LI killer couple who hacked up roommates with meat cleavers get light sentences after blaming victims’ abuse
It’s another Amityville horror.
A killer couple who hacked their roommates to pieces with meat cleavers officially dodged life sentences Tuesday in a Long Island courtroom after they blamed the victims’ abuse for the grisly crime.
Jeffrey Mackey, 40, received 22 years in prison, while his girlfriend Alexis Nieves, 35, landed 11 years under the terms of an extraordinary plea deal struck in November.
The pair successfully contended they suffered abuse at the hands of Malcolm Craig Brown, 53, and his wife Donna Conneely, 59 — making them eligible for lighter sentences when they confessed to murdering and chopping up the couple in their shared Amityville home in 2024.
“We are satisfied with the sentencing given our limitations under the law,” said Ray Tierney, district attorney for Suffolk County, in a statement.
Tierney noted the state’s Domestic Violence Survivors Justice Act mandates reduced prison sentences for any defendant who suffered “abuse.”
“And so far as the defendants suffered such abuse as defined under the DVSJA, the sentences were substantial, notwithstanding the absurdities of New York State’s defendant-friendly sentencing structure,” he said.
The abuse accusation added a sickening wrinkle to the case, which gripped Long Islanders when the severed heads and limbs of Brown and Conneely were found scattered across Suffolk County over a grim week in early 2024.
The dismembered bodies formed a trail of evidence that eventually brought Suffolk County police to a sleepy Railroad Avenue home in the shadow of a State Route 110 overpass.
Brown and Conneely, who hailed from Yonkers, had recently moved into the home with Mackey and Nieves — another Westchester County pair.
The situation in the home soured, leading to a gruesome Feb. 27, 2024 altercation in which Nieves smashed Conneely in the head with a meat tenderizer — and kicked her as she choked on her own blood — while Mackey fatally stabbed Brown.
A third couple who lived in the home — Brown’s cousin Steven Brown, 46 and Amanda Wallace, 42 — then helped cut up the bodies with meat cleavers, leaving drains, toilets, sinks and showers choked with blood.
Steven Brown and Amanda Wallace eventually pleaded guilty to felony charges connected to dumping the remains.
Mackey and Nieves followed suit, respectively copping to second-degree murder and manslaughter pleas.
A still-sealed forensic psychiatric report ultimately detailed the abuse Mackay allegedly endured from Malcolm Brown, Lohud reported.
“I really wish none of this ever happened. That I never met them. That they would both still be alive,” Mackey said during his sentencing, according to the report.
