Carl Denaro: Shot By Son Of Sam

Carl Denaro and Rosemary Keenan shooting

David Berkowitz is located in New York City

David Berkowitz

Forest Hills Gardens, Queens. Most of Berkowitz's activity was in Queens, though he lived farther north in Yonkers.

On October 23, 1976, a similar shooting occurred in a secluded residential area of Flushing, Queens, next to Bowne Park. Carl Denaro, 20, and Rosemary Keenan, 18, were sitting in Keenan's parked car when the windows suddenly shattered. "I felt the car exploded [sic]", Denaro said later.[27] Keenan quickly started the car and sped away for help. The panicked couple did not realize that someone had been shooting at them, even though Denaro was bleeding from a bullet wound to his head. Keenan had only superficial injuries from the broken glass, but Denaro eventually needed a metal plate to replace a portion of his skull. Neither victim saw the attacker.[28]

Police determined that the bullets embedded in Keenan's car were .44 caliber, but they were so damaged and deformed that they thought it unlikely that they could ever be linked to a particular weapon.[29]

Denaro had shoulder-length hair, and police later speculated that the shooter had mistaken him for a girl.[30] Keenan's father was a 20-year veteran police detective of the NYPD, causing an intense investigation. As with the Lauria–Valenti shooting, however, there seemed not to be any motive for the shooting, and police made little progress with the case. Many details of the Denaro–Keenan shooting were very similar to the Lauria–Valenti case, but police did not initially associate them, partly because the shootings occurred in different boroughs and were investigated by different local police precincts.