An Orange County jury found Douglas McFarlane guilty of first-degree murder and second-degree murder.

Friday's result is a jury verdict. News 12 did not report that a judge had imposed a sentence. Daily Voice reported sentencing is set for Jan. 25, 2027, and that the maximum on the first-degree count is life in prison without parole. News 12 said the jury returned two second-degree murder counts. Daily Voice said second-degree murder and did not say two counts. The outlets also do not describe the payment, or Knapp Avenue versus Knapp Street, the same way.

News 12's Blaise Gomez reported Friday, Oct. 23, 2026, that an Orange County jury found Douglas McFarlane guilty of first-degree murder and two counts of second-degree murder. The station reported the verdict came Friday after three days of deliberations in Orange County Court in Goshen. Daily Voice reported the same day, citing Orange County District Attorney David Hoovler, that McFarlane, 27, of Middletown, was found guilty of first-degree murder and second-degree murder after a jury trial in Orange County Court. Daily Voice did not write "two counts." News 12 did not give McFarlane's age. Neither Friday story named the judge. Neither reported that a sentence had been imposed.

News 12 reported McFarlane was charged with fatally shooting 26-year-old Sebastian Avilan-Medina, a Middletown business owner, in the face at close range inside his Knapp Avenue home on March 11, 2019. The Times Herald-Record, in a May 21, 2024 story, reported Avilan-Medina, 26, was shot to death in an apartment on Knapp Avenue that day. Spectrum News, on April 28, 2026, called him Sebastian Avilan, 26, and reported he loved fixing cars and had opened his own auto repair shop. Daily Voice did not name him. Daily Voice reported that evidence at the trials showed that on the morning of March 11, 2019, McFarlane, then 19, and Dijion Constantine, then 18, forced their way into the victim's apartment on Knapp Street, that the victim was alone, and that he was found dead from a gunshot wound to the head. Daily Voice reported prosecutors said McFarlane shot him in the head at close range with a .380-caliber semiautomatic pistol. News 12's account of the wound is a shot in the face. News 12 and the Times Herald-Record say Knapp Avenue. Daily Voice says Knapp Street.

News 12 reported prosecutors said co-defendant Sheldon Paul ordered the killing because he believed Avilan-Medina had burglarized his home. The station reported that in closing arguments Wednesday, Chief Assistant District Attorney Christopher Borek said McFarlane was paid $10,000 stolen from the victim's own home, while co-defendant Dijion Constantine received marijuana taken from the property. News 12 reported prosecutors pointed to surveillance video released by Middletown police, phone records, and testimony from Constantine, who had pleaded guilty to murder. Daily Voice, citing the district attorney's office, reported Paul offered the pair $10,000 and a pound of marijuana, that the burglary of Paul's home was on March 6, 2019, and that evidence showed Paul later realized he had been wrong about the victim's role in that burglary. News 12 reported defense attorney Rory Brady called the case largely circumstantial, argued there was no DNA evidence linking McFarlane to the killing, and questioned Constantine's credibility. Those are the accounts the outlets reported from court. The jury's guilty verdicts are the finding.

News 12 reported the case went unsolved for more than five years before arrests in 2024. The Times Herald-Record's May 21, 2024 story said police arrested Douglas R. McFarlane, then 24, on a second-degree murder charge, and Sheldon M. Paul, then 39, on a first-degree murder charge. That story spelled the third defendant Dijon D. Constantine, then 23, and said he was arrested April 11, 2024, and charged with second-degree murder. News 12 and Daily Voice spell the name Dijion Constantine. News 12 reported Constantine pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in June 2024 and is awaiting sentencing. Daily Voice reported Constantine, now 26, pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and is due in court Nov. 4. Spectrum News reported April 28, 2026, that he had "recently" pleaded guilty, which is not the June 2024 date News 12 reported. News 12 reported Paul was found guilty of two counts of second-degree murder earlier this month after a retrial and is scheduled to be sentenced January 21, 2027. Daily Voice reported that conviction was Friday, Oct. 2, that Paul is 42, and that he faces up to 25 years to life when he is sentenced Jan. 21, 2027. Spectrum News reported April 28 that Paul's earlier trial ended in a mistrial Monday, and that McFarlane was then due back May 11 facing a first-degree murder charge. Daily Voice reported McFarlane faces a maximum of life in prison without parole on the first-degree count, is scheduled to be sentenced Jan. 25, 2027, and remains in the Orange County Jail without bail. Daily Voice reported Hoovler said prosecutors will seek the maximum permissible sentences for McFarlane and Paul. News 12 reported Avilan-Medina's father, Byron Avilan, said outside court Wednesday, "It is a roller coaster of emotions. Hard. Hard for us. Hard to go through all that happened to our son," and, before the verdict, "My son will finally get the justice we are fighting for." All defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.