By Rachael Bell

Point Blank!

Mary Jo Buttafuoco had no idea that when she answered the door to her home on Adam Road West in Long Island, N.Y., on May 19, 1992, her life would be forever changed. At the door was a teenaged girl with flowing brown hair who wanted to know if she was the wife of Joey Buttafuoco. When Mary Jo said she was, the girl suggested that they talk about her husband.

Mary Jo then stepped outside the house and asked the girl what she wanted. To Mary Jo’s surprise, the girl said Joey was having an affair with her 16-year-old sister. Mary Jo brusquely asked the girl who she was and where she lived. The girl told her that she was Ann Marie and she lived on Dolphin Court.
As Mary Jo was talking, she noticed a car parked in front of her house with a young man sitting in the driver’s seat. She asked who was in the car and the girl said that it was her boyfriend. Changing the subject, the girl told her she had proof of the affair and held up a T-shirt with the logo “Complete Auto Body and Fender, Inc.” There was no doubt that the shirt was from her husband’s business, but it didn’t strike Mary Jo as proof of an affair, because her husband had given away many of the shirts.

Angered by the girl’s accusations, Mary Jo decided to end the conversation. She demanded that the girl get off her property and Mary Jo turned to go into the house to call Joey. Suddenly, the girl brandished a .25-caliber semiautomatic pistol from her pocket and struck Mary Jo in the head with the weapon. According to Maria Eftimiades in her book, Lethal Lolita, the girl then aimed the gun at Mary Jo’s right temple and fired.

The girl then dropped the shirt she was carrying and the gun and ran off toward the waiting car. The young man sitting in the vehicle ordered her to go back and grab the shirt and the weapon. The girl recovered the items, raced back to the car, and took off down the street.

Three neighbors heard the shots and ran to see where the noise had originated. The men made their way toward the Buttafuocos’ home, where they saw Mary Jo lying sprawled out on her front porch, bleeding profusely from her head. Another neighbor immediately dialed 911, hoping that an ambulance would make it to the scene before Mary Jo died. At the time, she was still alive but her pulse was weakening.

Within minutes, the ambulance was there and they rushed Mary Jo to the hospital. While police attempted to locate her husband, doctors prepared to perform surgery on Mary Jo. They knew they were fighting an uphill battle judging by the horrific wound on her head.

Police remained at the scene to determine what had actually happened. There was no sign of robbery and it seemed unlikely that it was a mafia hit, since the victim was a housewife. What they didn’t know at the time was that the shooter was a 17-year-old girl named Amy Fisher. Moreover, Amy, not her fictitious sister, was the alleged lover of Mary Jo’s husband.

News of the shooting and the suspected love triangle spread across the country like wildfire. Amidst the flurry of fact and fiction was the true story waiting to be exposed — one more complex than initially realized. It was a story that would shock the world and eventually transform perceptions of Amy as a ruthless young woman to a victim herself.

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Books Written By Maria Eftimiades

Sins of the Mother
by Maria Eftimiades, Maria Eftimades
3.64 avg rating — 14 ratings — published 1995
My rating:

Lethal Lolita A true story of sex, scandal and deadly obsession
by Maria Eftimiades
2.93 avg rating — 15 ratings — published 1992 — 2 editions
My rating:

Secrets from the Grave
by Maria Eftimiades
3.17 avg rating — 6 ratings — published 1998
My rating:

Garden of Graves
by Maria Eftimiades
He was a beloved family physician and a ruthless doctor of death who almost got away with murder.
It was a friendly hunting trip– two men kicking back, shooting at clay pigeons on campgrounds near rural Montrose, Pa. Then, a single shot rang out. Moments later, Marty Dillon, a promising young lawyer, was dead of a gunshot wound to the chest. His friend, Dr. Stephen Scher, later tearfully explained that Dillon had been running with a shotgun after a porcupine, and tripped and fell, accidentally killing himself. But what really happened?

Marty Dillon’s violent death was immediately declared an accident by the local coroner in 1976. But as Dillon’s body was lowered into the cold ground, did a damning secret, one that would haunt his friends and family for decades, go with him?
3.00 avg rating — 5 ratings — published 1993 — 2 editions
My rating:

My Name Is Katherine
by Maria Eftimiades, Maria Eftimiades
2.67 avg rating — 3 ratings — published 1993
My rating:

My Name Is Katherine
by Maria Eftimiades, Maria Eftimiades
2.67 avg rating — 3 ratings — published 1993

Sins Of The Mother
by Maria Eftimiades
0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings
My rating:

Lolita
by Maria Efatimiades, Maria Eftimiades
0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings — published 1992

Maria Eftimiades, a journalist for more than a decade, is was the New York City bureau chief for People magazine. Maria Eftimiades has also written five books including Sins of the Mother, The Susan Smith Story and Lethal Lolita, The Amy Fisher Story. Maria Eftimiades has worked as a reporter, columnist and community editor for the New York Times, New York Newsday, Stamford Advocate, Bergen Record and Dallas Morning News. Maria Eftimiades

Books written by Maria Eftimiades

Garden of Graves: The Deadly Passion of the Long Island Serial Killer
by Maria Eftimiades

Lethal Lolita: A True Story of Sex, Scandal and Deadly Obsession
by Maria Eftimiades

My Name Is Katherine: The True Story of Katie Beers, the Little Girl Who Survived an Underground Dungeon of Horror
by Maria Eftimiades , Joe Treen

Secrets from the Grave
by Maria Eftimiades

Sins of the Mother
by Maria Eftimiades