Site of Medford slayings becomes a shrine

Young parents hugged small children close, couples held hands tightly and strangers wept quietly beside each another as they stopped to pay respects amid the more than 100 bunches of flowers, wreaths, burning candles and handwritten notes.

The storefront outside Haven Drugs in Medford has become a shrine to the memories of the four victims slain last Sunday.

On Saturday, dozens of people stopped by over the course of just one hour, compelled, many of them said, to see for themselves the scene where David Laffer is alleged to have slain pharmacist Raymond Ferguson, his 17-year-old assistant Jennifer Mejia, and customers Jaime Taccetta, 33, and Byron Sheffield, 71, before fleeing with a large quantity of painkillers in a car allegedly driven by his wife, Melinda Brady. Police say both Laffer and Brady were drug addicts.

And the question that echoed over and over from the lips of mostly everyone at the scene Saturday -- "why did he have to kill them?" -- is but one of several still unanswered.

"It's overwhelming," said Barbara Lindemann, 59, who teaches General Equivalency Diploma classes in the DWI facility of Yaphank jail and lives 10 minutes from the pharmacy. "It's just so senseless."

Pharmacy owner Vinoda Kudchadkar declined through a family member to speak Saturday. He has attended the wakes and funerals of victims this past week and is assisting the police investigation, the Suffolk County Police Department has said.

Many who stopped at the pharmacy said the overwhelming grief they felt at the scene took them by surprise. Most did not know the victims.

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"I wasn't expecting to feel this sad," said Anna Toscana, a Shirley resident who stopped by with her daughters Alessia, 14, and Alessandra, 12, and niece Savana Calarco, 11. "It's heartbreaking. No parent should have to bury their child," she said.

Vicente Peralta, a Patchogue resident, was there with his wife and daughter Nadia Peralta-Lopez, 11. The family is friendly with the Mejia family. "It gives me great pain to see these people die," Peralta said in Spanish, translated by his daughter.

"This is a great pain for the whole community and it makes me cry. We loved Jennifer, and this is a terrible thing for all these people," he said.

Shirley residents Bob and Lisa Skala said they were angry. "Couldn't he just have taken the stuff and left?" said Bob Skala.

"To think his wife could have stopped it," added Lisa Skala. "But to drive a getaway car and have knowledge he was going there with a gun . . . it's mind-boggling. She should have called the cops or told him 'I'm not going.' That's not a husband, that's a monster."

"We didn't know any of them," said Medford resident Marva Manning, who came with her son Mark, 12. "But it could have been my children working there."

Most people said the apparent cold-blooded approach by the killer had shaken them. "To have no thought process about other people being affected by his actions . . . it's horrific," said Catherine Hallstein, also a Medford resident, who lives within two miles of the pharmacy with her husband Greg.

"Everybody is looking over their shoulder now, everyone's affected," Greg Hallstein said.

Margaret Case, 28, of Medford, visiting the site with her 3-year-old daughter, said she had been going to the pharmacy all her life. "I stole my first piece of candy at this store," she said with a smile. "Vinny, the owner, gave it back to me and said, 'Next time, no stealing.' I just wanted to bring flowers and show my support and respect."