BUFFALO, N.Y. — A Buffalo man was sentenced Monday to 166 months in prison, or nearly 14 years, for his role in a 2019 narcotics conspiracy that resulted in a gruesome triple homicide.
Authorities said 42-year-old James Reed, also known as Fatts, is the third man to be sentenced in connection with this case.
The case is memorable because of video surveillance, which appears to have captured a toddler being lead away from a burning van by two individuals. Prosecutors said that the two men in the video were Reed’s co-conspirators, James Cobb and Deandre Wilson.
Beginning in 2014, Reed and others, began selling marijuana, heroin, and cocaine.
On Sept 15, 2019, Reed was involved with the murder of Dhamyl Roman-Audiffred at a home on Roebling Avenue. Reed and co-conspirator James Cobb had dismembered her body, put the body in trash bags, drove to a residence on Box Avenue, and placed them into a burning fire in a fire pit area in the backyard.
The bodies of two additional victims, Miguel Anthony Valentin-Colon and Nicole Marie Merced-Plaud, were found in a burned-out van behind a warehouse on Tonawanda Street on Sept. 16, 2019. The three victims had traveled together from Florida to Buffalo. The couple had been shot by a third co-conspirator, Deandre Wilson.
The couple's 3-year-old son, Noelvin, was found unhurt that same morning on a porch at a home on Buffalo's west side.
The crime happened just 11 months after Wilson had been released from prison for a prior second-degree murder conviction.
Reed was previously convicted of narcotics conspiracy, conspiracy to obstruct justice, use of fire to commit a felony, and accessory after the fact.
In 2022, a jury found Deandre Wilson guilty of murder in federal court for killing the three individuals who traveled from Florida to Buffalo in 2019. He was sentenced to serve three life sentences.
James Cobb, the other co-conspirator, was also previously sentenced to serve 20 years in prison for these crimes.
