(SUFFOLK COUNTY, N.Y.) – Suffolk County District Attorney Raymond A. Tierney today announced that Philip Walker, 58, of Mastic, pleaded guilty to Manslaughter in the First Degree, for stabbing his housemate, 63-year-old Jimmy Vaughn, three times with a knife. During the attack, Walker fatally pierced the victim’s heart.
“This conviction ensures accountability for a senseless act of violence that claimed a life,” said District Attorney Tierney. “While no sentence can bring the victim back to his friends and family, I hope that they can find some solace knowing that his killer was held criminally responsible for his actions.”
According to court documents and the defendant’s admissions during his guilty plea allocution, on June 30, 2023, at approximately 5:00 p.m., Walker fatally stabbed the victim inside a room at the Shirley Motel on Montauk Highway. When paramedics arrived, Vaughn was found outside of room, bleeding from the left side of his chest and abdomen. Vaughn was taken to Long Island Community Hospital, where doctors tried but failed to repair the hole in his heart. He was pronounced dead at approximately 6:20 p.m.
Walker fled from the motel after the incident, but Suffolk County Police officers arrested him on July 2, 2023, at a family member’s home in North Amityville.
On February 14, 2025, Philip Walker pleaded guilty to Manslaughter in the First Degree, a Class B violent felony, before Acting Supreme Court Justice Karen M. Wilutis. Walker is expected to be sentenced to 20 years in prison.
Walker is due back in court on March 25, 2025, and he is being represented by Eric Besso, Esq. This case is being prosecuted by Assistant District Attorney Dena Rizopoulos of the Homicide Bureau, and the investigation was conducted by Detective David Gelsomino of Suffolk County Police Department’s Homicide Squad.