When David Laffer was sentenced for shooting four people at a Medford, Long Island pharmacy, he said, "To ask for forgiveness is a selfish act... If some discussion of doctor-shopping and prescription pill abuse results from this, then perhaps some good will have come from this." Laffer had killed two pharmacy employees and two customers while trying to fill his and his wife's desperate need for prescription pills. Now, Newday reports the couple "filled prescriptions for almost 12,000 pain pills from dozens of doctors in the four years" before the killings.
Further, Newsday says, "As many as 11 times a month, Laffer and Brady visited medical professionals, from Flushing to Center Moriches, according to the documents, which list the names of doctors who prescribed 11,881 pills beginning in June 2007, the type of pills, as well as quantities and days' supply. The documents show a downward spiral as the drug habits of Laffer and Brady sent them to dozens of doctors in search of powerful narcotics such as hydrocodone and oxycodone." And, "In a spree from June 7 to June 17 [2011], Laffer filled six prescriptions for more than 400 pills from five different doctors. In that 11-day period he got a four-month supply. That came after Brady filled a final prescription on May 28 for 120 pain pills."
While the state has a database for doctors to see what prescriptions patients receive from other doctors, Newsday says, "Pharmacies don't have to report a given month's records until the middle of the following month, the database may not always be current." And one of the doctors who gave Laffer's wife 810 hydrocodone pills between July 2010 and May 2011 had no idea there was a database to look at.
On June 19, 2011, Laffer went to the Haven Drugs pharmacy and shot the four victims while wife Melinda Brady waited in a car outside. Police later found 10,000 pills from the pharmacy in his possession.
