A New York state man is accused of attempting a robbery at CVS on Christmas Eve and fatally stabbing an employee.
Authorities say the killing took place at a CVS store in the village of Lindenhurst on the South Shore of Long Island, New York.
Someone called 911 before 7 p.m. on Dec. 24, and when police arrived, they found a male employee of the store with a stab wound to his chest.
The worker was rushed to Good Samaritan Hospital Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead.
Authorities identified the victim as 23-year-old Edeedson Cine Jr.
“It appeared that this poor kid went to work on Christmas; he was…assaulted while working behind the counter at the store,” Suffolk County Police Commissioner Kevin Catalina told WNBC.
The stabbing suspect, 43-year-old John Pilaccio, fled the scene, but police found him days later and took him into custody.
Catalina said that the police investigation and search for Pilaccio were hampered by CVS’s slow release of the store surveillance video showing the stabbing.
“The video shouldn’t have been held for 18 minutes, let alone 18 hours, so it’s been pretty frustrating,” said Catalina. “Quite frankly, that has hampered our ability to make an arrest in this investigation. I’m shocked and appalled by it.”
However, CVS said that police didn’t request the security footage until the day after Christmas, two days after the stabbing.
“It took quite a bit of time to pull and package in the specific manner they asked for. We requested they confirm receipt and ability to view, but have not yet heard back,” a spokesperson for the company said.
Police said they had to fall back on witness accounts and videos from locations around the CVS store where Cine worked, which eventually led them to Pilaccio.
The victim’s family said that Cine wasn’t scheduled to work Christmas Eve but was called in to fill a shift, which he did eagerly.
“Why inside of CVS?” Rose Cine, the victim’s grandmother, told The New York Times. “Why where he was working? He just gets up and goes to work — that’s all he does.”
According to News 12 Long Island, prosecutors revealed that Pilaccio admitted that he attempted the robbery because he was in debt. He also confessed to stabbing Cine.
CVS stated that Cine had been with the company for 10 months.
Pilaccio was charged with second-degree murder. At his arraignment, his attorney entered a not guilty plea on his behalf.
