“Son of Sam” held the city in the grip of fear for 12 months. Who was he, this crazy, baby-faced bastard who prowled the streets of New York in search of innocent victims?
By day, David Berkowitz was an inconspicuous postal worker, such a plump cherub, a bachelor, quietly and unnoticed living in a small apartment in a New York suburb.
But when darkness fell, he became a real devil, a madman who called himself "The Son of Sam", a terrible and mysterious maniac. For over a year, starting in July 1976, the curly-haired killer tirelessly hunted down young men and women whose "fault" was that they were beautiful, young and innocent.
Initially nicknamed the "44-caliber assassin" (after the type of weapon he used), Berkovits shot 6 people during his binge and seriously wounded 7.
Five of those he killed were dark-haired women. This fact caused such a panic that the frightened ladies began to wear light wigs in order to somehow protect themselves, because the police could not catch the criminal for a long time. The most thorough search in New York's history has been unsuccessful. There were plenty of reasons for that. First, the perpetrator was clearly acting at random, without any system; second, there was simply no motive for the murders.
The city was frightened not only by the killings themselves, but also by the strange letters that 24-year-old Berkowitz sent to the police and major newspapers. He scoffed at the authorities' attempts to catch him, warned: “I will definitely come back,” and frankly boasted: “I love to hunt. Prowling the streets in search of prey is to my taste."
Revolver in package
Promotional video:
1977 July - New York was, in the words of one newspaper, "a city-shaken". People lived in constant fear of a mysterious maniac.
Outwardly, there was nothing special in the killer's actions at first, especially since violence is one of the usual features of life for New York.
1976, July 29, early morning - 18-year-old beauty Donna Lauria was sitting in a car near her parents' posh home in the Bronx. Next to her was a guy named Jody Valente. When the girl opened the car door, a man came out from behind a tree. He took out a revolver from a brown paper bag in his left hand, crouched down a little, holding the weapon in both hands, and fired three times. He killed the girl on the spot, and wounded the young man.
The police were taken aback by the senseless murder. However, this kind of case in New York could hardly qualify for a loud sensation. A few days later, Donna's name disappeared from the pages of the newspapers.
Terrible succession
No one could have imagined that a few months later, the murder of Donna Lauria would be remembered by the whole city. The unknown hijacker did not show up until 23 October. That afternoon, he shot at people in a parked car in the Flushing area of Queens. This time, both of his victims, one might say, were lucky. Carl Denaro, 20, who was about to enlist in the US Air Force the next day, was severely wounded in the head but survived. His girlfriend Rosemary Keenan, 18 years old, the daughter of a police detective, luckily, was not hurt.
Once again, ballistic testing showed that the villain had used a 44 caliber revolver. But this, unfortunately, did not alert the experts of the police department. In the 1970s, about three dozen murders a week were recorded in New York. Overwhelmed by their daily work, the police did not notice the obvious similarities between the two crimes: the same type of weapon; all the victims were young and sat in parked cars; in both cases, the perpetrator acted either late at night or early in the morning.
Two more young women were hit by bullets when the killer once again took up arms. One was killed, and the other was doomed to spend the rest of her life in a wheelchair.
It was only after an unknown 44-caliber fan killed another woman, secretary Christine Freund, 26, that the police finally realized that all these attacks were linked.
The murder in March of the Bulgarian emigrant Virginia Voskerichian finally made this fact obvious: she was also killed in a parked car.
The alarmed city authorities urgently created a special unit to capture the owner of the deadly revolver. However, even having worked out hundreds of versions, the employees of the criminal investigation department did not find out either the identity of the killer or the motives for the murders.
The birth of "Son of Sam"
The situation changed after another attack on April 17, 1977. Student Valentina Suriani and her friend Alexander Iso were killed. This time, Berkowitz left at the crime scene not only two corpses of young people, in the prime of life, but also an insolent letter on four pages.
This message marked the birth of "Son of Sam".
In his letter, the crazy maniac reported that he was "deeply offended" by the fact that the press called him a misogynist. He wrote: “Nothing of the kind! But I am a monster. I am "Son of Sam". I am the little brat of "Daddy Sam" who loves to drink blood. "Go and kill," he orders me. I live on a different wavelength than everyone else: I am programmed to kill. You can only stop me by killing me. I warn all policemen: if you meet me, shoot first, shoot to kill. Otherwise, don't get in my way - I'll kill you!"
At the end of the letter, he repeated his threat: “I'll be back! I'll be back!" And the caption: "Sincerely yours, Mr. Beast."
The city authorities have banned the publication of this message.
On May 30, the maniac, whipping up fear in society, changed his tactics. He wrote directly to the editorial office of the New York Daily News to renowned publicist Jimmy Breslin. This letter, even more cynical than the first, was published the next day, and it caused panic in the city - precisely the panic that "Son of Sam" wanted.
The letter began like this:
“Greetings from the slums of New York City, stinking of dog shit, vomit, sour wine, urine and blood! Greetings from the New York City sewers who swallow all these delicacies as the sweepers wash them off the streets! Greetings from the cracks and crevices in the sidewalks of New York City! Greetings from insects and other evil spirits that live in these cracks and feed on the blood of the slain that seeps there!"
The perpetrator warned Breslin not to deceive himself and think that he, "Son of Sam", had finished his "job."
“Mr. Breslin, do not think that if you have not heard about me for a while, then I have gone to retirement. No, I'm still here. Like an ominous ghost in the night, thirsty, hungry, hardly resting, full of desire to please Sam … I love my job … Sam is a greedy guy. He will not allow me to stop until he has drunk blood to the bone."
On the back of the envelope was the inscription:
"Blood and Family, Darkness and Death, Absolute Vice, 44th caliber."
The impression was as if the crazy "Son of Sam" wrote his message from the depths of hell itself.
On June 25, the killer struck another blow, seriously wounding a young woman and her lover sitting in a parked car.
Because the police were powerless and unable to capture the killer, groups of avenging citizens began to form. When in Brooklyn, for example, a bully with a large-caliber revolver was caught, the crowd almost hung him on a lamp post. It took the police a lot of effort to save the guy from the hands of volunteer vigilantes ready for anything.
And then the days came when everyone - from patrons of filthy Bronx bars to visitors to the elite business clubs of Manhattan - paid attention to the calendar. Terrified New Yorkers wondered if Son of Sam would "celebrate" the black anniversary of his first attack on July 29, 1976?
David Berkowitz, of course, was a scoundrel, but by no means a fool. He was well aware that all the police would be on the alert tonight. Therefore, he did not arrange any bloody "celebrations" on the occasion of his "anniversary".
But his painful thirst for blood could not be without satisfaction for long.
David Berkowitz celebrated the "jubilee" the very next night by shooting Stacy Moskowitz and severely wounding her friend Robert Wyolane while they were in a parked car in Brooklyn.
New York was literally paralyzed by fear. More and more people appeared who wanted to quickly and on the spot deal with any suspicious person, with any possible "Son of Sam".
And yet, the time of the bloody revelry of Berkovitsa was inexorably rolling towards decline - mainly due to a whim of fate and a fortunate coincidence for the police.
David Berkowitz - the road to hell
But who was that person, about whose vile deeds all the media wrote from one American coast to another? He was born illegitimate on June 1, 1953 in Brooklyn, New York. He was adopted by the married couple Nathan and Pearl Berkowitz. They were tireless blue-collar workers who did everything in their power to ensure that David had a normal childhood. At school, he studied no worse than others, felt on an equal footing with his classmates and basketball teammates. But, as it turned out later, he did not have any heart hobbies, the first boyish love bypassed him.
When David was 14 years old, his adoptive mother passed away from cancer. For a teenager, this was a tragedy from which he could not fully recover until the end of his days.
At 18, David, who from an early age adored uniforms, decided to join the army. There was one more reason for that - he wanted to annoy his adoptive father, who married a second time. Despite his father's ban, Berkowitz Jr. insisted on his own and in June 1971 put on a military uniform.
He served for three years in the ground forces.
David's service went very smoothly, apart from a few minor disciplinary actions. By the way, in the army, he changed his religious views and switched from Judaism to Christianity. And he went over so thoroughly that he tried to convert fellow soldiers and residents of the city to a new faith, where he served at one time.
Returning to New York in the late fall of 1974, David Berkowitz hired a security guard at a private firm. He settled in the apartment of his adoptive parents. Shortly after his return to civilian life, events took place that may have influenced the transformation of a loose, religiously-minded young man into a crazy "Son of Sam". First, his adoptive father, with whom relations never improved, retired and moved to Florida. Secondly, as a result of searching for his real mother, David found out that he was illegitimate.
This discovery led to the fact that Berkowitz gradually fell into depression and turned into a gloomy personality. 1976, February - six months before the first murder, he moved from his apartment in the Bronx to a neighboring area. Then I found myself 25 miles out of town, in Yonkers. At the same time, Berkowitz entered the service of the American Post Office.
Fatal mistake
10 days after the murder of Stacey Moskowitz, David was sorting letters as usual in his post office.
Meanwhile, at the Yonkers Police Department, there was a phone call from Detective James Justas of the Tenth Police Station in Brooklyn.
Justas, a veteran of the New York City Police Department, was involved in identifying and interviewing car owners who parked their cars near the site of Stacy Moskowitz's murder. It was boring and routine work, but James, an experienced police officer, understood the necessity.
Several of his calls to the owner of a 1970 Galaxy 4-door model that had been parked near the crime scene on the day of the murder were unsuccessful. Therefore, he decided to contact his colleagues from Yokkers with a request to find the owner of this car, a certain David Berkowitz, and ask him to contact the 10th section.
On the phone, Justas contacted the Ionkers police control room operator, a woman named Whit Carr. He explained to her the essence of his request. And then the policeman was lucky: it turned out that the Vit Carr family is familiar with Berkovits. As soon as the detective mentioned that name, Carr said without hesitation: "He's the kind of guy who arouses suspicion." She told about the strange things that this man did: he shot her dog with a 44-caliber revolver, sent letters with threats to her father, whose name was … Sam.
Justas immediately reported this conversation to his superiors. There, at first, his message did not cause much enthusiasm: the police were inundated with useless information about the many possible "sons of Sam."
And yet it was decided to interrogate Berkovits. And the next day, Detectives Ed Zigo and John Longo went to Yonkers.
When they found the house on Pine Street, where the apartment they wanted was located, they noticed a wanted car on the sidewalk and went to inspect it. Through the window of the salon, the detectives saw on the seat a hunting bag with the butt of a gun sticking out of it. Opening the car door, they found an envelope in the glove compartment addressed to Timothy Down, the deputy police inspector who led the search for the killer maniac.
Zigo opened the envelope and took out a letter that Berkowitz apparently wanted to leave next to the corpse of his next victim. In the letter, the maniac promised new crimes, including the mass shooting of visitors to a fashionable restaurant on the east coast of Long Island.
So the police finally got to Son of Sam
Zigo immediately called in the special forces. The police rushed to issue a search warrant in Berkovits' apartment. But no formalities were needed that day.
At about ten o'clock in the evening, the night robber himself came out of the entrance of the house, dressed in jeans, brown boots and a white shirt with short sleeves. In his hands he held a paper bag in which the police found a 44-caliber revolver.
Berkowitz was so reckless and self-confident that he walked up to the car without even bothering to look around. He opened the door, got behind the wheel, turned on the ignition and only then raised his head.
15 police guns were staring at him. The command rang out: “Police! Do not move!" Berkowitz smiled grimly and said, “Okay … you caught me. Why did you come so late?"
Everyone who was present at the arrest of David Berkowitz noted that he met this fateful turn of fate with cold detachment. After being detained, he was taken to the police department.
Rumors that "Son of Sam" was eventually taken, spread so quickly that by the time the car with Berkowitz arrived, reporters were at the police building. But instead of a cuffed villain with wild, bloodshot eyes, they saw a smiling young man, outwardly innocent as a lamb.
Meanwhile, behind this carefree smile was an extremely dangerous person.
The interrogation began six hours after the arrest. And even the police officers who had seen a lot were amazed at the degree of perversion of the consciousness of the person in front of them.
David Berkowitz first of all said that Sam should be responsible for all the crimes he committed - he was the one who ordered them.
"Who is Sam?" Asked Ronald Aiello, the head of the murder investigation at the Brooklyn Attorney's Office.
“My master,” came the answer. Later it was found out that the killer was referring to his neighbor Sam Carr, the one whose dog was causing him trouble with its barking.
"Could you tell me how you received such orders or orders?" - asked the detectives.
“Sam usually gave orders through his dog. This is not really a dog. This creature only looks like a dog. It gave me an idea of where to go. When I received such a signal, I had no idea who I would kill that evening. But I intuitively recognized my victims."
For the first time, Berkovits was interrogated for almost two hours, squeezing out of him confessions to all crimes. Then he was sent to a hospital for a psychiatric examination.
While at the hospital, David Berkowitz responded to a secret letter from New York Post journalist Steve Dunleavy. In his response, he writes about Sam as "one of Satan's messengers", about "a power that the most unbridled fantasy cannot imagine." "Sam does not belong to the human race," he wrote.
“By killing,” Berkowitz broadcast, “I actually saved many other human lives …
People were thirsty for my blood, but they did not want to hear what I had to say to them. There are other "sons" as well. God help humanity!"
Mentioning in his revelations about other crazy killers, among whom there are allegedly private detectives, writers, and even law enforcement officials, Berkowitz meant that he was not alone, that he was only one of the servants of a certain demonic cult.
Nevertheless, at the trial, which nevertheless took place, Berkowitz pleaded guilty to the full.
But Dr. David Abrahamson, the only psychiatrist who recognized David Berkowitz after his arrest as fully sane, said that "Son of Sam" did not kill under the influence of Satan. He was driven to murder by a deep fear of women.
“He was incapable of communicating with a woman like an ordinary man, dating her, having sex,” Abrahamson explained. - It's not for him. I believe he deeply despised women. He's very, very dangerous to society."