Long Island: the Suburban Jungle

For reasons no one quite understands, New York City's suburbs on Long Island have been the setting for particularly bizarre and tragic crimes over the past few years.

Dec. 7, 1993 -- Colin Ferguson shoots and kills five commuters on the Long Island Rail Road and wounds 18 others as the train approaches Garden City.

June 28, 1993 -- Joel Rifkin of East Meadow confesses to the serial killing of 17 women in and about the New York City area. Another murder is attributed to him days later.

Jan. 13, 1993 -- John Esposito is arrested for imprisoning 10-year-old Katie Beers in a dungeon-like room he has painstakingly and secretly constructed under the garage of his home in Bay Shore.

May 19, 1992 -- Amy Fisher, 17, shoots and severely wounds Mary Jo Buttafuoco, wife of her lover Joseph Buttafuoco, in front of the Buttafuocos' Massapequa home.

Dec. 12, 1990 -- Physician Robert Reza, having an affair with a church organist, flies from a Washington medical convention to his home in Bayport, shoots and strangles his wife, then flies back to the conference to establish an alibi.

March 3, 1989 -- Kelly Ann Tinyes, 13, is bludgeoned to death and mutilated by her neighbor bodybuilder Robert Golub in his parents' home in Valley Stream.

Dec. 24, 1987 -- Matthew Solomon chokes to death his new bride, Lisa, after a Christmas Eve argument in Huntington Station and disposes of her body in garbage bags.

Nov. 15, 1987 -- Nurse Richard Angelo of Lindenhurst is arrested for administering lethal doses of muscle relaxant to patients, as part of a scheme to make himself look like a hero by reviving them.

Feb. 5, 1986 -- Sean Pica kills the sexually abusive father of fellow Selden high school student Cheryl Pierson after she hires him for the job.