David Huff pleads guilty in Syracuse double murder, avoids trial

David Huff pleaded guilty in Onondaga County Supreme Court to two counts of second-degree murder in the killings of Yeraldith Tschudy, 32, and Jeremiah Huff, 11, bringing a brutal Syracuse case closer to resolution without a trial.

The plea, entered April 28, 2026, means Huff will face a likely prison term of 40 years to life. Each murder count carries 20 years to life, and Judge Ted Limpert is scheduled to sentence him on May 29.

The case has carried a heavy weight in Syracuse and beyond since March 18, 2025, when police found Tschudy and Jeremiah dead inside 128 Roney Road. Prosecutors said Huff and Tschudy had been in a romantic relationship, and investigators treated the killings as a domestic-related homicide. In the hours after the shootings, court spectators shouted at Huff during his arraignment, demanding justice and reacting with raw grief and anger.

Law enforcement spent about 12 hours searching across Onondaga County for Huff before a citizen tip helped lead officers to him. New York State Police took him into custody around 9:30 a.m. that same day near South Avenue and West Seneca Turnpike, about two miles from the crime scene. Body camera video later showed the arrest area near the southern edge of the city. Huff was initially charged with first-degree murder, second-degree murder and fourth-degree criminal possession of a weapon.

The guilty plea spares Onondaga County a lengthy murder trial, along with the uncertainty that comes with jury selection, witness testimony and cross-examination. It also avoids what would have been a public airing of evidence around the shootings, including prosecutors’ allegation that Huff also tried to shoot his father, who survived because the shotgun jammed or ran out of ammunition. Authorities said Huff had no known domestic-violence criminal history.

The loss remains especially acute because one of the victims was a child. Jeremiah was a sixth-grader at Gillette Road Middle School in the North Syracuse Central School District, where Superintendent Terry Ward told parents he was known as a friend to all. Later descriptions painted him as an honor-roll student and a curious, adventurous child. Tschudy, who was from Rochester, was later described as a mother of two and a social worker, widening the circle of grief beyond Syracuse into another Upstate community.

For Onondaga County, the plea delivers certainty and a long prison sentence, but it does not erase the devastation left in a home on Roney Road or the questions that a trial might have answered in open court.