The location where Carl Denaro was shot

This is the location where the Son of Sam, David Berkowitz, shot and wounded Carl Denaro.

It is situated near the corner of 159th Street and 33rd Avenue in the Flushing neighborhood of Queens, New York.

A number of newspaper reports and websites state that the shooting occurred on 160th Street, which is one block east. However, that is incorrect.

It is unclear whether this was just a simple mistake or if the police initially leaked the wrong address to protect the investigation against false confessions. Interestingly, newspapers made a similar error while reporting on the shooting of Joanne Lomino and Donna DeMasi.

On the night of October 22nd, 1976, Denaro (20) threw an impromptu going-away party at a local bar, as he was scheduled to ship off with the US Air Force the following week.

After having a few drinks, the former Citibank security guard left the bar with his on-and-off girlfriend, Rosemary Keenan (18).

At around 1.30 a.m. on October 23rd, the pair were driving north along 159th Street in Keenan's red Volkswagen Beetle when they decided to pull over to the side of this quiet residential road and smoke some weed.

However, while they were parked, Berkowitz suddenly walked up to the passenger window and opened fire with his revolver.

One of the bullets struck the top of Denaro's head and broke off a piece of his skull. Keenan suffered superficial injuries from the shattered glass.

During the attack, the pair did not realize that they were being fired upon. Following the "explosion", Keenan immediately hit the gas and sped off as quickly as possible.

Denaro was later rushed to the hospital, where doctors replaced the damaged section of his skull with a metal plate.

Unfortunately, Denoro and Keenan never saw their attacker. Consequently, they were unable to provide the police with a description.

To complicate matters even further, the .44 caliber bullets were so damaged that it was forensically impossible to link them to a weapon.

At the time, nobody knew that this was just the second attack in a series of seemingly random ambush shootings that would terrorize the city of New York.

Although Berkowitz had murdered Donna Lauria three months earlier, that crime took place in a section of the Bronx that was eight miles north of Flushing.

It wasn't until the shooting of Christine Freund in January 1977 that the authorities realized they had a problem on their hands.

Photos

Photos of the street and other related images.

Denaro-Keenan shooting location

Image source: Google Maps

This Google Street View image was captured in August 2022.

In the early hours of October 23rd, 1976, Denaro and Keenan drove past the intersection between 159th Street and 33rd Avenue and then pulled over to the side of this road.

While they were talking, Berkowitz approached the passenger-side window and opened fire.

The attack stumped investigators, as they were unable to determine a motive. Although Keenan's father was a veteran detective in Queens, it didn't make much sense for a criminal to target her in such a manner.

After learning that Denaro had smoked some weed that night, the police reportedly pursued the theory that he was a drug dealer. However, that line of inquiry quickly came to nothing.

Denaro's hopes of joining the US Air Force were dashed by the shooting, as he was rejected due to his skull injury.

Bowne Park

There has been some debate about why Berkowitz chose this quiet residential neighborhood in the middle of Flushing, Queens.

Berkowitz liked to troll around lovers' lanes for victims because he knew that there was a good chance that he'd find a couple sitting in their car late at night. At the end of his shooting spree, he also targeted a public park in Brooklyn.

The Denaro-Keenan shooting occurred just 150 yards (140 meters) south of Bowne Park.

Therefore, it seems plausible that he was simply driving around this particular area when he spotted Keenan's Volkswagen Beetle.

This was his first time hunting for a victim outside of the Bronx. Due to his lack of familiarity with the neighborhood, he may have felt compelled to focus on Bowne Park and its surrounding streets.

From his perspective, this would have made sense, as young couples are often drawn to such places.

After noticing the Volkswagen, it is likely that he parked around the corner and then approached the scene on foot, just like he had previously done during the murder of Donna Lauria a few months earlier.

Conspiracy theories

The image above was taken from old video footage of 159th Street.

Much has been made about Denaro's recent claims that he was shot by a Satanic cult.

As you can imagine, tabloid newspapers were very eager to jump on the theory that an "occult priestess" was the true culprit, not Berkowitz.

However, Denaro has made it very clear that he doesn't know all of the answers.

Although he is a survivor of the Son of Sam shootings, he did not see his attacker. Consequently, he has had to research this case in the same manner as an outsider.

Conspiracy theories about high-profile true crime cases are a dime a dozen, especially ones that involve Satanists and shadowy groups of people.

Once you scratch beneath the surface of these theories, you'll often find that they're based on flimsy evidence, an incomplete understanding of the case, and some large leaps of logic.

For example, many have pointed to the differences between the various police sketches as proof that multiple shooters may have been involved in the Son of Sam killings.

However, this completely overlooks the key issue with witness reports.

To date, we've covered multiple serial killers, missing person cases, and about 200 separate crime scenes. The one thing we've learned about witnesses is that they are notoriously unreliable, especially when they are forced to provide specific details about a suspect's appearance.

There is a popular saying in law enforcement that if you ask seven people about the exact same event, you'll hear seven different stories.

This is unsurprising, as multiple studies have shown that our memories aren't nearly as accurate as we like to think they are.