Long Island Pharmacy Murderer’s Jewish Connection
With the arrest of a Long Island couple in this week’s horrific Medford pharmacy murders, an unfortunate Jewish connection has emerged.
Former Army private David Laffer, 33, was taken into custody yesterday in connection with the quadruple slayings at Haven Drugs on Sunday. His “pill-popping” wife, Melinda Brady, was also taken away in handcuffs, according to the NY Daily News.
Laffer and Brady married in an interfaith ceremony in 2009, which they shared in a Daily News wedding announcement. “Since he is Jewish and she is Christian, they had an interfaith ceremony that included traditions from both religions,” the paper reported.
“Melinda, 27, met David, 31, while they were out to dinner with mutual friends about four years ago. The two hit it off instantly and have been together ever since,” the announcement read. “On Nov. 22, 2006, while they were at an Islanders hockey game, David, who works in logistics shipping and receiving, proposed. To Melinda’s complete surprise, he had been planning the engagement for more than a year and his proposal was shown on the large TV screens in the arena.” The News photo reveals a happy-looking couple, the bride clutching a bouquet of roses.
Laffer’s life “began falling apart two weeks ago” when he was fired from his shipping-clerk job for stealing, the News reported. “That meant no more health insurance — and no more prescription pills.”
An uncle, Alan Laffer, once a senior salesman for painkiller maker Endo Pharmaceuticals, told the news he’d been out of touch for several years. “I love my nephew to death but I don’t see him very much,” he said. “It just totally stuns me.”
Laffer’s spree was “the worst mass shooting in Long Island since Dec. 7, 1993, when Colin Ferguson opened fire on a Long Island Rail Road train, killing six people and wounding 19,” according to Newsday.
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse..
Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
