Two 36-year-old men have been convicted of shooting and stabbing three people to death and then torching the Central Islip house they were in four years ago in a revenge plot.
A Suffolk County jury found Hasan Vaughan guilty Tuesday of first-degree murder. A second jury in the same trial found his friend, Thomas Singletary, guilty of second-degree murder but acquitted him of a first-degree murder charge. Both were convicted of arson and reckless endangerment.
“These murders were singular in their brutality,” Suffolk County District Attorney Thomas Spota said. Both men are from Central Islip.
Prosecutors said Vaughan recruited Singletary to kill his 31-year-old girlfriend, Katrice Daniels, her 28-year-old sister, Mykier Daniels, and Mykier’s 19-year-old friend, Louis Calixto Jr. in August of 2009.
Police found the charred remains of the victims in the smoldering rubble of Katrice Daniels’ Hickory Street home. Mykier Daniels was shot, stabbed and strangled while the other two had stab and gunshot wounds.
Vaughan had sought revenge for the theft of his laptop computer, credit cards and cash. He and Singletary set the house on fire before they fled.
Vaughan faces a sentence of up to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Singletary is facing a maximum of 25 years to life.
