Laurie Anne LoBaito-Puskas referred to her son as “Jonathan Livingston Seagull,” after her favorite fable about a nonconformist bird who, on the strength of his resolve, soars to new heights to achieve personal freedom.
Like Jonathan, Daniel “Danny” Puskas rose above his circumstances. Born on March 5, 2002, he was only a toddler when Laurie Anne, escaping an abusive husband, booked a cross-country train ticket and resettled the family in South Philadelphia. On the subway, Daniel would inform strangers, “My dad called my mom an a**hole and I want to build her a skyscraper to be safe from him.”
Daniel also suffered from attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and sensory issues as a young boy. His sock seams irritated his feet and his macaroni and cheese was never the right shade.
Yet he excelled at sports. The first time he played T-ball in Marconi Plaza, he sprinted toward Broad Street and accidentally took one of the bases with him. He became the fastest runner and top hitter in his community league.
The family moved to Delaware County, where, at age seven, Daniel got hit by a car while riding his bicycle. The handlebars wedged into his liver and it took him several months to recover.
While Daniel and his two siblings, Noah and Xavier, lived modestly with their single mother, Daniel’s friends in Springfield took elaborate vacations. In elementary school, he fixated on being rich and successful.
“Who makes more money?” he asked his mom one day. “A doctor or a lawyer?”
An animal lover, Daniel pet pigeons, rescued rabbits from wayward lawnmowers, and cradled his cats like babies. For a time, he considered being a veterinarian, then a lawyer, then a professional baseball player. As he grew older, he practiced meditation and the Buddhist concept of non-attachment, preferring a simpler life — albeit one with Wawa cheesecake milkshakes and Insomnia cookies.
“He would be the person if you took a walk, he would comment on how beautiful the sunset was and the flowers were,” Laurie Anne said.
On Jan. 8, 2022, Daniel was grabbing food with a friend in the 1800 block of McClellan Street in the city’s Point Breeze neighborhood before heading over to tailgate with his girlfriend at an Eagles game. After they left the store, gunfire erupted. Daniel, 19, was killed while his friend survived. No arrests have been made.
“We were just so close that I feel like our souls will always be connected,” said Daniel’s girlfriend of nearly five years, Liz Turner. “I feel like that makes it easier.”
The two met in the eighth grade at E.T. Richardson Middle School in Springfield. Daniel’s Euro-style skinny jeans, naturally tan, toned body, and floppy golden brown hair attracted a posse of female admirers.
Liz wasn’t one of them. She was shy with a mouth full of braces, so she left Daniel to the more popular girls who stalked him on Instagram.
“I just didn’t even think I had a chance,” she remembered.
But one day in the cafeteria, Daniel asked a friend for Liz’s number.
He came home from school and asked Laurie Anne nonchalantly, “Can you give me a ride to Brooklyn?”
He wanted to buy Liz her favorite bagel, a tie-dye bagel, and they only sold them in Brooklyn. (Mom found one in Philly.)
A month after they started dating, Daniel professed his love to Liz, who was taken aback.
“He came off as a hard shell…but with me he was fully open, fully vulnerable,” she recalled. “I kind of have this treasure. No one really knows how much of a gift he is and how perfect he is.”
When she fell off his handlebars while they were riding his bike, he swooped her up and carried her a half-mile home. She trusted him instinctively, even after they broke up a few times: “We kind of just always knew we would come back together.”
Although he was traumatized by his past and had no relationship with his father, Daniel expressed gratitude for his family and friends, who were always by his side. The first time he tried to shave, he confided in Liz, “I don’t have anyone to show me how to do this stuff.”
Yet he wanted children of his own so that he could lead them on the right path, such as making peanut butter-and-jelly sandwiches for the homeless on Christmas Eve, or donating your sunkissed hair to a cancer patient.
Sadly, Daniel failed miserably with his practice child, a sack of flour he named “Vince” that was part of a high school consumer science class. Even after attaching a beanie to Vince’s head, Daniel lost him within two hours, Laurie Anne remembered, laughing.
“He was funny and he didn’t even know he was funny,” she said, adding that Daniel once stopped to tie his shoe in the middle of a wrestling match that he was winning. (He lost.)
After graduating from Springfield High School, Daniel moved back to South Philly with his mom. He worked at Home Depot and continued dating Liz long-distance while she was attending Penn State main campus.
They enjoyed exploring new parks, gazing at the twinkling city skyline, and arguing playfully over Marvel versus DC Comics movies.
“Some of the time, we didn’t even have to talk,” Liz said. “We just needed each other’s presence.” She still detects his presence in the heads-up pennies she stumbles upon — the same sign she received from her late grandmother.
Feeling lost after high school, Daniel debated taking up a trade or enrolling in West Chester University to become a science or history teacher.
“He was very inquisitive and wanted more out of life,” Laurie Anne said.
She still keeps a rock-hard tie-dye bagel on her dashboard, along with a bird shrine at home. She gave her son the “Jonathan Livingston Seagull” novella when he was in high school, but they never had the opportunity to discuss it.
Daniel’s ashes will be spread in the Hualapai Mountains in Arizona near where he was born, on his favorite baseball field in Briarcliffe, and perhaps somewhere in the ocean — among the seagulls.
A reward of up to $20,000 if available to anyone that comes forward with information that leads to the arrest and conviction of the person responsible for Daniel Puskas’ murder. Anonymous calls can be submitted by calling the Citizens Crime Commission at 215-546-TIPS. Information can also be submitted to the Philadelphia Police Department online or by calling 215-686-TIPS.
Resources are available for people and communities that have endured gun violence in Philadelphia. Click here for more information.
