2011 Medford pharmacy shooting

On June 19, 2011, four people were killed at Haven Drugs, a pharmacy in Medford, New York, during a robbery. The perpetrator, David Laffer, committed the shooting after he had lost his job, and was, with his wife, addicted to opioids. Laffer was sentenced to life without parole, and his wife was sentenced to 25 years in prison.

A doctor who had previously sold Laffer drugs, and was discovered in the aftermath to have been running a pill mill that lead to the overdose deaths of several people, was sentenced to up to 20 years in prison.

Background
Laffer and his wife both had an opioid addiction. Laffer and his wife were caught on security camera visiting an illegal pharmacy, later described as a "pill mill", the week before the shootings. The man operating the clinic, Stan Xuhui Li, had previously sold him drugs.

Shooting
After striking a conversation in the pharmacy with employers Raymond Ferguson and Jennifer Mejia, David Laffer then pulled out his firearm, and shot and killed both of them. He then murdered two customers, Bryon Sheffield and Jamie Taccetta. A .45 caliber handgun was used in the shooting.

He then stole a bags worth of painkillers, wiped the counter, and fled. He stole over 11,000 hydrocodone pills. His wife was outside in a getaway car.

Aftermath
Laffer was arrested on June 22. The next day, he was booked in court, and pled not guilty. According to Laffer, the motivation for the robbery/murders was because he had lost his job and his wife needed painkillers.

On November 10, Laffer was sentenced to life without parole. His wife was sentenced to 25 years on robbery charges, the maximum sentence allowed. During the trial, the judge described him as someone with "unnatural viciousness", and promised that he would have Laffer placed in solitary confinement for the rest of his life: corrections officials pointed out only they had the ability to decide this. Dr. Li, the operator of the illegal pharmacy, was later sentenced to up to 20 years in prison in December 2014, for selling illegal prescriptions to Laffer and manslaughter, as two of his patients had overdosed.