Westchester Playdate Killer Paroled, Community Furious

LEWISBORO, NY — Despite continued pleas from the victims' families, a man who raped and murdered two women in South Salem in 1977 while their children were in another room was granted parole.

Samuel Ayala is 68. His victims were Bonnie Minter and Sheila Watson, brutalized and killed in a brazen, sadistic daytime home invasion by Ayala and two other men. Ayala beat, raped, and murdered them — in front of the mothers’ 3- and 6-year old children — with Ayala laughing throughout the house after 11 shots were fired at the women as they tried to crawl away.

Jason Minter, who described the families' shock at the news in a Facebook post, said, "We can only speculate that COVID and the lack of in-person accessibility might have impacted our ability to resonate with the board as it had in previous years."

Former Westchester County Executive and state Senate candidate Rob Astorino said the decision was alarming and nauseating.

The judge in the case, Justice Richard Daronco, said at sentencing that his 25-year-to-life sentence for Ayala was the maximum he could give, to make it clear to future parole boards that the court believed Ayala belonged behind bars for life.

"But New York State Parole Board members clearly have forgotten the innocent victims here, and for that they should resign in disgrace," Astorino said.

Despite the Parole Board's decision being final, 2,907 people in two days have signed a petition on Change.org to tell Gov. Andrew Cuomo about their alarm. The organizer said: "This egregious decision on the part of the parole board will not only deeply compromise the safety and well-being of the general public, but will guarantee the victims' children will live the rest of their lives in fear. This sociopath should remain behind bars for the rest of his life-- where he belongs!"

In his Facebook post, Minter said they do not know where Ayala will go when released in September, nor will they know for months what he said that convinced the parole board to release him after what Minter described as years of lies that the family had in the past been able to refute.

"Six years ago, when the board asked Ayala if he hadn't run out of bullets, would he have killed the four young children present so that there were indeed no witnesses, he did not answer," Minter said. "His silence said it all."