Bernard Timothy Heaney, a 30-year-old Caucasian man, was shot to death on December 5, 1988, outside his auto-body shop, Save-On Customizing, in Flanders, New York. He was inside the shop with a mobile tools salesman when he heard sounds he thought were firecrackers. He went outside to check on his dog, Jack, found the dog had been shot, and was then struck multiple times while moving toward the woods bordering his property; the final, fatal bullet hit his head. Heaney left a wife and two daughters, ages nine and seven.

His killing was one of a string of sniper-style shootings that terrorized the Riverhead area for nearly two months. On January 28, 1989, 21-year-old Yusef Abdullah Rahman was arrested and later charged in connection with Heaney’s murder and several other shootings that wounded three people. During the trial, Rahman’s defense said he suffered paranoid schizophrenia and was delusional, while the prosecution relied in part on a videotaped statement. In 1990 a jury convicted Rahman of Heaney’s murder and the related attacks, and he was sentenced to life in prison.

Did anyone in the area know Bernard, his business, or his family and have details that might add to the record?