Robert Violante, 20, attacked at 2:35 a.m.
Stacy Moscowitz and her friend were sitting in her boyfriend’s, Robert Violante’s, car, kissing (personally, I suspect, what other couples did too, which is the reason the noticed the attacker approaching, but in this case, it was admitted by the boyfriend). A man approached till three feet of the car and fired several shots, hitting both victims in the head. Robert Violante survived but lost one eye and most of the vision on the other one.
This crime scene produced the biggest number of witnesses yet, including one direct eye witness who was not an intended victim. Tommy Zaino was parked with his girlfriend three car lengths ahead of Violante’s car. He caught a glimpse on the killer and saw in his rear mirror the crim actually happen.
Even more telling was a woman, parked with her boyfriend on the other side of the park, seeing a man running she described as white male with a cheap nylon wig and then entering a light colored small vehicle in which he drove away quickly. She couldn’t remember the first two letters from the plate but was sure, the other were either 4-GUR or 4-GVR.
Berkowitz would later claim that the shooter in the Moskowitz-Violante case was a friend of John Carr, who had arrived from North Dakota for the occasion. Assitionally, Berkowitz would claim that after his Ford Galaxy, license plate 561 XLB, received a parking ticket at 2:05 a.m. for being parked too close to a fire hydrant near the city park, he tried to persuade two other cult members at the scene to postpone or relocate the crime. Berkowitz claimed his suggestion was overruled, and he was ordered to remain in the area to make sure no police were nearby.