Press Release

Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz announced today that Thyron Aycock, 48, has been sentenced to 25 years-to-life in prison following his conviction after trial of murder in the beating death of a man in 2012. The victim’s remains were discovered by park employees as they cleared garbage and debris from the damaged sand dunes on the beach in Far Rockaway following Hurricane Sandy.

District Attorney Katz said, “After so many years, the defendant may have thought he had gotten away with murder but investigators and prosecutors never relented and today a judge sentenced him to a lengthy term of incarceration as a measure of justice for this brutal crime.”

Aycock, of Far Rockaway, Queens, was found guilty of murder in the second degree last month following a jury trial. Today, Queens Supreme Court Justice Cassandra Mullen sentenced the defendant to 25 years-to-life in prison.

According to trial records, the defendant lived with his girlfriend and her ex-boyfriend – Shawn Rucker – in Far Rockaway, Queens. Between November 5^th and November 7^th of 2012, Aycock insisted that Mr. Rucker move out of the shared residence. An argument ensued between the two men and escalated to a physical altercation. Aycock struck the 32-year-old man at least eight times in the head with a hammer. Mr. Rucker died as a result of blunt force trauma and compression to his chest.

The DA said, according to trial testimony, the defendant then made attempts to dismember the body of Mr. Rucker. There were post-mortem lacerations to the victim’s wrist, and his left thigh had a gaping cut that went all the way to the bone. The body was bound with a very distinctive patterned cloth and the deceased was stuffed in a garbage bag and buried on the beach.

On November 15, 2012, according to trial testimony, workers with the City Department of Parks were cleaning the beach of storm debris in the vicinity of Beach 13^th Street in Far Rockaway, Queens. That’s when workers saw a pair of blue shorts and an elbow protruding out of the sand and discovered the remains of Mr. Rucker.

According to trial testimony, police executed a Court-authorized search warrant of the defendant’s home where they recovered a knife with the victim’s blood on it. A saw was also discovered with the victim’s blood on it and the teeth of the saw were forensically matched to the deep thigh wound of the victim. A bedsheet with the same distinctive pattern as the cloth used to bind the victim was also found in the home.

The defendant, however, was not apprehended until approximately seven years later when he told a friend that he had killed someone and gave detailed information about the homicide. That friend contacted the police.

Senior Assistant District Attorney Jonathan Selkowe, of the District Attorney’s Homicide Bureau, prosecuted the case, with the assistance of Assistant District Attorney Mia Piccininni, of Felony Trial Bureau I, under the supervision of Assistant District Attorneys Peter McCormack III and John Kosinski, Senior Deputy Bureau Chiefs of Homicide, Karen Ross, Deputy Bureau Chief of Homicide and under the overall supervision of Executive Assistant District Attorney of Major Crimes Daniel Saunders.