A twisted father from upstate New York smiled and laughed as he pleaded guilty to murdering his 11-year-old son and girlfriend.
David Huff, 43, smirked in court Tuesday as he confessed to shooting his girlfriend, Yeraldith Tschudy, 32, and his son Jeremiah Huff, 11, with a shotgun inside Huff’s stepfather’s home in Syracuse in March 2025.
Huff cracked a fiendish smile and even chuckled as Judge Ted Limpert read the charges against him, according to Syracuse.com.
“You find this funny?” the judge asked the laughing killer.
Huff then blamed his callous display on having “a joke stuck in my head.”
The dad denied shooting his son in the face, but otherwise admitted to both killings.
“I’m guilty of all that,” Huff said. “Whatever you guys say, I’m guilty of.”
Huff’s older son, who was not present the night of the murders, shouted to his father in the courtroom that he was embarrassing himself, according to Syracuse.com.
Prosecutor Rob Moran declined to address Huff’s behavior in the courtroom.
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“I’m focused on the family. I’m focused on Jeremiah. I’m focused on Ms. Tschduy. I could care less what his reaction to any of this is,” Moran told CNY Central. “I don’t have enough bandwidth to put any time into worrying about his reaction to these things.”
After the outburst, Huff pleaded guilty to two counts of second-degree murder. His conviction comes after months of the defense waiting for a medical expert to evaluate Huff’s mental health.
Huff’s defense attorney, Shaun Chase, finally conceded that multiple experts concluded any mental incapacity was due to his voluntary abuse of booze or drugs.
He was found competent to stand trial and opted to plead guilty to the second-degree charges rather than first-degree murder, which would have ruled out any chance of parole had he been convicted.
It’s not clear which substances, if any, Huff was using or his level of intoxication from the night of the murders, prosecutors said.
Huff opened fire with a 12-gauge shotgun at his stepfather’s residence around 9:30 p.m. on March 17, 2025, killing Tschudy and his son. He also fired at his stepdad, investigators said.
Jeremiah’s mother was the first to call 911 after she received a disturbing step call from her son just before the killings.
Huff fled the home before police arrived and was arrested by state police around 9:30 a.m. the next day, walking on West Seneca Turnpike, not far from the grisly scene.
