Man in New York pharmacy slaying faces life in prison

(CBS/AP) RIVERHEAD, N.Y. - David Laffer, the man charged with killing four people during a pharmacy robbery for prescription painkillers, is due to receive consecutive prison sentences of life without parole.

Pictures: Husband, wife arrested in NY pharmacy murders

Laffer pleaded guilty to first-degree murder in the June holdup at Haven Drugs in Medford. Police said he committed the robbery because he had lost his job, and his wife required not only painkillers but also blood pressure medicine, anti-nausea pills, and muscle relaxants. He jammed a backpack full of pills after killing the four victims.

His wife, Melinda Brady, who admitted driving the getaway car, faces up to 25 years in prison after pleading guilty to robbery charges.

Both will be sentenced in a Long Island courtroom on Thursday.

Suffolk County District Attorney Thomas Spota called the killings among the most gruesome in the history of the county. The 1974 "Amityville Horror" killings in which a man killed six members of his own family was the worst mass killing in Suffolk before the Medford homicides.

Laffer, a 33-year-old Army veteran, walked into Haven Drugs shortly after 10 a.m. on June 19 and opened fire without announcing a robbery, killing a 45-year-old pharmacist filling in for a colleague celebrating Father's Day, and a 17-year-old store clerk who was due to graduate high school just days later. He then fatally shot two customers who unwittingly walked in on the carnage, authorities said, before filling his backpack with hydrocodone-type painkillers.

The two customers were a 71-year-old retiree picking up medication for his ailing wife; the couple was planning their 50th wedding anniversary in July, and a 33-year-old mother of two who was planning her wedding.

Complete coverage of the Long Island pharmacy murders on Crimesider