August 3, 1994 Peter Sylvester admitted to firing the shot that wounded Kathryn Spatafora, a waitress at a Burger King restaurant in Stony Brook. Ms. Spatafora was wiping tables on the night of Aug. 3 1994, near the front window when Mr. Sylvester fired from across the street.
From the NY Times 9-13-95:
RIVERHEAD, L.I., Sept. 12— Admitting that he was the sniper who terrorized Suffolk County last summer by firing a high-powered rifle through the windows of restaurants and a gas station, a 25-year-old Long Island man pleaded guilty today to murder and assault.
The man, Peter Sylvester of 6 Midwood Avenue in Nesconset, fidgeted with his hands and rocked on his feet as he admitted under questioning by the Suffolk County District Attorney, James M. Catterson, that he had fired knowing that he might kill.
Mr. Sylvester told authorities he had carried out the random attacks to create a smokescreen for a murder he planned but never committed.
The shootings touched off one of the most intensive hunts for a criminal suspect in Long Island history and prompted restaurants and other businesses with windows exposed to the street to lower blinds and pull curtains. The Suffolk County police stepped up patrols along commercial strips to reassure the public, but business at many restaurants plunged.
Charon Chaifetz, whose husband, Steven, was killed by Mr. Sylvester, said after the hearing today: “Poetic justice would be for him to be murdered in jail. I despise him. He has ruined my life.”
Mrs. Chaifetz and her husband, a 50-year-old accountant, were dining at a restaurant in Commack on the evening of July 22, 1994, when he was shot.
Under a plea bargain, Mr. Sylvester faces 35 years to life in prison when he is sentenced by Judge Michael F. Mullen of Suffolk County Criminal Court on Sept. 27.
Mr. Catterson said he had agreed to the plea bargain because of the sentence it guaranteed and because it spared the victims and their families the trauma of testifying at a trial.
“Justice is served, and there is an end to it,” he said. He described Mr. Sylvester as a sociopath and “the type of person who knows what’s wrong but doesn’t care.”
Mr. Catterson said that Mr. Sylvester had planned to kill a woman as an unsolicited favor for a topless dancer who complained to him that the intended victim, also a topless dancer, had stolen her boyfriend.
He said that Mr. Sylvester believed the random sniping attacks would mislead authorities into thinking the death of his friend’s rival was another random sniping attack.
Paul Gianelli, Mr. Sylvester’s lawyer, said that both women worked at clubs in Suffolk. He said Mr. Sylvester was a customer at one of the clubs, the Bull Creek Inn in Smithtown, and “may have been spurred on or egged on” by his friend, who was not charged, to kill her rival.
In addition to the murder of Mr. Chaifetz, Mr. Sylvester admitted today to a sniping attack four days later in East Commack in which he fired at a gas station attendant, Ali Gocmez, 24, who was protected by safety glass.
He said he also fired the shot that wounded Kathryn Spatafora, a waitress at a Burger King restaurant in Stony Brook. Ms. Spatafora was wiping tables on the night of Aug. 3 near the front window when Mr. Sylvester fired from across the street.
Mr. Sylvester, an only child who lived alone with his mother and grandmother, also pleaded guilty to burglarizing a house on Aug. 2 in the same Nesconset neighborhood where he lived, stealing $3,000 and striking a sleeping 15-year old girl with a metal object.
Other charges in the 24-count indictment, including rape and sodomy, were dropped as part of the plea agreement.
Suffolk homicide detectives named Mr. Sylvester as a suspect in November 1994 after a painstaking investigation that linked bullets fired in the attacks to a rifle stolen by Mr. Sylvester and found in his home.
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