Two Rockville Centre men charged in Yonkers shooting
Two Rockville Centre men shot and killed a Yonkers woman, wounding her husband and daughter, after possibly posing as deliverymen to gain entry to the family’s apartment, police said Friday.
Charles Parsley, 26, of 188 North Centre Ave., and Kasaun White, 27, of 15 Old Mill Ct., were arrested Thursday night and held without bail after their arraignment at at Yonkers City Court on second-degree murder charges Friday.
The pair are suspected in the April 21 killing of Sandra Hackley-Cornielle, 36. Her husband, Rafael Cornielle, 31, and Hackley-Cornielle’s daughter, 12, were also shot in the incident, police said. A 6-year-old daughter was unharmed.
Yonkers police said Friday they are still searching for at least one other suspect.
“They were actually targeted,” Charles Gardner, first deputy chief of the Field Services Bureau for Yonkers police, told reporters. Police declined to comment on whether the family had a relationship with the two suspects.
Gardner said White and Parsley waited for the family to return to their Yonkers Avenue home at about 7:30 on the night of the shooting and may have convinced someone to open the door to the six-story brick building by posing as deliverymen.
One of the men was wearing a brown outfit similar to those worn by parcel service workers, and one was carrying a box, police said. After being let into the building, police said, White and Parsley walked down the first-floor hallway to the home of the victims and opened fire when someone opened the door.
Bullets struck Rafael Cornielle in the chest and thigh. He survived. But Sandra Hackley-Cornielle was shot multiple times. She was pronounced dead at the scene.
The 12-year-old’s leg was grazed by a bullet but the wound was not life-threatening, police said, adding Rafael Cornielle staggered out of the building.
The suspects, who escaped, took nothing from the apartment. It was unclear whether they left the scene in a vehicle or on foot.
Gardner said both White and Parsley have criminal records, though for relatively minor incidents in Nassau.
They were being held at the Westchester county jail in Valhalla and are due back in court May 26.
Police from Yonkers, Rockville Centre and Nassau executed warrants at three Rockville Centre addresses on Thursday, resulting in the men’s arrests.
