“Reeling from a senseless act of violence”, Ellis Henican Column, Newsday, June 16, 2011
He did it for love and addiction. That’s what investigators seem to be saying now.
They’re saying that David Laffer robbed Haven Drugs in Medford, stuffing 10,000 hydrocodone pills in his knapsack and taking four innocent lives, to feed his wife’s powerful painkiller habit.
And who knows? That could well be part of the truth – but probably only part of it. Crimes this brutal are seldom easily explained.
Melinda Brady wasn’t in the drugstore when the shots were fired. No one is claiming that. But she is accused of driving her 33-year-old Army-vet husband to and from the massacre scene – and providing a motivation for the brutal crime.
Her husband hasn’t spoken. But she doesn’t seem to disagree. He “did all of this,” she said at the Fourth Precinct. “He was doing it because he lost his job and because I was sick.”
But how could anyone kill four people so coldly? Was the plan, as the wife has said, to rob but not to kill? Couldn’t Laffer have gotten the drugs with far less brutality? Did his Army training somehow prepare him? Did his civilian struggles push him over the edge? Would the results have been less bloody without that licensed .45? And how much does his wife’s need for painkillers explain? Is the Medford massacre yet another failure in America’s failed war on drugs?
It’ll take months or years to answer all those questions, if they are ever answered at all. Even if police are correct in their earliest working assumptions, really all we know is this: A woman craved drugs. A man had a gun. And four innocent people are dead.
THE NEWS IN SONG:
Nickelback – “Just to Get High”
http://tinyurl.com/nickhigh
COLOMBO, R.I.P.
- “Oh, sir. Just one more thing.”
- “You try to contrive a perfect alibi, and it’s your perfect alibi that’s gonna hang ya.”
- “Well, it’s better than a gallstone. Did ya ever have a gallstone, ma’am?”
- “I gotta take off this coat. I can’t think in this coat.”
- “There are a couple of loose ends I’d like to tie up. Nothing important, you understand.”
ASKED AND UNANSWERED:
Storm Run-Off Closes 22 LI Beaches? Wait, beaches can’t handle water?…Love the alliteration, but how old will Amy Fisher have to be before people quit calling her the “Long Island Lolita”? Triple-L, now 36, is undergoing “Celebrity Rehab” on VH-1…Are two black eyes and a busted forehead the unofficial penalty for resisting arrest? Or does the brutality of the drugstore massacre moot that question entirely?…Gay marriage? When does gay divorce begin?…What’s scarier? That Montauk chiropractor David Harstein got sick right after cleaning out his basement? Or that people usually catch the deadly virus by breathing rodent-dropping fumes?…“Necessary Roughness” shrink Donna Dannenfelser got actress Callie Thorne. Who would you like to see playing YOU on a TV series?…Seniors banned from graduation and the prom for an off-campus water-balloon fight? How would East Rockaway superintendent Roseanne Melucci like being disciplined for HER harmless fun off the job?…How did Illich Jorquera come up with the $11-million figure? Why didn’t the jilted Carle Place contractor demand ten or 12 mil from his ex-, Carla Pimentel, for not leaving Guapo-the-schnauzer behind?… No one can doubt the historical significance (first auto-only roadway, ground broken 1908) of the old Vanderbilt Motor Parkway, but what exactly should be done with the property now? Fresh ideas, anyone?…Why, every time I think of Columbo, do I immediately think of former Newsday cop reporter Leonard Levitt? Same raincoat, I guess.
LONG ISLANDERS OF THE WEEK
THE MEDFORD VICTIMS
They are us: A high-school senior working part-time in a drug store. A local pharmacist. Two of their customers. From 17 to 71, the four who died at Haven Drugs did nothing at all to contribute to what happened to them. They were nice people, going about their normal business, when the right place met the wrong time. The names can never be repeated often enough: Jennifer Mejia. Raymond Ferguson. Bryon Sheffield. Jamie Taccetta. They are us.
E-mail ellis@henican.com.
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