The location where Christine Freund was murdered

This is the location where the Son of Sam, David Berkowitz, shot and killed Christine Freund.

It is situated at Station Square in Queens, New York.

The couple's car was parked in Station Square, just a few feet away from the steps to the Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) station. Some sources state that the shooting occurred on nearby Continental Avenue. However, this confusion stems from the fact that the victim's boyfriend drove to the intersection immediately after the attack.

Murder

On the evening of January 30, 1977, Freund (26) and her boyfriend, Johnny Diel (30), went to see the film "Rocky" at a movie theater in Forest Hills. Afterward, they had food and drinks at a nearby cafe.

At around 11:30 p.m., they walked back to Diel's Pontiac Firebird, which was parked across from the Forest Hills Inn.

That night was bitterly cold, as temperatures had dipped well below freezing. To warm the engine, Diel revved it a few times and let it idle for a while.

As they sat in the car, Berkowitz suddenly walked up to the passenger-side window and opened fire with his .44 caliber revolver.

Freund was hit twice and slumped over to her side. Diel survived the attack with only superficial wounds.

He later described the incident to reporters:

"An explosion came, and at the same second I heard it, I turned, and Chris fell towards me with her head. I grabbed her, and I started screaming, 'Chris! Chris! Chris! Chris!'"

When his girlfriend failed to respond, Diel jumped out of his car and screamed for help. However, there was nobody around.

Desperate to find help, he got back into the Pontiac and drove about 100 feet west, towards the busy intersection between Continental Avenue and Burns Street. This allowed him to block traffic and draw attention to himself.

His plan worked, as the police arrived at the scene a few minutes later.

Freund was rushed to St. John's Hospital, where she died from her wounds four hours later.

Diel struggled to cope with Freund's death. The couple intended to get engaged on Valentine's Day in 1977, just 15 days after the shooting.

Following her murder, he began drinking heavily, sleeping until noon, and turning up to work drunk.

Pattern

The Station Square shooting confirmed that a disturbing pattern had emerged.

In just six months, an unidentified gunman had carried out four seemingly random ambush attacks on women. Donna Lauria and Freund were now dead, while Joanne Lomino had been left paralyzed from her injuries.

Carl Denaro and Rosemary Keenan had also been lucky to escape with their lives after someone opened fire on their car in Flushing.

Freund's murder was significant, as it prompted the police to investigate possible links between the recent spate of random shootings in the Bronx and Queens.

Although nicknames such as "the Son of Sam" and "the .44 caliber killer" hadn't been coined yet, the authorities were beginning to notice the glaring similarities between the crimes.

The short distance between the locations, the victim profiles, the caliber of the weapon, and the motiveless nature of the crimes all indicated that a single gunman was targeting unsuspecting people.