John Shelton, 43, was shot dead on February 7, 1990, in Queens. He was gunned down outside a dry cleaners by a ski-masked assailant armed with an M-1 rifle. Authorities characterize the killing as a calculated execution intended to silence a key witness: Shelton was due to testify against four people charged in the drug-related homicide of his long-time girlfriend, Maxine Peterson.

Peterson had been killed on May 28, 1988; she was in her kitchen holding her 6-week-old infant when attackers fired about twenty bullets. The baby was unharmed. Investigators believed Peterson’s murder was retaliation by drug dealers after a shooting earlier that day involving her son.

Police identified Shelton’s killer as a hired gun and later brought formal murder charges against an 18-year-old named Michael Bethea, who was already in custody on drug and weapons charges. Did anyone in Queens at the time recognize the man who used an M-1 rifle or have information about connections between these murders?