A Teacher Met a Stranger at a Singles Bar on New Year’s Eve. Her Murder Became the Basis for a Diane Keaton Film

Mar. 15, 2025

Roseann Quinn.Photo:NY Daily News via Getty

NY Daily News via Getty

On Dec. 31, 1972, partygoers flooded a singles bar known as W.M. Tweeds on New York City’s Upper West Side to ring in the New Year. One of those single people was Roseann Quinn, a 28-year-old teacher and New Jersey native who lived in a studio apartment across the street, theNew York Timesreported.

There, Quinn met a man named John Wayne Wilson. Later that night, the two left the bar and wound up at Quinn’s apartment, where authorities said he beat and fatally stabbed Quinn during a sexual encounter, according to theNew York Daily News. Wilson fled the scene and Quinn’s body wasn’t found until days later, on Jan. 3, 1973, when a concerned colleague went to her home.

Quinn’s naked body was found sprawled out on her bed with a 65-lb statue of a woman left on her face, which had been beaten, theDaily Newsreported. A medical examiner determined she had about 18 stab wounds, per the outlet.

According to theTimes, police said she had also been sexually mutilated and that an argument may have led to her killing.

After tracing Quinn’s last moments, investigators tracked down 23-year-old Wilson at his brother’s home in Indianapolis, Ind., less than five days after the discovery of the victim’s body, theDaily Newsreported. Months prior to Quinn’s killing, Wilson had escaped a Miami prison and he was deemed a fugitive, per the outlet. (His exact criminal history is unclear.)

John Wayne Wilson.Dan Farrell/NY Daily News via Getty

Dan Farrell/NY Daily News via Getty

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Newsweekdescribed the book as a “hard, fast, frightening read” while theNew York Times Magazinecalled it “a complex and chilling portrait of a woman’s descent into hell.”

Richard Gere (left) with Diane Keaton in the 1977 film ‘Looking For Mr. Goodbar’.Paramount/Getty Images

source: people.com