Jennifer Mejia, 18, of East Patchogue Long Island, NY, was gunned down after a gunman stormed into a family-owned drug store and slaughtered four people in a suspected botched robbery.
Mejia worked at the L.I. pharmacy and was days away from her senior prom.
As Reported By The New York Daily News:
A pitiless gunman left a Long Island pharmacy littered with four bodies Sunday in what cops say was a robbery gone terribly wrong.
The killer, who stole prescription drugs, got away after the morning massacre at Haven Drugs in Medford and was being hunted across the island.
Killed were two customers and two employees – the pharmacist, Raymond Ferguson, 45, of Centereach, and an 18-year-old high school senior with big dreams who was working the counter.
Jennifer Mejia of East Patchogue, who wanted to be a doctor one day, had been looking forward to graduating from Bellport High School on Thursday.
She had her prom dress all ready, a blue number with spaghetti straps that she had modeled proudly for her family the night before she died.
“This morning she told me, ‘Happy Father’s Day.’ She was in a hurry to go to work,” said her devastated dad, Rene Mejia, an immigrant from El Salvador.
“I held her and said, ‘It’s okay,’ because in my country, Father’s Day is Friday. I feel better because I held her.”
The two customers, slain soon after the drugstore opened at 10a.m., were grandfather Bryon Sheffield, 71, of Medford, and a 33-year-old woman, Jaime Taccetta of Farmingville.
“This is a vicious, horrible crime,” said Suffolk County Police Chief of Detectives Dominick Varrone.
Police described the suspect as a thin white man, about 5-feet-8, with short, dark hair. He was wearing a white baseball hat, sunglasses, a dark-colored hooded sweatshirt and blue jeans.
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Jennifer Mejia was killed just days before her senior high school prom during her shift at a local pharmacy.
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Homicide investigators work in front of Haven Drugs, Sunday, June 19, 2011, in Medford, N.Y., where four people were shot and killed earlier in the day. Investigators believe that a single gunman was responsible for the shooting of two employees and two customers inside the pharmacy.
