N.Y. man gets life for fatally shooting 3 during drug deal, burning bodies, and abandoning victim’s child

BUFFALO, N.Y. (TCD) — A 51-year-old man who had previously served time for murder was sentenced to three life terms in prison for his role in the shooting death of three people during a drug deal.

On Thursday, March 23, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of New York announced Deandre Wilson’s sentence, saying a judge also tacked on 30 years relating to the litany of charges he was convicted of last year, including murder while engaged in narcotics conspiracy, narcotics conspiracy, two counts of obstruction of justice, and more. He was charged with 15 crimes in total.

Between 2014 and September 2019, Wilson and five others reportedly conspired to sell drugs including fentanyl, heroin, and cocaine in the Buffalo area while using three residences for “drug trafficking activities.”

On Sept. 15, 2019, one of Wilson’s co-defendants, Jariel Cobb, planned to buy a kilogram of cocaine from his suppliers, Miguel Anthony Valentin-Colon and Dhamyl Roman-Audiffred. That day, Roman-Audiffred, Valentin-Colon, and his wife, Nicole Marie Merced-Plaud, and their young son drove in a white minivan to a residence on Roebling Avenue.

Roman-Audiffred reportedly went into the house first, and Wilson hit her in the head with a blunt object when she walked in. Wilson then went outside and fatally shot Valentin-Colon and Merced-Plaud in front of their son, who was in a car seat.

The child was not harmed during the shooting.

According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Wilson drove the minivan with the bodies and the boy still inside and hid it behind a building. When he got back to the house, Wilson and Cobb moved Roman-Audiffred’s body to the basement, and Cobb dismembered her. Cobb reportedly put her remains in trash bags, took them to another location, and burned them in a fire pit in the backyard.

The next morning, Sept. 16, Wilson went back to the minivan, drove it to a nonresidential area, “and doused the vehicle and the bodies with gasoline, lighting the vehicle and bodies on fire.”

He took the boy out of the car first and abandoned him on a stranger’s porch. Prior to the triple homicide, Wilson was incarcerated for second-degree murder. New York Department of Corrections records show he was released in February 2019.

Cobb pleaded guilty in July to narcotics conspiracy, conspiracy to obstruct justice, use of fire to commit a felony, and conspiracy to damage and destroy a vehicle used in interstate commerce by fire. One of their other co-conspirators, James Reed, also pleaded guilty to narcotics conspiracy, conspiracy to obstruct justice, and use of fire to commit a felony, and accessory after the fact.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office said Cobb and Reed face up to life in prison when they are sentenced at a later date.