A Long Island jury found Keyonna Waddell guilty after prosecutors traced the attack from bedroom floor to hospital surgery.
RIVERHEAD, N.Y. — The sound that woke a Long Island man in March 2024 was followed by a bedroom explosion, an amputation and, more than two years later, a felony conviction.
The trial against Keyonna Waddell, 35, of Deer Park, focused on a short window of time in which prosecutors said her boyfriend tried to remove a burning explosive from his bedroom. Jurors convicted Waddell on April 24 of assault in the first degree and criminal possession of a weapon in the first degree. She now faces up to 25 years in prison. The victim survived, but prosecutors said the device detonated in his hand and forced doctors to remove part of his arm.
According to prosecutors, the victim had gone to bed after an earlier argument with Waddell at his apartment. He had told her to leave, and both people left the home. When he came back, he did not see her inside. The apartment appeared empty enough for him to sleep. That sense of quiet changed when he woke to a hiss and saw a flame on the floor. Suffolk County District Attorney Raymond A. Tierney said the man realized that an object resembling a stick of dynamite had been thrown into his bedroom. The device was already burning when the victim first saw it.
What happened next became the center of the prosecution’s account. The victim tried to put out the device, but the effort failed, prosecutors said. He then grabbed it to throw it out of the room. The object exploded before he could get rid of it. Tierney said the man felt searing pain and realized that his hand was gone. Prosecutors said the victim fled the bedroom and ran outside to the driveway. From there, he saw Waddell running away on foot. That sighting came immediately after the blast and helped investigators place her at the scene, according to the district attorney’s public summary.
Emergency medical treatment followed the explosion. The victim was taken to a hospital, where surgeons amputated the rest of his mangled hand and part of his arm, prosecutors said. The district attorney’s office has not released his name, age or a full description of his recovery. It has also not said how long he remained hospitalized. The injury, however, was enough for prosecutors to pursue a first-degree assault case. The state’s evidence described a permanent physical loss, not a temporary wound, and jurors returned a conviction on the top assault charge presented in the public announcement.
Only after the blast did investigators publicly connect the attack to an alleged pattern of threats. Prosecutors said they learned Waddell had threatened the victim with dynamite several times in the months before the explosion. Those prior threats gave the case a longer path than the few moments inside the bedroom. They also shaped the way Tierney described the verdict. “Domestic violence can escalate to deadly levels, and this case is a sobering reminder of that reality,” he said. The district attorney’s office did not detail the exact dates or words of the alleged earlier threats in its public account.
The weapon count added another layer to the case because the object was not described as a common household item or ordinary weapon. Prosecutors said it resembled a stick of dynamite and functioned as an explosive device. They did not publicly explain whether the device was commercially made, homemade or modified. They also did not say where it came from or whether any other explosive material was found during the investigation. Those details may have been addressed in court, but they were not part of the district attorney’s public statement after the jury returned its verdict.
Waddell was arrested the day after the explosion, prosecutors said. From there, the case moved through charging, pretrial proceedings and trial. The jury’s April 24 verdict came more than two years after the March 22, 2024, attack. The time between arrest and conviction did not change the next question before the court: how much prison time Waddell should receive. Prosecutors said she faces up to 25 years. The judge, not the jury, will impose the sentence at the next court date, now set for May 27.
Tierney thanked the Suffolk County Police Department and prosecutors after the verdict. He said their work held Waddell accountable for a “horrific act.” The office did not release the names of all witnesses who testified, the number of trial days or the length of jury deliberations. It also did not include a defense statement. No public statement from Waddell was included in the materials released after the verdict. The absence of those details leaves the prosecution account as the main public record of what jurors heard and how the attack unfolded.
The bedroom setting made the case especially stark. Prosecutors said the victim was asleep and unaware of immediate danger until the fuse was already burning. He did not find the device before bed, and he did not have time to summon help before trying to remove it himself. The attack moved from a private apartment to an emergency response and then to a courtroom, where the injury and the timing of Waddell’s alleged flight became part of the proof. By the end of trial, jurors had accepted that proof beyond a reasonable doubt.
Sentencing remains the last open step in the case. Waddell’s conviction is in place, the maximum exposure has been stated and the victim’s injury has been made part of the court record. The proceeding is scheduled to resume May 27, when a Suffolk County judge will decide the punishment.
Author note: Last updated May 19, 2026.