David Berkowitz

David Berkowitz was born Richard David Falco on June 1, 1953, in the Brooklyn borough of New York City. Within a few days of his birth, his biological mother, Elizabeth "Betty" Broder, gave the child up for adoption. Broder had grown up as part of an impoverished family and was working as a waitress at the time of Berkowitz' birth. In 1936 she had married Tony Falco, an Italian American. After a marriage of less than four years, Falco left her for another woman. Although Broder was married to Falco, Berkowitz's biological father was Joseph Kleinman, a married businessman who, like Berkowitz' mother, was Jewish. The infant Richard was adopted by Pearl and Nathan Berkowitz of the Bronx. The couple were Jewish hardware store retailers of modest means, and childless in middle age. They reversed the order of the boy's first and middle names and gave him their own surname, raising the young David Richard Berkowitz as their only child. As a child, Berkowitz was frequently bullied for being Jewish, as well as for his "chubbiness". Journalist John Vincent Sanders wrote that Berkowitz' childhood was "somewhat troubled". Although of above-average intelligence, he lost interest in his education at an early age and became infatuated with petty larceny and starting fires. He also suffered head injuries as a child. He attended Public School #123, Public School #77 and Christopher Columbus High School, the latter from which he graduated in 1971. When Berkowitz was aged 14, his adoptive mother died of breast cancer, and his home life became strained due to conflict with his adoptive father's second wife. While attending high school and college, he lived with his father in a four-and-a-half-room apartment at 170 Dreiser Loop in Co-op City. Following his graduation from high school, Berkowitz joined the United States Army; he was subsequently stationed at Fort Knox in the United States and with an infantry division in South Korea. After an honorable military discharge in June 1974, Berkowitz located his birth mother. After a few visits, she disclosed the details of his birth; these greatly disturbed Berkowitz, particularly with regard to the array of reluctant father figures in his life. His communication with his birth mother later lapsed, but for a time he remained in communication with his adoptive sister Roslyn. Berkowitz attended Bronx Community College for one year, enrolling in the spring of 1975. He subsequently had several non-professional jobs, and at the time of his arrest was working as a letter sorter for the United States Postal Service. == Beginning of crimes (late 1975 to early 1977) ==

During the mid-1970s, Berkowitz began committing violent crimes. He bungled his first attempt at murder using a knife, then switched to a handgun and began a lengthy crime spree throughout the New York City boroughs of the Bronx, Brooklyn and Queens, seeking young female victims. All but one of the crime scenes involved two victims; he infamously committed some of his attacks while the women sat with boyfriends in parked cars. Berkowitz exhibited an enduring enjoyment of his activities, often returning to the scenes of his crimes. The first alleged victim, a Hispanic woman, was never identified by police. The second was fifteen-year-old Michelle Forman, a sophomore at Truman High School, whom he stabbed six times on a bridge near Dreiser Loop and whose injuries were serious enough for her to be hospitalized for a week. The two stabbings occurred within several minutes of each other. Berkowitz was not suspected of these crimes, and soon afterward he relocated to an apartment in Yonkers. According to Valenti, Lauria opened the car door to leave and noticed a man quickly approaching, carrying a paper bag. Startled and angered by his sudden appearance, Lauria said, "Now what is this..." Valenti was shot in her thigh, and a third bullet missed both women. The shooter turned and quickly walked away. Police determined the bullets embedded in Keenan's car were .44 caliber, but they were so deformed they thought it unlikely they could ever be linked to a particular weapon. Because Denaro had shoulder-length hair, police later speculated the shooter had mistaken him for a woman. Keenan's father was a twenty-year veteran police detective of the New York City Police Department (NYPD), which encouraged an intense investigation. As with the Lauria–Valenti shooting, however, there seemed not to be any tangible motive for the shooting; police made little progress with the case. Many details of the Denaro–Keenan shooting were very similar to the Lauria–Valenti shooting, but police did not initially associate them, partly because the shootings occurred in different boroughs and were being investigated by different police precincts. DeMasi and Lomino shooting (November 1976) High school students Donna DeMasi (16) and Joanne Lomino (18) had walked home from a movie shortly after midnight on November 27, 1976. In a high-pitched voice, the man said, "Can you tell me how to get...", but then quickly produced a revolver. Three gunshots penetrated the car. In a panic, Diel drove away for help. He sustained minor superficial injuries, but Freund was shot twice and died several hours later at the hospital. Neither victim saw their attacker. Police then made the first public acknowledgment of a possible connection between cases, stating that the Freund–Diel shooting was similar to the earlier incidents. All the victims had been struck with .44 caliber bullets, and the shootings seemed to target young women with long dark hair. NYPD sergeant Richard Conlon stated police were "leaning towards a connection in all these cases." Composite sketches were released of the black-haired Lauria–Valenti suspect and the blond Lomino–DeMasi suspect, and Conlon noted police were looking for multiple suspects, not just one. In an attempt to defend herself, Voskerichian lifted her textbooks between herself and her killer, but the bullet struck her head and ultimately killed her. Press and publicity (March 10, 1977) In a March 10, 1977, press conference, NYPD officials and Mayor Abraham Beame declared the same .44 Bulldog revolver had fired the shots that killed Lauria and Voskerichian. Official documents were later brought to the public eye, revealing that while police strongly suspected the same .44 Bulldog had been used in all of the shootings, the evidence was actually inconclusive. Foreign media featured many of the reports as well, including front page articles of newspapers such as the Vatican's ''L'Osservatore Romano, the Israeli newspaper Maariv and the Soviet Izvestia''. == Crimes continue (April to July 1977) ==

Esau and Suriani shooting (April) At about 3:00 a.m. on April 17, 1977, Alexander Esau (20), a tow truck operator, and Valentina Suriani (18), a Lehman College student and an aspiring actress and model, were sitting in a car belonging to Esau's brother on the Hutchinson River Parkway service road in the Bronx, about a block from Suriani's home and only a few blocks away from the scene of the Lauria–Valenti shooting. A resident of a nearby building heard four shots and called police. Suriani, who was sitting in the driver's seat, was shot once and Esau twice, both in the head. Suriani died at the scene, and Esau died in the hospital several hours later without being able to describe his attacker(s). Police said the weapon used for the crime was the same as the one which they had suspected in the earlier shootings. With this letter, Berkowitz identified himself as "Son of Sam" for the first time. The letter was initially withheld from the public, but some of its contents were revealed to the press and he quickly became known as the "Son of Sam". In full, with misspellings intact, the letter read: At the time, police speculated the letter-writer might be familiar with Scottish English. The phrase "me hoot it urts sonny boy" was taken as a Scottish-accented version of "my heart, it hurts, sonny boy". Police also hypothesized the shooter blamed a dark-haired nurse for his father's death due to the "too many heart attacks" phrase, and the facts that Lauria was a medical technician and Valenti was studying to be a nurse. The perpetrator's unusual attitude towards police and journalists received widespread scrutiny. Psychologists observed that many serial killers gain gratification by eluding pursuers and observers; the feeling of control over media, law enforcement and even entire populations provides a source of social power for them. After consulting with several psychiatrists, police released a psychological profile of their suspect on May 26, 1977. He was described as a "neurotic" who probably had paranoid schizophrenia and believed himself to be a victim of demonic possession. Letter to Jimmy Breslin On May 30, 1977, Daily News columnist Jimmy Breslin received a handwritten letter from someone who claimed to be the .44 Caliber Killer. The letter was postmarked early that same day in Englewood, New Jersey. On the reverse of the envelope, neatly hand-printed in four precisely centered lines, were the words: Blood and Family – Darkness and Death – Absolute Depravity – .44. The letter inside read: Underneath "Son of Sam" was a design that combined several symbols. The writer's question, "What will you have for July 29?" was considered an ominous threat: July 29 would be the anniversary of the Lauria-Valenti shooting. The unusual all-capitals handwriting caused police to speculate the killer was a comic-book letterer, and they asked staff members of DC Comics whether they recognized the lettering. The "Wicked King Wicker" reference led police to arrange a private screening of the horror movie The Wicker Man (1973). The Daily News published the letter a week later (agreeing with police to withhold portions of the text), and Breslin urged the killer to surrender. The dramatic article made that day's paper the highest-selling edition of the Daily News to date—more than 1.1 million copies were sold. Police received thousands of tips based on references in the publicized portions of the letter, all of which proved useless. Lupo and Placido shooting (June) On June 26, 1977, Salvatore Lupo (20), a mechanic's helper, and Judy Placido (17), a recent high school graduate, had left the Elephas discotheque in Bayside, Queens, and were sitting in Lupo's parked car at about 3:00 a.m. when three gunshots blasted through the vehicle. Lupo was wounded in the right forearm, while Placido was shot in the right temple, shoulder and back of the neck; both victims survived their injuries. Lupo told police they had been discussing the Son of Sam case only moments before the shooting. Neither Lupo nor Placido had seen their attacker, but two witnesses reported a tall, dark-haired man in a leisure suit fleeing from the area; one claimed to see him leave in a car and even supplied a partial license plate number. Early on July 31, 1977, secretary Stacy Moskowitz and clothing salesman Robert Violante (both 20) were sitting in Violante's car, which was parked under a streetlight near a city park in Bath Beach, on their first date. They were kissing when a man approached within three feet (90 cm) of the passenger side of the car and fired four rounds, striking both victims in the head before he escaped into the park. That night, Detective John Falotico was awakened at home and told to report to the 10th Homicide Division at the 60th Precinct station house in Coney Island. He was given two weeks to work on the Moskowitz—Violante case as a normal murder investigation; if it could not be solved in that timeframe, it was to be given to the Son of Sam task force. == Suspicion and capture (August 1977) ==

Suspicion Local resident Cacilia Davis was walking her dog at the scene of the Moskowitz—Violante shooting when she saw patrol officer Michael Cataneo ticketing a car parked near a fire hydrant. Moments after the traffic police had left, a young man walked past her from the area of the car and seemed to study her with some interest. Davis felt concerned because he was holding some kind of "dark object" in his hand. She ran to her home, only to hear shots fired behind her in the street. Davis remained silent about this experience for four days until she contacted police, who checked every car that had been ticketed in the area that night. Justis asked Yonkers police for help tracking down Berkowitz. According to Mike Novotny, a Yonkers police sergeant, the department had their own suspicions about Berkowitz in connection with strange crimes in their jurisdiction, referred to in one of the Son of Sam letters. Yonkers investigators told Justis that Berkowitz might be behind the killings. Arrest The following day, on August 10, 1977, police investigated Berkowitz' car, which was parked outside his apartment building at 35 Pine Street, Yonkers. They saw a handgun in the back seat, subsequently searched the car and found a duffel bag filled with ammunition, maps of the crime scenes and a threatening letter addressed to Inspector Timothy Dowd of the Son of Sam task force. Police waited for Berkowitz to leave the apartment rather than risk a violent confrontation in the building's narrow hallway; they also waited to obtain a search warrant for the apartment, worried their search might otherwise be challenged in court. The initial search of the vehicle was based on the handgun visible in the back seat, although possession of such a gun was legal in New York State and required no special permit. The warrant still had not arrived when Berkowitz exited the apartment building at about 10:00 p.m. and entered his car. Detective John Falotico approached the driver's side of the car and pointed his gun close to Berkowitz' temple, while Detective Sgt. William Gardella pointed his gun from the passenger's side. Falotico was officially credited by the NYPD as Berkowitz' arresting officer. Berkowitz confessed he was also the "Phantom of the Bronx", an unidentified individual or individuals responsible for more than 2,000 arsons committed around the city throughout the 1970s. Soon after Berkowitz' arrest, the address of the apartment building was changed from 35 Pine Street to 42 Pine Street in an attempt to end its notoriety. Berkowitz was briefly held in a Yonkers police station before being transported directly to the 60th Precinct in Coney Island, where the Son of Sam task force was located. At about 1:00 a.m., Mayor Beame arrived to see the suspect personally. Confession Berkowitz was interrogated for about thirty minutes in the early morning of August 11, 1977. He quickly confessed to the shootings and expressed an interest in pleading guilty. The investigation was led by John Keenan, who took the confession. During questioning, Berkowitz claimed his neighbor's dog was one of the reasons he killed, stating the dog demanded the blood of pretty young girls. He said the "Sam" mentioned in the first letter was his former neighbor Sam Carr, and that Carr's black Labrador was possessed by an ancient demon which issued irresistible commands that Berkowitz kill people. At a press conference in February 1979, however, Berkowitz declared his previous claims of demonic possession were a hoax. He later stated in a series of meetings with his special court-appointed psychiatrist, David Abrahamsen, that he had long contemplated murder to get revenge on a world he felt had rejected and hurt him. == Sentencing and incarceration ==

Sentencing Three mental health examinations determined Berkowitz was competent to stand trial. Despite this, defense lawyers advised him to enter a plea of not guilty by reason of insanity, but he refused. Berkowitz appeared calm in court on May 8, 1978, as he pleaded guilty to all of the shootings. At his sentencing two weeks later, Berkowitz caused an uproar when he attempted to jump out of a window of the seventh-floor courtroom. After he was restrained, he repeatedly chanted, "Stacy [his last victim] was a whore" and shouted, "I'd kill her again! I'd kill them all again!" He was ordered to serve time in Attica Correctional Facility, a maximum security prison in upstate New York. Detention After his arrest, Berkowitz was initially confined to a psychiatric ward in Kings County Hospital, where staff reported he seemed remarkably untroubled by his new environment. On the day after his sentencing, he was taken first to Sing Sing prison, then to Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora, New York, for psychiatric and physical examinations. In 1987 he was moved to the general population at Sullivan Correctional Facility in Fallsburg, where he remained for many years. Later, he was transferred to Shawangunk Correctional Facility in Ulster County. Evangelical faith In 1987, Berkowitz claimed that he had become an evangelical Christian, reporting that his moment of conversion occurred after reading Psalm 34:6 from a Bible given to him by a fellow inmate. He expressed a wish to be referred to as the "Son of Hope" instead of "Son of Sam". Soon after his imprisonment, Berkowitz invited Malachi Martin, an exorcist, to help him compose an autobiography, but the offer was not accepted. During later years, Berkowitz developed his memoirs with assistance from fellow evangelicals. His statements were released as a 1998 interview video Son of Hope, Berkowitz does not receive any royalties or profit from any sales of his works. He has continued to write essays on faith and repentance for evangelical websites. A website While in the Sullivan facility, he pursued education and graduated with honors from Sullivan Community College. Before his first parole hearing in 2002, Berkowitz sent a letter to New York Governor George Pataki requesting that it be canceled. He wrote, "In all honesty, I believe that I deserve to be in prison for the rest of my life. I have, with God's help, long ago come to terms with my situation and I have accepted my punishment." Officials at the Sullivan facility rejected his request. His lawyer, Mark Heller, noted that prison staff considered Berkowitz to be a "model prisoner". Despite this, commissioners denied parole. His next parole hearing was scheduled for May 2026. Other activities In 2002, during the D.C. sniper attacks, Berkowitz wrote a letter telling the sniper to "stop hurting innocent people." He made his comments in a three-page letter to Fox News personality Rita Cosby after she wrote to him seeking his comment on the attacks. During June 2005, Berkowitz sued one of his previous lawyers for the misappropriation of a large number of letters, photographs and other personal possessions. Hugo Harmatz, a New Jersey attorney, had represented Berkowitz in an earlier legal effort to prevent the National Enquirer from buying one of his letters. == Satanic cult accomplice claims ==

In 1979, Berkowitz mailed a book about witchcraft to police in North Dakota. He had underlined several passages and written a few marginal notes, including the phrase: "Arliss Perry, Hunted, Stalked and Slain. Followed to Calif. Stanford University." The reference was to Arlis Perry, a nineteen-year-old North Dakota newlywed who had been murdered at Stanford on October 12, 1974. Her death, and the notorious abuse of her corpse in a chapel on campus, was a widely reported case. Berkowitz mentioned the Perry attack in other letters, suggesting that he knew details of it from the perpetrator himself. Local police investigators interviewed him but by 2004 had concluded he had "nothing of value to offer." The Perry case was solved in 2018, with the perpetrator, Stanford security guard Stephen Blake Crawford, having no known connection to Berkowitz. After his admission to Sullivan prison, Berkowitz began to claim that he had joined a Satanic cult in the spring of 1975. In 1993, he made these claims known when he announced to the press that he had killed only three of the Son of Sam victims: Lauria, Esau, and Suriani. In his revised version of the events, Berkowitz claimed that other shooters were involved and that he had only been the gunman in the Lauria—Valenti and Esau—Suriani attacks. He said that he and several other cult members were involved in every incident by planning the events, providing early surveillance of the victims and acting as lookouts and getaway drivers at the murder scenes. He declared that "at least five" cult members were at the scene of the Freund–Diel shooting, but the actual shooter was a prominent cult associate who had been brought in from outside New York with an unspecified motive—a cult member whom he identified only by his nickname, "Manson II". Berkowitz did name two of the alleged cult members: John and Michael Carr. The two men were sons of the dog-owner Sam Carr, and they lived on nearby Warburton Avenue. Both of these other "sons of Sam" were long dead: John had been killed in a shooting judged a suicide in North Dakota during 1978, Author Maurice Terry wrote that Michael was an active member of the Church of Scientology and noted that Berkowitz had been in possession of a list of telephone numbers—including the number for the Fort Harrison Hotel, the church's spiritual headquarters in Clearwater, Florida—at the time of his arrest. In a video interview posted in 2016, Berkowitz said he had been influenced by reading literature from the Process Church of the Final Judgement. Competing ideas Journalist John Hockenberry asserted that, even apart from the Satanic cult claims, some officials doubted the single-shooter theory, writing: : "What most don't know about the Son of Sam case is that from the beginning, not everyone bought the idea that Berkowitz acted alone." John Santucci, the Queens district attorney at the time of the killings, and police investigator Mike Novotny both expressed their convictions that Berkowitz had accomplices. NYPD officer Richard Johnson, involved in the original investigation, opined that unresolved discrepancies in statements from witnesses and surviving victims indicate Berkowitz did not act alone: : "Why are there three [suspect] cars, five different [suspect] descriptions, different heights, different shapes, different sizes of the perpetrator? Somebody else was there." Other contemporaries voiced their belief in the Satanic cult theory, including Donna Lauria's father. Diel's recollection is that he physically bumped into Berkowitz outside the Wine Gallery restaurant as he and Freund departed and walked to his car where the shooting occurred; Berkowitz, in contrast, told police that he passed within a few feet of Diel and Freund shortly before they entered the car. Diel contends he and Freund passed no one on their way to the car, and that the position of the car parked at the curb would have made it impossible for Berkowitz to have sneaked up on them in the few minutes between their encounter outside the restaurant and the shooting at the car; Diel thus reasons he was shot by someone other than Berkowitz. Largely impelled by reports of accomplices and Satanic cult activity, the Son of Sam case was reopened by Yonkers police during 1996, but no new charges were filed. Due to a lack of findings, the investigation was eventually suspended but remains open. == Legacy ==

Decades after his arrest, the name "Son of Sam" remains widely recognized as that of a notorious serial killer, with popular culture manifestations perpetuating this. Berkowitz himself continues to express remorse on Christian websites and on more mainstream news, including speaking out against gun violence and instead spreading the message to "take the glory out of guns". Neysa Moskowitz, who previously had not hidden her hatred of Berkowitz, Moskowitz lost all her children at young ages (Jody, aged 9, in a possible suicide in 1968; Stacy; and Ricky, aged 37, in 1999 of scleroderma). Similar laws have since been enacted in forty-one states and at the federal level. The highly fictionalized plot recounts the exploits of a Berkowitz-based character dubbed "Bernard Rosenfeld." Outside of North America, the book was renamed Son of Sam. The 2016 young adult novel Burn Baby Burn by Meg Medina is set in New York City during 1977, and depicts how fear of being one of the Son of Sam victims affected the daily lives of people. He is also referred to by Lee Child in his Jack Reacher novella High Heat (2013). TV and film The Spike Lee drama Summer of Sam was released in 1999, with actor Michael Badalucco in the role of Berkowitz. The film depicts the tensions that develop in a Bronx neighborhood during the shootings, and Berkowitz' part is largely symbolic. A minor character in the script, he functions "mostly as a berserk metaphor for Lee's view of the seventies as a period of amoral excess." Berkowitz was reported to be disturbed by what he called exploitation of "the ugliness of the past" in Lee's film. and the CBS television movie Out of the Darkness (1985). The character of Son of Sam played a significant minor role in the miniseries The Bronx Is Burning (2007), played by Paul Marini. Oliver Cooper portrayed him in the TV series Mindhunter (2019). In 2021, Netflix released documentary series The Sons of Sam: A Descent Into Darkness, going back to describing in detail the Satanic cult theory as well as Maury Terry's investigations into the case. In the Seinfeld episode "The Diplomat's Club," Kramer uses the mailbag of David Berkowitz, owned by Newman, as collateral for a bet on airplane arrival times. In another Seinfeld episode, "The Frogger," Kramer proposes the name "Son of Dad" as a nickname for a serial killer called The Lopper, a reference to Berkowitz's nickname "Son of Sam." In the Seinfeld episode "The Junk Mail," Jerry's friend Frankie finds George in Jerry's van and says through the closed driver's side window, "Seinfeld's van!" George mistakes this for "Son of Sam!" and exclaims, "I knew it wasn't Berkowitz!" In the episode "The Engagement" Newman says, when the police arrive to arrest him, "What took you so long?", echoing Berkowitz. In the Only Murders in the Building episode "The Tell", several characters play a card game created for the television show called "Son of Sam". This game is similar to the party game Mafia, where one player is assigned the role of a killer, in this case the Son of Sam, who eliminates other players over a series of rounds. Each round, the other players have the opportunity to try to guess who is the Son of Sam. Music Son of Sam has been mistakenly associated with the contemporaneous song "Psycho Killer" (1977) by Talking Heads. Compositions more directly inspired by the events include: • "Son of Sam" (1978) by the Dead Boys • "Looking Down the Barrel of a Gun" (1989) by the Beastie Boys Several other rock musicians established a full ensemble named Son of Sam during 2000. Shinedown included a song called "Son of Sam" on their 2008 album The Sound of Madness. A cartoon composite of Berkowitz and the breakfast cereal icon Toucan Sam was featured in Green Jellÿ's comedy-rock video Cereal Killer (1992) by the name of "Toucan Son of Sam," but it was later removed under threat of a copyright lawsuit by the Kellogg Company. In 2016, rapper Lucki released an EP named Son of Sam, which featured a cover taken from the final page of Berkowitz's first letter. == See also ==