On a bitterly cold night in January 1977, 26-year-old Christine Freund was shot while sitting in a parked car in Queens, New York. She and her fiancé, John Diel, had been on a date and were parked near the Forest Hills Long Island Rail Road station after seeing the movie Rocky. Three gunshots were fired into the Pontiac Firebird; Diel suffered minor injuries, Freund was struck twice, rushed to a hospital, and died several hours later. The couple had planned to announce their engagement on Valentine’s Day fifteen days after the shooting.

Christine Freund’s killing was later linked to a series of similar attacks on young women sitting in cars, a pattern that became associated with the Son of Sam shootings. That string of shootings ultimately produced leads that led to an arrest in August 1977. Does anyone have memories of the Forest Hills area that night or information about Christine and John’s plans that could add context to this case?