Melinda Brady, junkie wife of accused Long Island pharmacy killer David Laffer ...

Melinda Brady, junkie wife of accused Long Island pharmacy killer David Laffer, hatched plot: papers

Melinda Brady is accused of driving the getaway car for husband, David Laffer.

The strung out wife of accused Long Island pharmacy murderer David Laffer helped hatch the robbery - and even gave him her painkiller prescription to make sure he stole the right pills.

Melinda Brady's shocking stupidity - and her role in the horrific massacre that left four dead - was revealed Friday in court papers after she pleaded not guilty to driving the getaway car.

Brady "discussed robbing the pharmacy with her accomplice on the prior night."

"The defendant stated that her accomplice would only threaten the pharmacist to steal drugs," the papers state.

A disheveled Melinda Brady appears in court Friday. (Kathy Kmonicek/Pool)

In a sign of how out of it Brady was when she and Laffer allegedly planned the heist, the pill-popping ex-secretary "gave her accomplice a prescription written to her to use in the robbery," the papers state.

Right now, Brady is charged only with robbery driving Laffer from the scene of the crime in a 1998 Nissan Pathfinder - and with grabbing an officer's leg while being arrested.

A grand jury will consider more serious charges against Brady on Monday, Assistant District Attorney James Chalifoux said.

Still wearing the yellow T-shirt and droopy shorts in which she was arrested, Brady stood quietly with her hands cuffed behind her as her court-appointed lawyer, Jeremy Mis, entered the plea on her behalf.

Unlike her husband, Brady did not hear any catcalls in the Suffolk County courtroom because none of the victims' relatives showed up for the five-minute arraignment.

Bail was set at $750,000 cash or a $1.5 million bond.

Brady, 29, was hospitalized for an unspecified ailment not long after she and Laffer were rousted Wednesday from his mother's Medford, L.I., home.

Raymond Ferguson, Jaime Taccetta and Jennifer Mejia were gunned down.

Cops said she got hooked on painkillers after undergoing oral surgery and contracting a stubborn infection just before her January 2009 wedding.

Investigators believe Laffer robbed Haven Drugs in Medford of 10,000 hydrocodone pills on Sunday to feed his wife's painkiller habit.

On Thursday, Laffer was called "a coward" and worse by the furious loved ones of the shooting victims at his arraignment.

The 33-year-old Army vet wouldn't look anyone in the eye as authorities revealed chilling details of the pharmacy massacre, including how he shot two victims in the back of the head - and how he and Brady were high when they were arrested.

"I think the whole family should be prosecuted," said victim Jaime Taccetta's brother, Daniel. "I'm just glad he was held without bail. He'll never see the light of day. He's a coward and a junkie."

Laffer was formally charged with first-degree murder.

"This defendant is charged with what I would call the most cold-blooded robbery-homicide in Suffolk County history," said prosecutor John Collins.

He recounted how Laffer, wearing a fake beard and glasses to disguise his weasely face, walked into the pharmacy and unleashed hell with seven shots.

"He did not announce a robbery," Collins said. "He simply shot first."

Laffer first killed pharmacist Raymond Ferguson, 45, Collins said. Then he gunned down 17-year-old clerk Jennifer Mejia with two more shots.

Finally, Laffer ambushed two customers Taccetta, 35, and Bryon Sheffield, 71, when they walked into his death trap.

"He came back behind them and simply executed them by shooting them in the back of the head," Collins said.

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