July 22, 1994
This was the first of multiple shootings and crimes committed by Sylvester.
This article was originally published in Newsday on Sept. 13, 1995
A Nesconset man with a gun hobby admitted in court yesterday he was the sniper who killed one man and terrorized Suffolk’s North Shore last year. Afterward, his attorney said the shootings were meant to cover up his planned killing of a topless dancer.
In the first detailed explanation of Peter Sylvester’s alleged motive for the shootings, defense attorney Paul Gianelli said Sylvester told him he planned also to shoot the dancer, a woman who was a love rival of a woman Sylvester had befriended in a platonic relationship. Suffolk District Attorney James Catterson Jr. said Sylvester had told prosecutors the same story, but Catterson was unsure if that was the motive.
Under the eyes of his victims’ families and a dozen homicide detectives in Suffolk County Court in Riverhead, Sylvester, 25, spoke in a confident tone when he admitted to killing Steven Chaifetz as Chaifetz sat in a diner in Commack July 22, 1994; maiming Kathryn Spatafora as she wiped tables at a Stony Brook Burger King; shooting at Ali Gocmez as he worked at an East Commack Amoco station; and burglarizing a Nesconset home, where he was also charged with sodomizing a 15-year-old girl he found sleeping in her bedroom.
The shootings prompted police to mount the biggest hunt in the department’s history. People were afraid to go out at night, let alone sit by the windows of restaurants, and merchants complained their economic welfare had also been victimized by the sniper. Sylvester, an ex-convict who worked as a driver for a Smithtown auto parts store, was tracked down after police conducted 4,100 interviews and knocked on 2,600 doors. Ultimately he was traced to a burglary at a Farmingville taxidermist shop, where three guns were stolen. One of them, a .35-cal. rifle, turned out to be the murder weapon.
Police said Sylvester used the rifle and often fired his shots at night from across the street at his targets.
“Were you present across the street from the North Shore diner?” Catterson asked about the Chaifetz shooting. Chaifetz, 50, the only victim to die, was a lawyer and accountant at the firm of Margulis & Chaifetz, of Garden City.
“I was,” Sylvester replied.
“Did you aim and discharge that weapon at a man seated at the diner across the street?” Catterson continued.
“Yes,” he said.
Sylvester, of 6 Midwood Avenue in Nesconset, pleaded guilty to second-degree murder, first-degree reckless endangerment, first-degree assault and first-degree burglary in return for 20 other counts being dropped. Catterson is expected to ask for 35 years to life during the Sept. 27 sentencing.
After yesterday’s proceedings, Gianelli said his client told him the shootings were going to be a cover-up for the planned shooting of an acquaintance’s love rival. Sylvester had gotten friendly with a topless dancer at a Smithtown bar, he said, and the dancer told him her boyfriend was now seeing another topless dancer at The Tender Trap, another local bar.
“She felt that by killing her boyfriend’s new lover, that would cause him to come back to her,” Gianelli said. Because she knew Sylvester had been in jail before, the attorney said, “she asked him if he knew anybody” who would do the killing.
That planned murder – which would have looked like another random shooting on the North Shore – was never committed. Catterson had said previously that investigators had corroborated some of the information on what Sylvester said was his motive, but they had no evidence that he planned to carry out the murder.
Gianelli said the woman who Sylvester claimed put him up to the planned murder testified before the grand jury, and was not charged. Prosecutors said they had no evidence the woman had prompted any shootings.
Catterson confirmed last night that the woman had testified before the grand jury, and said she had waived immunity from prosecution. He said she had “corroborated in part” Sylvester’s story, but added, “There’s nothing in our investigation to indicate she requested, asked or had anything to do with what Sylvester was doing. I think this is strictly something Sylvester dreamed up.”
Chris Williams, Catterson’s executive assistant, said there is no evidence anyone else was involved in the shootings. After the plea, Chaifetz’ widow, Charon, bussed Catterson’s cheek, but seeing Sylvester admit to being the sniper gave her no relief.
“I don’t know if I will ever feel closure because nothing is going to bring my husband back,” she said. “Everything is for the criminals and nothing is for the victims.”
She, her son and daughter and friends wore red and black ribbons, symbols of a support group for survivors of murder victims. She said she felt numb as she watched Sylvester but she thought he didn’t show any remorse. “Poetic justice to me would be him to be murdered in jail.”
Her daughter, Francine Weiner, said, “It’s supposed to be a happy day but it doesn’t feel like one.” As homicide detectives walked past her down the hallway, she said, “They’re truly the heroes of this case. This was an unsolvable crime and they solved it.”
Then she asked anyone who read about the North Shore sniper’s victims and “thought it could have been them” to write to Acting Supreme Court Justice Michael Mullen to push for a life sentence.
Later, Gianelli said his client took the plea because, “He wanted to accept responsibility for what he did and really didn’t have a desire to prolong what I thought would be very likely a conviction in this case.” While Sylvester may appear to be cocky in court, “that is bravado,” the attorney said, adding that Sylvester has voiced remorse.
In bargaining for Sylvester’s guilty plea, Catterson said he had to weigh what charges would ensure Sylvester would remain in jail until he was almost a senior citizen. “I think to get 35 years on a plea guaranteed, justice is served and there’s an end to it.”
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