Returning from classes at Barnard College at about 7:30 p.m. on March 8, 1977, 19-year-old Virginia Voskerichian walked her usual route home from the subway station–down the leafy, largely deserted streets of Forest Hills Gardens. Just half a block away from the spot where Christine Freund died just six weeks earlier, Voskerichian was ambushed in front of 4 Dartmouth St. The brunette co-ed only had time to lift her textbook to protect her face as the .44-caliber Bulldog fired. The bullet tore through the book, killing her. But that same bullet also led police to link the previous shootings.
Moments after the shooting, a neighborhood resident who had heard the gunshots was rounding the corner onto Voskerichian’s street. He nearly collided with a person he described as a shot, husky boy, 16 to 18 years old and clean-shaven, wearing a sweater and watch cup, who was sprinting away from the crime scene. The neightbor said the youth pulled the cap over his face and said, “Oh, Jesus!” as he passed by, sprinting.
Other witnesses reported to have seen the “teenager,” and another man matching Berkowitz’s description, loitering separately in the area for about an hour before the shooting. In the following days, the media repeated police claims that this “chubby teenager” was the suspect in the shooting. Berkowitz later claimed that he was at the Voskerichian murder scene, but the actual shooter was a “woman from Westchester.” Additionally, Berkowitz claimed the Voskerichian shooting was partly designed to confuse police by seeming to change the modus operandi established in earlier cult shootings. However, his cult claims remain unproven, even there isn’t enough evidence either to dismiss them entirely.