David Laffer's wife: I'm sorry

His wife said David Laffer killed four people in cold blood, robbing a local Medford drugstore because he'd lost his job -- due to her health problems.

As he was led in handcuffs to his arraignment on murder charges Thursday, Laffer asked reporters: "What did she say?"

Earlier, his wife, Melinda Brady, 29, also in police custody, told reporters "he did it," and, "he was doing it because he lost his job and because I was sick."

Laffer was remanded to jail after pleading not guilty to first-degree murder, charged by prosecutors with gunning down four inside the Haven Drugs pharmacy Sunday in Medford.

Meanwhile, Brady was being treated for an unspecified medical issue at St. Catherine of Siena Hospital in Smithtown, Suffolk police Commissioner Richard Dormer said in a news conference.

She has been charged with third-degree robbery.

Police said she drove her husband to and from the scene.

A disheveled Brady told reporters that her husband was responsible for the brutal murders inside the drugstore.

"I'm sorry he did all this," Brady said as she was taken, in handcuffs, from Suffolk County police headquarters in Yaphank. Then, she mumbled: "He was doing it because ... he lost his job over my health."

She denied to reporters that she was addicted to drugs.

In a tremulous voice, squinting as she sat in the back of a police car, Brady then said: "He did it ... He did all of it."

An employee of another Medford pharmacy who usually works on Sundays at Haven said he recognized Brady as a regular painkiller customer at the other pharmacy, whose name he would not disclose.

Edmund Tam, of Farmingville, said Brady would come in about once a month and make small talk, and there was nothing to indicate she was an addict.

"It's just making me sick that she was a customer of ours," said Tam, who didn't work Sunday at Haven because he took it off to celebrate Father's Day.

A law enforcement source told Newsday that Brady, 29, drove her husband to the drugstore not far from their home in Medford. Police said he methodically gunned down the pharmacist, a 17-year-old clerk and two customers before stealing a container of more than 10,000 hydrocodone pills and loading it into a backpack -- then calmly walked out.

Led from police headquarters overnight, Brady was besieged by reporters. Here's how she responded to those questions early Thursday:

"Are you addicted to drugs?" a reporter asked.

"No," Brady said.

Another asked, "Melinda, why do you think David did it?"

"Because ... he was doing it because ... it may be because he lost his job over my health."

"What do you have to say to the families?" a reporter asked.

"That I'm sorry he did all of this," she replied.

Another reporter said, "Did you drive the getaway car?"

"What?" she said.

"Did you drive the car away from the scene? Did you help him? Did you help him at all? Did you drive the car?"

"Who keeps talking to me? Can you stop ... I can't see ... for a second?" Brady said. "So I can see who is talking to me?"

"Were you there when he did it?" a reporter asked.

"He did it ... on ... He did all of it," she said.

"Did you give him away?" a reporter said.

"Can you stop doing that to me?" Brady said.

The shootings are the worst mass murder on Long Island since Colin Ferguson opened fire on a Long Island Rail Road train in 1993 killing six and wounding several others. They are the worst in Suffolk County since 1974, when Ronald DeFeo gunned down six relatives inside their house in Amityville, a crime that became known as "The Amityville Horror."

On a web posting on a site called liweddings.com, Brady once posted a message that said she was taking three different kinds of medications for pain following dental surgery.

She wrote: "I only take it if I really have to. I really hate taking them."

In another posting, she wrote of conflicts with Laffer -- then, her fiance.

With Jessica Kelley and Leora Arnowitz