The location where Alexander Esau and Valentina Suriani were murdered

Crime Scene Location in The Bronx, New York

This is the location where the Son of Sam, David Berkowitz, shot Alexander Esau and Valentina Suriani.

It is situated outside 1878 Hutchinson River Parkway in the Bronx, New York.

At around 3 a.m. on April 16th, 1977, Esau (20) and Suriani (18) were sitting in a Mercury Montego on this service road when Berkowitz walked up to the driver's side window and opened fire with his revolver.

Suriani was shot twice in the head and died almost instantly. Esau suffered a critical head injury and succumbed to his wounds two hours later at Jacobi Hospital.

The shots were heard by a neighbor, who immediately called the police.

The shooting took place just two blocks from where Donna Lauria had been killed eight months previously.

By this stage, the media was aware that someone was randomly targeting young couples in the Bronx and Queens. Some newspapers had started referring to him as a "sniper", while others nicknamed him "the .44 caliber killer".

In less than a year, Lauria, Christine Freund, and Virginia Voskerichain had all been shot dead by a .44 caliber revolver. Others, such as Joanne Lomino and Donna DeMasi, had been wounded in similar ambush attacks.

Now, yet another couple had been senselessly gunned down in cold blood with the exact same type of weapon.

The Esau-Suriani shooting was significant, as it was the first time that Berkowitz communicated with the police.

At the crime scene, detectives discovered a four-page letter that the killer had handwritten in block capitals. In the rambling, poorly-spelled letter, Berkowitz identified himself as the Son of Sam and promised to continue his "work" until he was killed.

Although the NYPD initially withheld the letter from the media, tabloid newspapers used their inside sources to glean information about some of its contents.

From that point on, the media began referring to the killer by his self-given moniker, the Son of Sam.

Alexander Esau and Valentina Suriani crime scene

The address and the GPS coordinates for this location are as follows:

Address

1878 Hutchinson River Parkway, The Bronx, New York, NY 10461, USA

Map

To view directions on how to get there, you can use the Google Maps shortcut below:

Google Maps

GPS coordinates

The latitude and longitude coordinates for the street are:

40.849387, -73.835827

Directions

The shooting took place a few feet away from the corner of Hutchinson River Parkway and St. Theresa Avenue.

Details about the general area

It is situated in the Pelham Bay neighborhood of the Bronx.

Photos

Photos of the street and other related images.

Hutchinson River Parkway

This Google Street View image of the Hutchinson River Parkway service road was captured in October 2019.

Esau and Suriani were sitting in a Mercury Montego that was owned by Esau's brother. They were parked just a few feet away from Suriani's apartment building at 1950 Hutchinson River Parkway.

The couple had been dating for three years. On the evening before the incident, they had gone to see a movie together. They were supposed to arrive home by 3 a.m., which was when the double homicide took place.

During the 1970s, this narrow, tree-covered road had a reputation for being a lover's lane.

Berkowitz specifically targeted such places whenever he was trolling for his next victim.

This means that the young couple were most likely in the wrong place at the wrong time.

The shooting terrified the tightly knit Italian-American neighborhood so much that residents stopped sitting on their stoops, even during hot weather. Parents also forbade their children from meeting each other outside.