<p>A plot to kill DeKalb County Sheriff-Elect Derwin Brown included weekly meetings where a group of men watched for the newly elected official to return home _ and an opportunity to kill him, the confessed getaway driver testified Wednesday.</p><p>Paul Skyers, who says he drove away from the crime scene and is testifying for the prosecution in the federal case against the accused triggerman and backup shooter in Brown's death, outlined their plan.</p><p>Brown was killed on Dec. 15, 2000, after returning from a party following the completion of his sheriff's training and three days before he was to take office. Two years later, former DeKalb Sheriff Sidney Dorsey was found guilty of orchestrating Brown's murder and is serving a life sentence.</p><p>Former sheriff's deputy Melvin Walker and David Ramsey are being tried in federal court for allegedly being the triggerman and backup shooter in Brown's death.</p><p>Walker and Ramsey face 12 federal charges, including conspiracy to violate the federal murder-for-hire statute, firearms crimes, and using interstate facilities to kill Brown on the orders of Dorsey, whom Brown defeated in a primary runoff four months before.</p><p>Dorsey is the only person implicated who was convicted in Brown's death. Walker and Ramsey were acquitted in March 2002 on state charges. Former sheriff's deputy Patrick Cuffy and Skyers _ labeled by prosecutors as the armed lookout and getaway driver _ testified against Walker in state court under an immunity deal and are expected to testify again in the federal trial.</p><p>Skyers said Cuffy, a man he considered to be like a brother, handed him a piece of paper. "A note was shown to me that said 'kill Derwin Brown,'" Skyers said. "I asked 'Is this coming from the man?'" he recalled, referring to Dorsey. Cuffey answered that it was, Skyers testified.</p><p>"My reaction was, "OK, time to do some homework."</p><p>Skyers said he was promised a job as a deputy in exchange for his involvement. He also supplied the semiautomatic gun used in the shooting, a Tec-9 dropped from someone he had chased away while working private security. He and the others met weekly to stake out Brown, Skyers said.</p><p>Earlier Wednesday, Phyllis Brown took the stand and recounted the night her husband was gunned down in their driveway.</p><p>Phyllis Brown, who had a stroke after her husband's shooting, struggled to answer the lawyers' questions, limiting her responses to single words. She indicted the stroke had not affected her memories, just her ability to articulate them.</p><p>She said she believed from the night of the killing that Dorsey was involved.</p><p>She said when she first heard the gunfire outside her home, she dove to the floor, not realizing her husband had just returned home and was in the driveway.</p><p>When she ran outside and saw Brown on the ground, she knew he was dead.</p><p>Prosecutor Bobbi Bernstein asked her if she knew when she saw her husband whether he was dead.</p><p>"Yeah," Phillis Brown responded.</p><p>"You knew that he was dead?" Bernstein asked.</p><p>"Yeah," she replied, wiping tears away from her face.</p>
