A New Jersey man released from prison early because of the coronavirus pandemic has been charged with killing two men last weekend.
Theodore Luckey, 42, was one of the prisoners eligible for New Jersey’s “public health emergency credits,” which allowed inmates who were within a year of completing their sentence to get off early as part of an effort to slow the spread of COVID-19 in the state’s prisons.
He left prison on May 7, according to the New Jersey Department of Corrections, and was rearrested on Saturday night in New Hampshire for a double homicide.
Police arrested Luckey after receiving multiple 911 calls about the murders. When they arrived on the scene, police found the two victims, Nathan Cashman, 28, and David Hnaford, 60, in a nearby hotel.
Cashman had “multiple chop wounds” inflicted by a machete and was found in the lobby, and Hanford had been strangled in a guest room, law enforcement said.
Luckey is not the first inmate to be rearrested for a violent crime after being released early due to the pandemic.
Just a few weeks ago, another New Jersey man, Jerry Crawford, 25, was rearrested two days after being released and charged with murdering a teenager.
Crawford allegedly shot 18-year-old Davio Scarbrough less than a mile away from the prison where Crawford had been incarcerated.
Surveillance video footage recorded Crawford and another man shooting the teenager multiple times, according to police.
Another New Jersey inmate, Zedekiah Holmes, 21, who was released in November, was rearrested for shooting two people at a birthday party this month.
According to an arrest affidavit, Holmes was allegedly involved in another shooting on April 13. Shell casings from that shooting matched 11 shell casings found at the mass shooting crime scene in Fairfield Township on May 22.
