(Long Island, NY) A pair of Suffolk County juries returned guilty verdicts this afternoon for their respective defendants charged with the torture killings of three people in Central Islip in August of 2009.
Thomas Singletary (left) Hasan Vaughan (right)
Defendant Hasan Vaughan, who recruited his friend Thomas Singletary to help him exact revenge for the theft of his laptop computer, credit cards and cash, was convicted this morning of first degree murder, arson in the second degree, and reckless endangerment for the murders in August of 2009 of his girlfriend Katrice Daniels, 31, her sister, Mykier Daniels, 28, and Mykier’s friend, Louis Calixto Jr., 19.
The charred remains of the three were found in the smoldering rubble of Daniels’ home at 47 Hickory Street early on the morning of August 11, 2009. Mykier Daniels was shot, stabbed and strangled; the bodies of Katrice Daniels and Calixto bore stab and gunshot wounds.
Before they fled the murder scene, Vaughan and Singletary set the house on fire.
Singletary was found not guilty of murder in the first degree, but convicted of three counts of murder in the second degree, one count of arson in the second degree, and two counts of reckless endangerment.
Suffolk County District Attorney Thomas Spota said homicide prosecutors will ask for the maximum terms of imprisonment for both defendants when they are sentenced on June 19. “A just sentence for Vaughan’s appalling crimes is unquestionably life in prison without parole, and we will recommend the maximum of 25 years to life behind bars for his codefendant Thomas Singletary,” District Attorney Spota said. “These murders were singular in their brutality.”
The trials opened on February 25. Each jury began deliberations on May 3. The two men were tried simultaneously but had separate juries.
