A New York man who fatally stabbed his ex-girlfriend more than 25 times and was seen by witnesses dragging her by her hair out of the woods on the night she died, was found guilty of second-degree murder on Friday.
Wayne Chambers, 51, of Medford, killed Sandra McIntosh, 46, a nurse at Stony Brook University Hospital, in July 2021 after she got off work for the evening, a Suffolk County jury found.
During Chambers’ trial, according to a statement provided to Law&Crime by Suffolk County District Attorney Raymond Tierney on Friday, it was evidenced that Chambers and the woman had been together for six years but had recently broken up before he murdered her.
Wayne Chambers booking photo provided by Suffolk County District Attorney.
Prosecutors said it was just before 8 p.m. when Chambers picked McIntosh up. He had dropped her off at work that morning and drove her white Lexus SUV all day.
The couple had broken up months before, and McIntosh’s sister told police Chambers had said at some point that day that he was picking up some of his belongings at McIntosh’s home, New York ABC affiliate WABC reported at the time of McIntosh’s death,
When Chambers picked his ex-girlfriend up and she got into the car with him, he was seen by witnesses driving “erratically” before he stopped the car near a wooded area in Holtsville, prosecutors said.
At some point, witnesses saw Chambers standing outside of the Lexus “in a physical altercation with McIntosh,” Tierney said, and then “heard McIntosh screaming.”
The witnesses saw Chambers assaulting her and “attempting to drag her out of the woods by her hair.”
Prosecutors said Chambers had stabbed McIntosh repeatedly that night, doing so at least 25 times and, according to Tierney, “puncturing her heart and lung.”
Once Chambers realized someone had seen him, prosecutors said he fled in McIntosh’s car, leaving his ex-girlfriend for dead.
It was not until a resident heard McIntosh’s pleas for help that she was found bleeding profusely, according to police records reviewed by the New York Post in the wake of her slaying.
McIntosh was transferred to the very hospital she worked at — Stony Brook University Hospital — and pronounced dead.
Suffolk County police testified at the trial that they attempted to track Chambers down that night and found McIntosh’s car at a location in the Bronx.
“Red staining that appeared to be blood was observed on both the exterior and interior of the vehicle,” Tierney said Friday. “The evidence at trial established that the red staining not only tested presumptively positive for blood, but many of those stains contained mixtures of DNA between [McIntosh] and the defendant.”
Investigators were also able to unearth surveillance video footage from the area where McIntosh’s car was found. It showed the white Lexus pulling up to a home in the Bronx and Chambers getting out, clutching what appeared to be a cellphone.
Tierney told Law&Crime that investigators spoke to one of Chambers’ acquaintances whose house was just a block from where McIntosh was found on July 22, 2021.
The witness told them that when Chambers had come to her home that night, she noticed he had a “cut on one of his index fingers that was covered by a Band-Aid.”
There was also a “bloody spot” on his shirt, she said.
Later, investigators said they were able to trace Chambers’ cellphone to the crime scene as well as at the spot in the Bronx where he was captured on video.
Suffolk County police arrested Chambers just a week after the stabbing, finding him at a hotel in Newburg, New York on July 30.
Now that he has been convicted, court records reviewed by Law&Crime show he is scheduled for sentencing in January 2024.
He is facing up to 25 years, and the sentence will likely be steep when it is rendered: Chambers has been convicted before. In 1999, he was sentenced to 19 years in prison after being convicted of first-degree robbery. He served just 14 of those years.
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