Penn Station Sniper
Location: Pennsylvania Station, NYC, New York
Dates: April 28, 1983 - February 21, 1984
Victims: 7 (6 Injured; 1 murdered)
The first victim was a 50 year old homeless woman named Emily Lucchesse. She was shot in the hip on April 28, 1983, while laying against a wall in a second-floor room of the Antonio Olivieri Center for homeless women. The gunman shot her from a second-floor setback connected to the Pennsylvania station.
Police searched the surrounding areas but found no trace of the perpetrator or their weapon. After the bullet was removed from Lucchesse, it was discovered that it was fired from a .25 caliber automatic weapon. It was then sent to the department's ballistics laboratory to see if it matched with the 1981 murder of Allan Spiegal. It wasn't a match, but Allan Spiegal's murder was later solved after a Philippine immigrant confessed to it.
Less than a month later, on May 18th, 45-year-old Alvin Siegel, a hotel watchman, was shot in the right hand while making his rounds before midnight. At first, he thought he was struck by an exploding soda bottle, but a medical examiner confirmed that he had been shot.
On June 29, 1983, Brant Kingman, an artist, was shot in the chest in his second-floor loft on West 30th street. The police interviewed friends Kingman was speaking to on the telephone at the time he was shot, but nothing came of it.
On June 29, 1983, Brant Kingman, an artist, was shot in the chest in his second-floor loft on West 30th street. The police interviewed friends Kingman was speaking to on the telephone at the time he was shot, but nothing came of it.
The bullet was shot from the same setback as the one Lucchesse was shot from, but the ballistics were once again compared with the Allan Spiegal case - not the bullet that shot Emily Lucchesse.
It would take another shooting before the police began linking the cases together.
It would take another shooting before the police began linking the cases together.
On July 21, Mildred Cohen, a 55 year old woman, was shot in the neck in the same room where Emily Lucchesse was shot 4 months earlier. The Gunman also shot her from the same setback the previous 2 victims were shot from. The ballistics from the attacks were compared & the police figured out that all of the bullets were fired from the same weapon.
West 30th street was kept under surveillance in August, & hundreds of residents in the area were interviewed. Aerial photographs of the area were also taken. However, no shootings occurred that month.
Detectives followed a lead in September. A man in New Jersey bragged to an undercover narcotics officer about killing a "bag lady" in Manhattan. The lead led nowhere, however, as the man was in jail during the last three attacks.
There were no new developments in the case until the next shooting on December 4th. 38 year old Arthur Staveley, an Amtrak car inspector, was shot in the face inside of Penn Station. No bullet was recovered from Staveley, but investigators found a bullet stuck in a track tie 10 feet away, which was linked to the other shootings after ballistic testing.
Detectives suspected that the perpetrator might have been a railroad employee because of their access to the Penn Station.
Long Island railroad detectives joined the investigation, patrolling tracks 20 & 21, as well as installing a closed-circuit television system.
Despite the efforts of law enforcement to catch the assailant, another attack happened on December 20, where a 68-year-old train conductor was grazed above the eye by a bullet that still hasn't been found to date.
The last attack & only murder happened on February 21, 1984. 29-year-old Richard Russo, an Amtrak engineer, was fatally shot in the head on a platform between tracks 20 & 21. Unfortunately, the attack wasn't caught on camera because the television system had been moved to another part of the station earlier in the year.
Detectives filed background checks on over 43,000 people, tested over 1,500 handguns, Visited 10 states, & conducted wiretaps & 24 hour surveillance as an attempt to find the shooter, yet he still remains unidentified to this day.
References
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