Bay Shore housemate killer gets 25 years to life after Miami arrest

Darwin Josue Maldonado Vanegas, 32, will spend 25 years to life in prison for fatally shooting his housemate, Daniel Nunez-Hernandez, inside a Bay Shore basement before fleeing New York and being tracked down in Miami.

Suffolk County District Attorney Raymond A. Tierney announced the sentence on April 16, 2026, bringing a close to a case that began in a rented house on April 3, 2025, at about 11:20 p.m. Police found Nunez-Hernandez, 24, dead with gunshot wounds to the chest and arm after witnesses reported hearing two gunshots from the basement earlier that day. Other tenants later found his body on a couch in the basement.

Investigators said the two men were renting separate rooms in the same home. Near the body, police recovered two 9mm shell casings. They also found a loaded magazine with 12 rounds of 9mm ammunition hidden between the mattress and box spring of Maldonado Vanegas’ bed, evidence prosecutors used to connect him to the shooting. The Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office described the killing as a violent domestic-style crime that ended with one tenant dead and another on the run.

After the shooting, prosecutors said Maldonado Vanegas withdrew cash, went to Atlantic City, stopped using one cellphone, got a second phone and then fled to Miami, Florida. Suffolk County police homicide detectives arrested him there on May 7, 2025, with help from law enforcement in Miami. He was indicted on May 22, 2025, and a jury found him guilty on March 17, 2026 of second-degree murder and second- and third-degree criminal possession of a weapon.

Acting Supreme Court Justice Richard Horowitz presided over the trial and sentencing. Prosecutors said the defendant, described by the district attorney’s office as a lawful permanent resident from El Salvador, could not escape accountability by crossing state lines. For Nunez-Hernandez’s family and for Bay Shore, the sentence closes a case that moved from a basement on Long Island to an interstate search and back to Suffolk County court for judgment.