Pair charged with murder in connection to dismemberment of Yonkers couple on Long Island

Two of the four people arrested in the dismemberment of a former Yonkers couple have now been indicted on murder charges and Suffolk County prosecutors have detailed how the victims were stabbed in the Amityville home where they were staying with the defendants.

Jeffrey Mackey, 36, and Alexis Nieves, 33, both originally from Westchester, pleaded not guilty to charges including second-degree murder Monday at their arraignment in the deaths of Malcolm "Craig" Brown, 53, and Donna Conneely, 59. The other defendants, Brown's cousin, Steven Brown, 44, and his girlfriend Amanda Wallace, 40, were also indicted but have not been charged with murder. They pleaded not guilty on Tuesday.

Mackey is originally from White Plains and Nieves is from Valhalla, according to social media accounts, which also list Mackey and Nieves as having two children together.

The killings occurred Feb. 27 at 25 Railroad Avenue, where the victims were dismembered and then their body parts strewn over three locations the next day. Brown's arm was found by a student walking to school through Southards Pond Park on Feb. 29 and the remaining parts were found there as well as in Bethpage State Park and a wooded area of West Babylon over the next few days.

Assistant District Attorney Francis Schroeder told the judge Monday that Mackey first stabbed Malcolm Brown and then repeatedly stabbed Conneely in the neck, according to the New York Post. And after Conneelly was stabbed, Nieves kicked her, beat her with a meat tenderizer and stabbed her in the back, Schroeder said.

District Attorney Ray Tierney said police recovered several cutting instruments including knives and meat cleavers and blood was found in multiple locations throughout the residence.

Details of what led the four defendants to turn on the couple have not been revealed but Mackey, Nieves and Brown allegedly plotted the killing after the men and Wallace participated in a robbery at a Valero gas station on Sunrise Highway in Copiague on Feb. 20.

At a press conference Monday afternoon, Tierney would not discuss a motive in the case but said that the victims had helped plan the robbery but did not take part.

“There was a lot of illegal conduct occurring between the victims and the defendants which in part was the impetus for the murders presumably,” he said without elaborating.

All four defendants were initially charged with hindering prosecution, tampering with evidence and concealment of a corpse following their arrests March 4. As the charges made them ineligible for bail, all four were released from jail but were required to wear GPS monitors .

Tierney at the time assailed the bail reform that made that possible and was criticized by some for not bringing murder charges at the outset. He said Monday prosecutors are ethically bound to charge only what they can prove.

“You only have one opportunity to get it right,” he said. “Six individuals go into a house. Four come out. Now it’s left to law enforcement to figure out what happened in that house.”

Wallace was sent to jail when she was later arrested for petit larceny after allegedly stealing beauty products from a CVS in Lindenhurst on March 15.

The tampering, hindering and dismemberment charges remain in the indictment, which added the murder charges against Mackey and Nieves, 2nd-degree conspiracy charges against Mackey, Nieves and Steven Brown and 1st -degree robbery charges against Mackey, Brown and Wallace.

Brown and Mackey were ordered held without bail, Nieves is being held on $10 million bond and Wallace was ordered held on $7.5 million bond.

According to social media accounts, Malcolm Brown and Conneely had been in a relationship for at least the last seven years and their last known permanent address on record was on Warburton Avenue in Yonkers, but a landlord said last month they had not lived there for at least four years.

Staff writer Jonathan Bandler contributed to this report.

This article originally appeared on Rockland/Westchester Journal News: Pair charged with murder in connection to dismemberment of Yonkers couple on Long Island