Couple Who Killed and Dismembered Their Roommates With Meat Cleavers and Scattered Their Remains Sentenced

Three people were sentenced to prison in connection with the 2024 murders and dismemberment of Malcolm “Craig” Brown, 53, and Donna Conneely, 59.

Jeffrey Mackey, Steven Brown and Alexis Nieves each pleaded guilty to their respective charges in connection with the 2024 homicides, NBC 4 reports. 

On Jan. 13, Mackey, 40, pleaded guilty to two counts of second-degree murder and was sentenced to 22 years in prison. Mackey’s girlfriend, Nieves, 35, was sentenced to 11 years for one misdemeanor.

Victim Malcolm Brown’s cousin, Steven Brown, pleaded guilty to conspiracy and was sentenced to five years. 

Each was formally charged in April 2024, alongside a fourth suspect, Steven’s partner, Amanda Wallace. Amanda and Steven pleaded guilty to concealment of a human corpse in September 2024, PIX11 reported. Wallace was sentenced to one and a half to three years in prison, with eligibility for parole, in November 2025, according to state prison records, The Journal News reports.

All four lived in Malcolm and Conneely’s Amityville, N.Y. home.

The defendants’ sentences were reduced because they were abused by the victims, in accordance with the New York Domestic Violence Survivors Justice Act, legislation that Suffolk County District Attorney Ray Tierney criticized.

“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,” Tierney said, the New York Post reports.

“Jeffrey Mackey and his wife were physically, emotionally and financially abused by the victims. Those facts brought up and motivated these crimes,” Mackey’s attorney told NBC 4.

PEOPLE reached out to Tierney for comment.

“I really wish none of this had ever happened. I wish they could still be alive. I wish I had never met them. I apologize to family members, for I wish this had never occurred,” Mackey said during his sentencing, PIX 11 reports. Nieves added, “I’m sorry.”

Malcolm’s sister Coreen and brother Charles expressed their frustration with the sentencing. 

“Heartbreaking… Heinous crime shaken us to our core,” Coreen said, per PIX11. “For our cousin, Steven Brown, getting five years, that’s a slap on the wrist. For killing two people, excuse me, let me take that back, for being included, dismembering, chopping up body parts, disposing of them like they were just trash, and you are getting five years for two people?”

“Can’t find words to describe what this has done to us,” Charles said. “This has broken our family.”

Their convictions came nearly two years after the couple’s death. On Feb. 27, 2024, Mackey allegedly repeatedly stabbed Malcolm in the neck and once in the torso, Tierney said in an April 2024 press release. Mackey then stabbed Conneely in the neck while she was trying to intervene. He then strangled her. 

Prosecutors alleged that Nieves smashed Conneely in the head with a meat tenderizer and stabbed her, the New York Post reports. Conneely was stabbed multiple times in the neck and back, Tierney said.

On Feb. 29, 2024, a student found a male’s severed left arm at Southards Pond Park in Babylon Village, N.Y. Authorities later recovered a second “male arm” near the first, as well as “a female head and torso, a female arm, and parts of female legs on the opposite side of the park.”

More human remains were found in West Babylon, N.Y., and Bethpage State Park on March 5, 2024. Malcolm and Conneely were later identified as the victims. 

Investigators were then led to the Amityville home, where police recovered a large folding knife, a large kitchen knife and two meat cleavers, Tierney said in April 2024. Authorities also claimed they found blood in multiple locations throughout the home.

“The defendants then allegedly dismembered the victims’ bodies in the bathroom of the home,”  Tierney previously said, and disposed of the remains in Southards Pond Park, Bethpage State Park and West Babylon.

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