The guy who murdered four people during a drugstore robbery in Medford, Long Island last Sunday, walked away, according to Newsday, with ten thousand addictive narcotic pain pills. I gathered from what I read that these pills are oxycodone, hydrocodone or substances related to them. In other words, they’re strong, highly addictive, narcotic pain killers that are popular among drug addicts and relatively expensive when purchased on the street by junkies.
Three days later, twenty Suffolk County police gathered outside a house, burst in and captured a suspect, David Laffer. They also arrested his wife, Melina Brady. Laffer had facial injuries when police brought him out of the house. Police said he resisted arrest. The crime was so heinous that if I were one of those cops, I would have prayed that he resisted arrest, so it’s probably good that I’m not a cop. If they got the right people and it certainly looks like they did, then the Suffolk police force did an excellent job and deserves commendation.
News reports say Brady gave police useful information about the case. As she was being transported from police headquarters, she told reporters that Laffer did it for her and she was sorry. That certainly makes everything better, doesn’t it?
Let’s assume for a minute (and I don’t) that everything she said is true. Then her husband killed four people while robbing a drug store of so many addictive pain killers than the two of them couldn’t use all of them themselves. He did it for her and she threw him under the first bus that came along. More than they can use themselves is important here because depending on what ten thousand stolen pills were and how strong, they could have what cops like to call a “street value” of over $100,000!
Who knew you could rob a drugstore of that much money? Junkies!
Why would someone gun down four innocent people when they didn’t even resist the robbery attempt? That’s a question I can’t answer. It certainly didn’t help the apparent murderer evade capture. In fact, four murders made tracking him down a much higher priority, and probably made nailing the guy happen a lot faster than it might have been if he’d stopped at robbery.