One of the suspects in the fatal shooting of a Long Island father who was staying at the Marriott hotel in Poughkeepsie for a weekend with his college family has also been charged with another homicide.
On Wednesday, the Dutchess County District Attorney’s office declared that Devin Taylor was suspected of killing Darren Villani on August 9 in Poughkeepsie. He was accused of second-degree murder and firearm possession; his next court appearance is February 22.
For his part in Villani’s murder, which took place almost two months before the well-publicized hotel shooting outside Marist College that killed 53-year-old father Paul Kutz of East Northport, Taylor could be sentenced to life in prison if found guilty.
In connection with that incident, both Roy Johnson Jr. and Taylor were charged. The suspected shooter, Johnson Jr., who was at the time a wanted man, entered a not-guilty plea to firing 30 rounds into and surrounding the Courtyard by Marriott.
There are still unanswered questions regarding the triggerman’s initial presence on the streets weeks before the death. Georgia authorities had wanted Johnson since July 2022 on gun and drug charges, and he had also been suspected in Villani’s alleged gang-related murder. However, Poughkeepsie municipal police did not detain Johnson at the time due to the active gun warrant.
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Johnson Jr. has not been put on trial for killing Villani. Taylor, who was detained alongside Johnson Jr. at the scene and had shared a hotel room with him, is accused of using a weapon during the shooting at the Marriott. The hotel room that a colleague had reserved for the couple was believed to contain an AR-15-style weapon, bomb manuals, and other supplies, according to the police.
Numerous law enforcement officials believe that leaving Johnson Jr. on the streets after the summer shooting was a mistake because they could apprehend him in the weeks before the alleged hotel shooting and Kutz’s death.
Johnson Jr. was a wanted felon, according to the Poughkeepsie police department and the district attorney’s office. Still, they claimed they couldn’t apprehend him for one reason: they couldn’t locate him.
When the Poughkeepsie police and district attorney’s office discovered Johnson Jr. was wanted elsewhere, they did not disclose when. However, NBC New York reported that several law enforcement sources believed Johnson Jr. to be in Poughkeepsie immediately following Villani’s shooting on August 9 and that some officials wanted to pick him up.
According to several law enforcement sources, the district attorney and others preferred to wait while police sought to make an arrest. According to the Dutchess County district attorney’s office, there was never enough evidence to support an arrest in the homicide; therefore, the agency “never filed a motion to delay an arrest” of Johnson Jr.
He was wanted in connection with the homicide that occurred in August, according to the city’s police department, but they were unable to track him down since he had no fixed location. Johnson Jr. had been evading the law by staying at hotels in New York and other states, according to people who had spoken to the local police department.
However, despite having reason to believe that he had been out of state, several law enforcement officials claimed that no requests for assistance in locating him were ever made to the U.S. Marshals, state police, or a joint anti-crime task team headed by the FBI.
Requests for comment on the case have been turned down by the U.S. Marshals, FBI, New York State Police, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, Drug Enforcement Administration, and the Southern District of New York.