Amy was a 17 year-old high school senior and Joey, an auto body body shop owner in Baldwin (Nassau County) New York were having an affair. No real news there until the impressionable Amy thought the best way to keep Joey for herself would be to murder Mary Jo. For some reason, Joey didn't seem to think that was an idea to be discouraged. Or, be didn't know that Amy got a small-caliber semiautomatic handgun and was willing to make her man her own. It was a variation on the song Frankie and Johnny.
Amy went to school and then cut class and confronted Mary Jo on the steps of her home on May 19. Mary Jo was at first in critical condition, but pulled through the surgery and is alive today with some facial and nerve damage. She and Joey remained married for 10 more years, then divorced.
To say this was a sensational story is to undersell it. The tabloids went NUTS. LONG ISLAND LOLITA became the headline, and Amy's nickname. Joey, 38, being a bit of a thick-headed beefcake, was BESIEGED by reporters.
The story was so big that even the NYT covered it five days later, on May 23 on page 28 of the first section, under METRO NEWS when Amy Fisher was charged with attempted murder in the shooting. The NYT, never a paper to exploit sensationalism had given in and pulled out a Hagstrom map (pre-Internet) and claimed the Buttafuoco's lived in Baldwin, when in fact they lived in Massapequa. (Their Adams Road West home is described as being in an affluent "waterfront community in Baldwin.") Both towns are in Nassau County, an area so uncovered by The Times that it is probably understandable that they'd get some facts wrong. After all, all the suburbs look alike, right? Massapequa is several towns to east of Baldwin.
Regardless of their compass, their coverage probably started when a Manhattan-centric editor realized that Massapequa, or Baldwin, was on the train line they took to the Hamptons (no Hamptons Jitney then) then figured they could take a chance and try and find Nassau County. When The Times left Manhattan in those days they were somewhat like Christopher Columbus looking for India. They are only somewhat better now.
Twenty-seven years is a long time, but he story got its renewal when Jessica, a daughter of Mary Jo and Joey, now 36 appeared on ABC's 20/20. Shows like 20/20 need stories like the Fisher-Buttafuoco saga for their oxygen.
Amy got seven years in prison and is now a single mom, with a different name, with three children. For awhile she wrote a column for Newsday. Joey was not charged in any crime stemming from the 1992 shooting, but did get fined and placed on probation in 1995 for solicitation of a prostitute. In 2004 he was sentenced to a year in jail and five years probation for auto insurance fraud..
Joey tried to capitalize on his name-recognition and tried some acting and wrestling. His fame quickly faded. Not even De Niro cast him in anything. Mary Jo remarried, then divorced. Everyone is still with us.
I think I did hear a promo announcement on ABC that there was an upcoming look back at the Buttafuoco stroy, '"Growing Up Buttafuoco." But my juices were really primed when a NYT reporter, Corey Kilgannon posted a Tweet (@CoreyKilgannon) that the show was going to air on Friday, and that he was not going to go out that night. He didn't want to miss it.
I'm sure it was a tongue-in-cheek Twitter announcement, but I don't know if I'd admit to not having a DVR. His Tweet posted the above photo, showing Mary Jo and Joey holding hands sometime after the shooting.
1992 was a significant year for myself and my family. Despite the news coming from Long Island, we moved from Flushing in November to a Nassau County town. We've always been glad we did, and it was on Veterans Day, 1992 that we did actually move. So, we're having a 27-year anniversary today.
There's always news, and not too long after we moved in Joel Rivkin, was stopped for no license plate, or no light shining on his truck's license plate; a traffic stop on June 29, 1993.
Joel was an East Meadow landscaper. When the police circled his vehicle they detected a strong odor coming from the back of the truck. One thing lead to another, and they discovered a woman's body under a tarp. As you might imagine, one thing lead to another, and it was later determined that Mr. Rivkin, along with killing the woman in the truck, a prostitute, had been killing them on a somewhat regular basis. He was a serial killer.
This is big news too. Joel, labelled by tabloids as JOEL THE RIPPER, was convicted of killing 9 women, with a belief he was probably responsible for eight more bodies that he dismembered and scattered. He got a 203-year sentence and is still alive and in jail.
Since June in the 'burbs is grass cutting season—and there are those who might tell you I'm a congenital wise-ass—when I was mowing our front lawn I caught my neighbor's attention, Otto, a Nassau County cop, and in all seriousness asked him if the fellow I bought he house from ever used Joel for any landscaping projects. I mentioned that I'd hate to lose the lawn to a search warrant. Otto didn't reply.
When I think of the third story I have to tell, I now realize how dull the place has now become. But not before a middle-aged married couple and the husband's brother coming back from a night of serious partying in the City were arrested for disobeying a Long Island Railroad conductor to stop having three-way sex on a 6:05 A.M. train from Penn Station on the Babylon line in the early hours of September 22, a Sunday.
The three were doing it, doing it, doing it so intently that they ignored the 25 other people in the car, ignored the conductor to stop, and were later pulled off each other when the police separated them at Merrick and charged them with public lewdness. Supposedly the wife continued to kiss the brother-in-law at the station house as they were handcuffed, claiming she liked "to keep it in the family." Oh my. A plea deal eventually resulted in class B misdemeanor convictions.
The couple were the parents of two school-age children. At least they were married to each other. I'm sure the kids had to endure significant hazing at school when the story broke, because it was EVERYWHERE, names, occupations, residences etc. The tabloids couldn't jam in enough double entendres to their stories: "new meaning to riding the rails," and on and on.
Kids always have a problem envisioning their parents having sex, especially after they're born. And to have Mom doing it with Dad and an uncle, doing it together in so public a manner had to be thoroughly mortifying. There's an anniversary I bet they'd like to forget.
So, here were are, in the suburbs where nothing ever happens, until it does. But boy, when it does.
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