It was May 19, 1992. A humid morning in Massapequa. Mary Jo Buttafuoco answered her front door to find a teenage girl with a violet-tinted ponytail standing there. The girl, Amy Fisher, wasn’t a stranger to the family—not exactly. She was only 17, but she was carrying a .25-caliber semi-automatic pistol and a world of resentment.
The shot rang out, hitting Mary Jo in the head. She survived, but the quiet suburbs of Amy Fisher's Long Island would never be the same.
Honestly, if you lived through the '90s, you remember the "Long Island Lolita" frenzy. It was everywhere. Three different TV movies aired in a single week. Late-night comedians made Amy the punchline of every joke. But behind the tabloid gloss was a messy, dark story of statutory rape, manipulation, and a suburban girl who spiraled out of control.
The Auto Body Shop and the Affair
People often forget how this actually started. It wasn't some glamorous Hollywood romance. It began at a car repair shop in Baldwin.
Amy’s father took his car to Joey Buttafuoco’s shop, and the 35-year-old mechanic caught the eye of the 16-year-old high schooler. Amy started intentionally damaging her car just to have an excuse to see him. Think about that for a second. She was a kid at Kennedy High School, and he was a grown man with a wife and two children.
Joey later served four months for statutory rape. He denied the affair for ages, but the receipts—literally, hotel receipts signed by him—didn't lie.
The shooting itself happened because Amy was convinced Joey wanted his wife dead so they could be together. She showed up at the Buttafuoco house claiming Joey was having an affair with her (non-existent) younger sister. When Mary Jo turned to go back inside, Amy pulled the trigger.
Life After Albion: The Seven-Year Sentence
Amy Fisher didn't spend her whole life behind bars, though it felt like a lifetime to the public watching the news. She was sentenced to 5 to 15 years for first-degree aggravated assault.
She ended up serving seven years at the Albion Correctional Facility. While she was inside, the media machine kept churning. She filed lawsuits claiming she was raped by guards; she claimed her lawyer had coerced her. It was a circus that didn't stop until she walked out on parole in May 1999.
Interestingly, it was Mary Jo Buttafuoco who eventually helped her get out. Mary Jo actually spoke at her parole hearing. Talk about grace. After all the surgeries to fix her facial paralysis and the bullet still lodged in her neck, Mary Jo chose forgiveness.
Why the Case Still Sticks to Long Island
You can't talk about Nassau County without someone eventually bringing up the "Lolita" case. It defined an era of tabloid journalism.
- The Media War: ABC, CBS, and NBC all fought for the rights to the story. Drew Barrymore and Alyssa Milano both played Amy.
- The Nickname: The media coined "Long Island Lolita," a term Amy has hated ever since.
- The Suburban Myth: It shattered the idea that nothing "bad" happened in nice, middle-class New York neighborhoods.
Where is Amy Fisher Now in 2026?
A lot has changed. If you bumped into her today, you might not even recognize her. She’s in her early 50s now. For a while, she tried to lean into the notoriety—she wrote a column for the Long Island Press, wrote a memoir called If I Knew Then..., and even did a stint in the adult film industry because, as she put it, no one else would hire her.
But the most surprising turn? She moved back.
Around 2017, reports surfaced that she had returned to Amy Fisher's Long Island to be closer to her family. She’s a divorced mother of three now. She mostly goes by the name "Liz." She wants a quiet life, which is ironic considering she once told a camera she wanted her name in the papers forever.
People in the local towns still have mixed feelings. Some think she’s done her time; others can’t forget the image of Mary Jo on that porch.
Moving Past the Tabloids
If you're looking to understand the real impact of this case beyond the 1992 headlines, look at how we view victimhood now. In the '90s, the "Lolita" narrative blamed the girl. Today, we'd probably focus much more on the 35-year-old man grooming a teenager.
Joey and Mary Jo finally divorced in 2003. Mary Jo wrote her own book, Getting It Through My Thick Skull, which is a pretty blunt title if you think about where the bullet hit her. She’s 70 now and living in California, finally away from the Long Island noise.
Next Steps for True Crime Enthusiasts:
If you want to see the most accurate portrayal of the events without the '90s camp, watch the Lifetime documentary I Am Mary Jo Buttafuoco. It gives the perspective of the survivor rather than the sensationalized "bad girl" narrative. You should also look up the 2023 Port Authority news—don't confuse the "Long Island Lolita" with the highly successful attorney Amy Fisher who recently became General Counsel there. Different people, very different lives.