Middletown police arrest two more people in 2019 cold case: Here's the latest

Mike Randall, Middletown Times Herald- Record
·2 min read

MIDDLETOWN - City of Middletown police have arrested two more suspects in the 2019 cold case shooting death of Sebastian Avilan-Medina.

The arrests were announced Monday. They took place on Monday and Tuesday of last week.

Three people have now been charged with Avilan-Medina's murder.

Middletown police said on Monday last week they arrested Douglas R. McFarlane, 24, and charged him with second-degree murder. The following day, they arrested Sheldon M. Paul, 39, and charged him with first-degree murder. Both charges are felonies.

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McFarlane and Paul were arraigned in Middletown City Court and sent without bail to the Orange County jail, pending further court action.

Police said those arrests conclude a five-year investigation into the death of Avilan-Medina, 26, who was shot to death in an apartment on Knapp Avenue on March 11, 2019.

The first arrest took place on April 11. That suspect, Dijon D. Constantine, 23, was charged with second-degree murder.

Middletown Police Chief John Ewanciw said in a statement the arrests were a result of five years of dedicated work by the investigators from his department and multiple law enforcement agencies across the region who assisted. He said that cooperation and sharing of resources "was instrumental in bringing this challenging case to a successful conclusion."

Ewanciw added the case "sent shockwaves through our community and forever changed the lives of the Avilan-Medina family."

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"Five years is a very long time for a family to have to wait for justice, but these delays were the result of a carefully devised plan to take the life of Sebastian Avilan-Medina," Ewanciw said in the statement. "It is my hope that these arrests will bring closure to Sebastian's family, and allow our community to heal from this brutal and senseless act of violence against one of our residents."

Orange County District Attorney David Hoovler added, "While this is but one step in the process, I hope that the charges brought against the defendants offer the victim's family and our community at large some degree of respite from their grief."

McFarlane's attorney, Glen Plotsky, and Paul's attorney, Philip Sayles, declined to make a comment on their respective clients' behalf at this time.

Mike Randall covers breaking news for the Times Herald-Record and the Poughkeepsie Journal. Reach him at mrandall@th-record.com.

This article originally appeared on Times Herald-Record: Three charged in 2019 shooting death of Sebastian Avilan-Medina