In the spring of 1992, Amy Fisher approached a house in Massapequa, New York, with a deadly intention: to kill the woman who would open the door.
At 17, Fisher was involved in an affair with the homeowner's husband, Joey Buttafuoco, and on that day, she resolved to murder his wife, Mary Jo.
Amy Fisher, Known As The 'Long Island Lolita', Shot Her Lover's Wife In The Head In 1992The lingering question remains: Did Fisher act independently to eliminate Mary Jo, or was she instructed by Joey to commit the murder? This dilemma gripped the nation as both Fisher and Joey faced their respective trials in the 1990s.
Here is a comprehensive overview of Amy Fisher, known as the "Long Island Lolita," from the shooting incident involving Mary Jo Buttafuoco to her current status.
Amy Fisher Meets Joey Buttafuoco
Amy Fisher had supposedly had a challenging and painful life by the time she met Joey Buttafuoco in 1990. In her autobiography Amy Fisher: My Story, the August 21, 1974, born woman said that she had experienced sexual abuse as a youngster and was sexually assaulted as a preteen. Her mother refuted a lot of these allegations.
"So here I was, on the brink of sweet 16: a class-cutting, report-card forging, ashamed secret rape victim who'd been sexually abused as a little kid," Fisher writes in her autobiography.
She then got to know Joey Buttafuoco.
Amy Fisher, Known As The 'Long Island Lolita', Shot Her Lover's Wife In The Head In 1992Joey Buttafuoco was 36 years old and married when her father brought his automobile to Joey's mechanic business when Fisher was 16. However, by the summer of 1991, Fisher had started having an affair with him when she began to take her own automobile in.
Amy Fisher made the decision to visit the Buttafuoco mansion in Massapequa, New York, over a year later. She carried a.25-caliber semiautomatic handgun and a t-shirt from Joey's auto repair business.
The Shooting Of Mary Jo Buttafuoco
Amy Fisher rang the doorbell at the Buttafuoco residence when she pulled up on May 2, 1992. Mary Jo, Joey's wife, answered the door.
Mary Jo listened as Fisher, who introduced herself as Ann Marie, accused Joey of infidelity with her younger sister and presented a t-shirt from the auto shop as evidence. However, Mary Jo was skeptical and dismissed Fisher, turning to re-enter her house.
Amy Fisher, Known As The 'Long Island Lolita', Shot Her Lover's Wife In The Head In 1992Subsequently, Fisher escalated the situation violently. She hit Mary Jo on the head with a pistol and then shot her in the right temple. The bullet caused severe damage, breaking Mary Jo's jaw, severing her carotid artery, and becoming lodged at the base of her brain. Fisher then fled the scene, and Mary Jo was quickly taken to a hospital, where her life was miraculously saved by the medical team.
Despite suffering partial paralysis on one side of her face and losing hearing in one ear, Mary Jo was able to promptly identify Fisher as her attacker. According to ABC News, Joey Buttafuoco recognized the t-shirt Fisher had shown earlier and confessed to police that he had originally given it to Fisher's father, suggesting Fisher could indeed be the assailant.
In the aftermath, Amy Fisher was apprehended by the authorities. However, the narratives presented by her and Joey Buttafuoco diverged significantly, leading to conflicting accounts of the events.
The Arrest And Imprisonment Of The 'Long Island Lolita'
What motivated Amy Fisher to shoot Mary Jo? In the unfolding drama, two conflicting stories were told. Fisher asserted that she had been involved in a romantic relationship with Joey, who had even urged her to murder his wife.
"When [Mary Jo] answers [the door]," she claimed he'd instructed her, "don't even wait for her to open the screen door. Just shoot and keep shooting."
Joey Buttafuoco, on the other hand, denied having any sexual relationship with Fisher.
"Joe was adamant. He screamed from the rooftops [that] he had nothing to do with her sexually — nothing," Mary Jo told ABC News in 2019. "I know I did go home and ask Joe a million times, 'Did you have sex with her?' And a million times he denied it. And a million times he swore to me on our children's lives, so I thought he's got to be telling me the truth."
Amy Fisher, Known As The 'Long Island Lolita', Shot Her Lover's Wife In The Head In 1992At her trial in September 1992, the media dubbed Amy Fisher the "Long Island Lolita," while in court she was depicted as a call-girl. The prosecutor, Fred Klein, critiqued the understatement of her portrayal, comparing it to calling John Gotti merely a New York businessman.
"I'd like to say something to Mary Jo," Fisher said in 1999, according to a New York Times article on her parole hearing that year. "What happened to you was not your husband's fault, not your fault… It was my fault, and I have spent the last seven years trying to figure it out."
Amy Fisher, Known As The 'Long Island Lolita', Shot Her Lover's Wife In The Head In 1992She eventually abandoned the adult film business, but in 2017 the New York Post revealed that she had been putting on peep shows at her Long Island house.
Where Is Amy Fisher Today?
Upon her release from prison, Amy Fisher initially settled into a conventional lifestyle. She got married in 2003, authored another memoir titled "If I Knew Then" in 2004, and became a mother to three children.
However, in 2007, her life took a dramatic turn when a sex tape featuring her and her husband was released, propelling her into the adult entertainment industry. According to a 2019 report by PEOPLE, she starred in "Amy Fisher: Totally Nude & Exposed" and several other adult films, including "Deep Inside Amy Fisher."
Fisher eventually exited the adult film scene. In 2017, the New York Post reported that she had begun hosting peep shows at her residence on Long Island.
Despite the years that have passed, Amy Fisher remains connected to Joey and Mary Jo Buttafuoco. The couple divorced in 2003, and Mary Jo has since described her ex-husband as a sociopath. All three have participated in televised reunion specials, and there was even a brief period when Fisher and Joey reconciled.
Amy Fisher, Known As The 'Long Island Lolita', Shot Her Lover's Wife In The Head In 1992Fisher has criticized Mary Jo in the media, particularly after a 2015 Time article reported Mary Jo's disappointment over Fisher leveraging her notoriety to enter the adult entertainment industry.
"Mary Jo is a nonentity," Fisher said. "People are angry at me because I'm a millionaire. But guess what? So is Mary Jo! She made more millions off of what I did than what I made."
She continued: "I feel no sympathy for Mary Jo the multimillionaire! The fact that Mary Jo has a bullet in her head means nothing! I still have silicone in my boobs, and you don't hear me complaining. She can't feel her bullet, and I can't feel my silicone."
Though each has taken a different path, Amy Fisher, Mary Jo, and Joey Buttafuoco remain inextricably linked by the events of 1992, when Fisher brought a gun to the Buttafuoco home, creating a bond marked by controversy and tragedy.
