FORT SMITH (KFSM) -- A man who now calls Arkansas home has an unusual connection to the infamous Son of Sam murders in New York City.
The case dominated headlines in July of 1977.
“Most of the other shootings occurred in little lovers’ lanes that had easy access to highways and parkways,” Bob McGuire said.
Just a few months earlier, McGuire took his girlfriend to one of those lovers' lanes. They were the only car parked there for about ten minutes when another car pulled in.
“He parked two spots over from us,” he said. “And she started getting nervous saying, ‘What`s this guy doing here by himself?’”
A few weeks after that happened, the Son of Sam tipped off a newspaper reporter to his serial shootings.
“That`s when the description started to come out that he drove a light-colored car,” McGuire said.
Police also released a composite sketch describing the suspect as a man with dark hair, anywhere between 5’8" and 6’2".
“My features were very similar,” McGuire said. “I had the same jet black hair.”
McGuire also had a beige Mustang II at the time.
Sometime after that, McGuire noticed a young woman looking at him inside his car as he was waiting to pick up his girlfriend, but he didn't think anything of it until the next morning.
“I was reading the paper, and I happened to look up one time and I see a cop car coming diagonally across the street right at me, and I said `What the heck`s going on?’” he said.
He said the young woman and an older woman, likely her mother, were pointing to police saying, ‘That’s him. That’s the guy.’
McGuire said he was questioned and released, but police followed him for several days after that.
“It scared the hell out of me,” he said.
Eventually a parking ticket near the final murder led police to the real ‘Son of Sam’, who turned out to be 24-year-old David Berkowitz.
“Every suspect that they had under surveillance was cleared,” McGuire said. “I remember when I looked at [my girlfriend], I said, ‘Thank God.’”
As he watched the news a week later, McGuire’s experience came full circle.
“They're showing his car,” he said “They're examining the car and I'm like, ‘That's the car we saw in the park.’”
The Son of Sam ended up killing six people and wounding seven others.
“The irony of that here, I was one of the suspects, and as it turned out I was almost one of the earlier victims,” McGuire said.
Berkowitz was sentenced 25 years to life in prison for each murder.