first-degree murder and later pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of felony battery as part of an agreement with prosecutors. He was released from jail with credit for time served.
Rosier also had a criminal history, records show, mostly related to burglary and trespassing. He had been arrested last month after Boynton Beach Police responded to a call about a burglary of an abandoned house, according to court records. He pleaded guilty to resisting an officer without violence on Jan. 5.
In 2023, he was also found guilty of burglarizing a woman’s home and stealing her car, according to court records.
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