When Griselda Amaya questioned her 3-year-old son about the morning his father was killed, the little boy kept repeating the same word: "Ghosts." The phrase provided just as many questions as answers until this weekend, when Suffolk County police identified five teens who allegedly burglarized Carlton Shaw's East Patchogue home and then shot him in the chest. Each of the teens, detectives would learn, was wearing a bandana over his mouth and nose, police said.
"He was connecting these masked individuals with the word 'ghosts,'" Det. Lt. Jack Fitzpatrick, the commanding officer of Suffolk's Homicide Squad said of Amaya's son.
Yesterday, two of the teens, Terraine Slide, 16, and his cousin, 15, from Medford, were arraigned in First District Court in Central Islip. Police said they believe one of the five teens is familiar with Shaw's neighborhood and added that more arrests are expected. Police were initally led to the five when one of their attorneys contacted detectives with information on the case.
Fitzpatrick said the five friends, ages 14 to 16, cut school Tuesday to burglarize Shaw's home. The line cook worked three jobs to support his girlfriend, Amaya, and their two children: Carlton Shaw Jr. and daughter Colleen, 5.
But in his spare time, he took pride in keeping the outside of his ranch home on Amsterdam Street in tip-top condition. "Because Shaw kept the house in nice shape, they believed he had some money," Fitzpatrick said. Standing on the other side of Shaw's white backyard fence, the teens watched as he went in and out of the house, cutting tiles for the bathroom.
When they heard him hammering away inside, they took it as their cue to enter through a side door and take what they could, police said. Instead, they found Shaw's son behind the door. One of the suspects picked the child up and carried him into a bedroom, then shut the door, police said.
The teens snatched a watch in the kitchen and found a small amount of marijuana inside a cup, police said. When the phone suddenly rang, they scrambled back into the woods behind Shaw's house. As they opened the gate leading into the backyard, Shaw came back outside his home.
He was walking toward them when Slide took a .22-caliber handgun and shot him with it, police said. It was between 10 a.
m. and 11 a.m.
Shaw wouldn't be discovered until about six hours later by a neighbor. Sometime between then, Shaw's son opened the bedroom door and went out to look for his dad. Perhaps thinking he was sleeping, the child leaned against Shaw's chest and shut his eyes.
Meanwhile, the teens buried the gun in the woods and returned home, police said. Tanisha Alexander, Slide's older sister, said her brother moved from Georgia several months ago, where he had been living with an aunt. A student at Bellport High School, he recently missed a string of days, she said.
On Tuesday, he told her he wasn't going to school so that he could apply for a job at a local movie theater. "When I came home, he was acting fine as usual," she said. "He met some boys over here and messed up his whole life," she said.
Slide pleaded not guilty on charges of second degree murder, burglary and criminal possession of a weapon during his arraignment yesterday and was ordered held without bail. The 15-year-old was charged with first degree burglary. He was also being held without bail.
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