Wayne Chambers, right inset, was sentenced for the murder of Sandra McIntosh, left inset. (Crime scene and victim screenshots from New York CBS affiliate WCBS-TV/YouTube; Mug shot from the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office)
A convicted robber in New York was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison for stabbing his ex-girlfriend more than 25 times after a breakup.
Wayne Chambers, 51, learned his fate for the murder of Sandra McIntosh, 46, a nurse at Stony Brook University Hospital, in July 2021.
“This defendant stabbed his ex-girlfriend in cold blood and without remorse,” said District Attorney Tierney. “My heart continues to go out to Sandra McIntosh’s loved ones. I hope this lengthy sentence provides them with some measure of justice after she was tragically taken from them by this defendant.”
He was found guilty of second-degree murder in December, Law&Crime reported.
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.
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 vehicle near a wooded area in Holtsville, prosecutors said.
At some point, witnesses saw Chambers standing outside 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 taken to the very hospital where she worked — Stony Brook University Hospital — and declared dead.
Tanisha Evans, the victim’s cousin, told local affiliate WCBS-TV that the family was crushed.
“We’re just distraught,” she said. “We’re just broken.”
Suffolk County police testified at the trial that they attempted to track Chambers down that night and found McIntosh’s car in the Bronx.
“Red staining that appeared to be blood was observed on both the exterior and interior of the vehicle,” Tierney said. “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 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 traced Chambers’ cellphone to the crime scene and at the spot in the Bronx where he was captured on video. Suffolk County police arrested Chambers a week after the stabbing, finding him at a hotel in Newburg, New York, on July 30.
In 1999, Chambers was sentenced to 19 years in prison after being convicted of first-degree robbery. He served 14 of those years.
Law&Crime’s Brandi Buchman contributed to this report.
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