The location where Stacy Moskowitz and Robert Violante were shot

This is the location where the Son of Sam, David Berkowitz, shot Stacy Moskowitz and Robert Violante.

It is situated on Shore Parkway, beside Bath Beach Park, in Brooklyn, New York.

Moskowitz was shot twice in the head and died the following day. Violante survived the attack. However, he was left fully blind in one eye and partially blind in the other.

On the night of July 30th, 1977, Moskowitz and Violente went on their first date together. After going to see a movie, the two 20-year-olds decided to drive to this section of Shore Parkway.

During the 1970s, the service road near the park had a reputation for being a lover's lane.

Although an unidentified killer called "the Son of Sam" had been terrorizing New York City for the past year, the young couple weren't too worried. From their perspective, they were well out of harm's way, as almost all of the murders had taken place in Queens and the Bronx—two boroughs that were more than 10 miles away.

Unfortunately for them, Berkowitz had a similar train of thought.

The one-year anniversary of his first victim, Donna Lauria, had just passed, and the police had ramped up patrols in Queens and the Bronx in anticipation of another shooting. Consequently, Berkowitz decided to switch things up and confuse the authorities by hunting further afield.

After parking on this road, Moskowitz and Violante walked into Bath Beach Park, where they sat on the swings.

By that point, it was well past midnight, and the area was relatively empty.

When they first entered the park, Violante noticed that a man was standing nearby with his arms folded. However, he didn't pay him much attention at the time.

"I didn't pay no mind. I just figured that he's some guy who is just hanging out in the park."

While the pair were sitting on the swings, Moskowitz grew so anxious about the man's presence that she asked if they could return to the car.

At roughly 2.35 a.m., Moskowitz and Violante were talking and making out in the car when Berkowitz walked over to the passenger window and opened fire with his Bulldog revolver.

He fired four shots into the vehicle.

Moskowitz was fatally wounded, and Violante's eyes were completely shattered.

This was Berkowitz's eighth shooting. Fortunately, it also proved to be his last.

In the lead-up to the shooting, the 24-year-old had carelessly parked his car beside a fire hydrant. Consequently, he received a ticket, which eventually led the police to his doorstep.

Further information is available in the "Photos" section below.

Photos

Photos of the street and other related images.

Shooting location

The couple were parked underneath a street light at this section of Shore Parkway when Berkowitz opened fire.

Robert Violante later recalled how he woke up after the attack and couldn't see anything. As he lay there, covered in blood, he could hear Stacy Moskowitz groaning beside him.

At that point, it slowly began to dawn on him that they had been shot.

Bath Beach

This west-facing aerial image shows the area around Bath Beach Park.

During the 1970s, the swings were on the western side of the park.

Moskowitz and Violante sat on the swings and talked for a short period of time. However, they returned to their car after Moskowitz became somewhat anxious about the presence of another man.

Five to ten minutes later, Berkowitz walked over to the passenger window and shot the couple.

Fire hydrant

On the night of the shooting, Berkowitz received a ticket after he parked his 1970 Ford Galaxie beside a fire hydrant outside of 290 Bay 17th Street.

This location is just around the corner from the crime scene.

The authorities honed in on this ticket after a local resident named Cacilia Davis came forward and said that she had a strange interaction with the driver of the Ford.

On the night of the shooting, Davis was walking her dog when she saw a man scrutinizing a parking ticket on the vehicle.

Davis told the police that the man seemed very annoyed by the ticket. It also appeared as though he had a "dark object" in his hand.

When the man in question noticed her, he reportedly glared at her until she walked away.

A few days after Moskowitz's murder, Davis decided to report the suspicious interaction to the police.

Not long after, investigators discovered that traffic cops had written a parking ticket for a Ford Galaxie on Bay 17th Street. After running the license plate "561 XLB", they learned that the car was registered to a man named David Berkowitz, who lived in an apartment in Yonkers.

Coordinates: 40.601766, -74.009643

Google Maps Link

Distance

This aerial image shows the distance between Berkowitz's parking ticket and the location where Stacy Moskowitz and Robert Violante were shot.

As you can see, Berkowitz's vehicle was parked just around the corner.

Shore Parkway

Image source: Google Maps

This is a wider view of the crime scene. The entrance to the park is visible on the right.

Back in 1977, this was a small service road that had a reputation for being a lover's lane—a place where young couples would park and make out.

Notably, "the Son of Sam" purposely targeted such places.

Crime scene

This is a colorized, east-facing photograph of the Moskowitz-Violante crime scene.

A woman who was in the area at the time recalled how she heard four shots being fired. The gunfire was followed by the incessant sound of a car horn being pressed—a sign that Violante may have collapsed on the steering wheel. Then, moments later, a man began screaming, "Help me! God help me!"

When people ran over to the vehicle, they saw the two victims covered in blood.

The shooting occurred one year and two days after Donna Lauria's murder.

This was the first time that the killer had struck in Brooklyn.

Berkowitz liked to switch things up in an attempt to confuse the police.

For example, four months earlier, he had purposely changed his modus operandi by shooting a lone female named Virginia Voskerichian instead of targeting another couple.