The street where David Berkowitz shot Donna Lauria

This is the location where the Son of Sam, David Berkowitz, shot Donna Lauria and Jody Valenti.

It is situated at 2860 Buhre Avenue in the Bronx, New York.

At around 12.30 a.m. on July 29th, 1976, the two women parked outside Lauria's apartment. At the time, they had just returned from Peachtree's in New Rochelle, which was a disco that they frequented every Wednesday night.

While the two girls were chatting in the car, Lauria's parents, Mike and Rose, arrived home from an evening out together.

After making small talk with the two girls, Mike told his daughter that he was going upstairs to get their family dog. That way, they could take him for a walk around the block after Valenti had gone home.

When Mike entered the apartment building, Lauria said goodbye to her friend. However, as she was turning to exit the vehicle, she noticed that an unidentified man was approaching them with a paper bag in his hand.

The man in question was David Berkowitz.

Before they could react, Berkowitz pulled a .44 caliber revolver out of his bag, crouched down, and fired four shots at the girls. Then, without saying a word, he ran off into the night.

Valenti was struck in the thigh and survived the attack. Lauria wasn't as lucky, as the bullet struck her in the temple, killing her instantly.

After hearing the gunshots from his living room, Mike rushed downstairs and found his daughter lying dead on the street with blood pouring from her head.

Following the attack, Valenti was unable to identify the shooter. Nor could she think of any reason why someone would want to target them. In her mind, it didn't make any sense, as the pair didn't have any enemies.

From what she could remember, their assailant was a man in his 30s who was wearing a blue-striped shirt. However, the description of his age was inaccurate, as Berkowitz was actually 23 years old at the time.

Because Buhre Avenue was an Italian-American neighborhood, the police initially believed that it may have been a mob hit. However, that theory was soon discarded.

Lauria was Berkowitz's first known murder victim. At the time, investigators had no idea that this was just the start of a series of killings that would terrorize New York for the next twelve months.

Photos

Photos of the apartment and other related images.

Buhre Avenue

Berkowitz crept up on Lauria and Valenti while they were sitting in a car on Buhre Avenue. Then, without saying a word, he pulled out his revolver and opened fire on them.

Because this was his first shooting, the police believed that it was either a mob hit gone wrong or another random act of violence in the city.

New York City had such a high rate of crime during the 1970s that the murder didn't receive a lot of media attention.

Gunshots

Although Mike heard the gunshots from his living room, he initially believed that a car had backfired. It wasn't until he left the apartment complex that he realized his daughter had been shot.

Jody Valenti

Although Jody Valenti survived the shooting, it left her with PTSD.

For more than half a decade, she refused to get into a car at night. She was also petrified of loud noises.

In Berkowitz's confession, he said that he was driving around looking for a victim when he noticed the two girls sitting in the car on Buhre Avenue. After selecting them as a target, he parked around the corner and then walked back to their vehicle with his revolver.

Shooting location

This Google Street View was captured in February 2022.

Mike Lauria

Lauria's father, Mike, later spoke to reporters about Berkowitz:

"My wife comes screaming down the hallway. 'They've been shot.' I ran down, and by the time I got down, she was dead in the street. And that was it. There was nobody around. My daughter was 18 years old, and that's what he took out of my heart—18 years."