Inset: Jeffrey Mackey and Alexis Nieves walking to a courtroom appearance (Newsday). Background: The house where Mackey and Nieves killed another couple in Amityville, N.Y. (Google Maps).
A couple in New York state will spend a little over a decade behind bars after slaughtering another couple in the home they shared and then dumping their dismembered body parts across Long Island.
In November, Jeffrey Mackey, 40, pleaded guilty to two counts of murder in the second degree in the February 2024 stabbing deaths of Donna Conneely, 59, and her husband, Malcolm "Craig" Brown, 53. Alexis Nieves, 35, pleaded guilty to one count of first-degree manslaughter. On Tuesday, they were each sentenced to 11 years in prison by Supreme Court Justice John Collins, during separate proceedings. Mackey was sentenced to 11 years for each count, but the judge assessed his sentences to run concurrently.
During the onslaught, Mackey stabbed the couple as Nieves attacked Conneely with a meat cleaver and pierced her neck with a knife.
"Brown was stabbed once in the neck and once in the torso, while Conneely was stabbed multiple times in the neck and back," Suffolk County District Attorney Ray Tierney wrote in a press release announcing the indictment in April 2024. "The defendants then allegedly dismembered the victims' bodies in the bathroom of the home, and then dumped the remains."
Several areas in the county were used in service of strewing about the body parts belonging to the victims, the prosecutor added.
On Feb. 29, 2024, someone found a "dismembered male arm" in the brush at Southards Pond Park in Babylon, a large town located roughly 40 miles due east of the New York City borough of Queens.
Police then recovered another male arm nearby, as well as a female head and torso, a female arm, and parts of female legs in the same park, prosecutors said. More body parts were found in Bethpage State Park and a "wooded area" in West Babylon over the next two months.
Investigators eventually arrived at a house on Railroad Avenue in nearby Amityville. There, police recovered "several cutting instruments including a large folding knife, a large kitchen knife, and two meat cleavers," the DA's office announced at the time.
Ultimately, the defendants entered their pleas under an agreement that saw a large amount of leniency extended by way of the Domestic Violence Survivors Justice Act of 2019. While details are scarce, Mackey and Nieves claimed Brown and Conneely abused them physically, emotionally and financially, which led to the violent ambush.
"I will never understand why this happened and the way it happened," the judge said, according to a courtroom report by Newsday. Collins added the crime was: "Unique, bizarre and unfathomable."
Indicted along with Mackey and Nieves were Brown's cousin, Steven Brown, and his girlfriend, Amanda Wallace. They were charged for their roles in helping dispose of the victims' remains.
Wallace pleaded guilty in September to one count each of hindering prosecution, tampering with evidence, concealment of a corpse and second-degree robbery. She was sentenced to 1 1/2 to three years in prison; Steven Brown pleaded guilty to the same charges plus one count of conspiracy and was sentenced to five years in prison.
The killings occurred roughly one week after a robbery at a Valero gas station carried out by Mackey, Steven Brown, and Wallace during which the assailants brandished a meat cleaver and one of the knives used in the murder, authorities said. As it turned out, the victims had also taken part in other such robberies with Mackey and Nieves, according to an anonymous law enforcement source cited by Newsday.
In court on Tuesday, family members of the victims had little patience for any of the mitigating factors.
"I hope your experience in prison is painful," Brown's brother said, addressing Mackey, according to a courtroom report by The Journal News. "Pain like you've never felt before."
Brown's sister had similar words for the defendants.
"This is devastating and I pray that God has no mercy on your souls and may you all rot in hell," she reportedly said.
Steven Brown was also sentenced on Tuesday. Collins had particular disdain for the cousin of the victim, reportedly saying: "I don't know you sir, but you must be one awful human being."
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