The story of this famous serial killer has a personal touch.
It was in the late summer of 1976. Being twenty-one years old, I wasn’t very interested in the news of the day outside of the local news. He was planning a trip to visit a friend of hers in New York City and a coworker asked me if she would take her to her parents’ apartment in Queens. I agreed.
The three hour drive was pretty normal as we talked about work and other things. We finally made it to the condo complex and I parked the car a little way from the main entrance. It was very dark and hot as it was around midnight on an 80 degree summer night.
As I was getting out of the car, my coworker took a wool ski cap out of her bag and tucked her long, loose brown hair into the cap and secured it firmly on her head. I thought this was pretty funny and asked her what she was doing. It was only then that I heard about the Son of Sam currently terrorizing that very neighborhood. I tried to act brave as he escorted her to her parent’s unit. Her father and her mother told me more stories about the Son of Sam for the next hour. Now, after 2 am, I was totally paranoid walking, or should I say running, to my car. I will never forget that night. That’s when I started reading everything I could about the Son of Sam.
The Son of Sam killer was born Richard David Falco in 1953. Shortly after his birth, Nathan and Pearl Berkowitz adopted him and his name was forever changed to David Richard Berkowitz.
Berkowitz was an average student, joining the Army in 1971, being honorably discharged in 1974 and joining a cult that slaughtered German shepherds in 1975.
Berkowitz would spend most of 1976 and 1977 terrorizing New York, murdering six and wounding seven others over the course of eight shootings.
Chronologically, the first incident took place on July 29, 1976 when two women, Jody Valenti and Donna Lauria, were shot while conversing in a parked car. Valenti survived but Lauria died instantly.
Carl Denaro and Rosemary Keenan were shot while sitting in a parked car on October 23 of that year. Both survived. Then, on November 26, Donna DeMasi and Joanne Lomino were walking together at night when Berkowitz approached them from behind and shot them. Lomino was paralyzed for life, and DeMasi survived.
A pattern was developing, but police still had no suspects. The City newspapers were becoming highly critical of the investigation. The shooter had been labeled the .44 caliber killer because all the bullets came from a .44 caliber Bulldog.
On January 30, 1977, Christine Freund and her fiancé John Diel were shot while sitting in a parked car. Christine was killed and John Diel survived the attack. Five weeks later, on March 8, Virginia Voskerichian, a college honor student, was shot and killed while walking home from school.
Then, on April 17, 1977, the .44 caliber killer raised the stakes. Valentina Suriani and her boyfriend Alexander Esau, 20, were shot twice. They both died.
But Berkowitz left a letter addressed to the lead investigator. Here is the text of the actual letter with all its misspellings:
Dear Captain Joseph Borrelli,
It hurts me deeply that you call me an enemy of the wemon. I am not. But I’m a monster. I am the ‘Son of Sam’. I’m a brat.
When Father Sam gets drunk, he turns mean. He hits his family. He sometimes he ties me to the back of the house. Other times he locks me in the garage. Sam loves to drink blood.
‘Go out and kill,’ orders Father Sam.
‘Behind our house a little rest. Mostly young, raped and murdered, their blood drained, now just bones.
Papa Sam has me locked in the attic too. I can’t get out, but I look out the attic window and watch the world go by.
I feel like a stranger. I’m on a different wavelength than everyone else, programmed to kill.
However, to stop me you must kill me. Attention all cops: shoot me first – shoot to kill or stay out of my way or you will die!
Papa Sam is old now. He needs some blood to preserve his youth. He’s had too many heart attacks. ‘Ugh, ask me, it hurts, son’.
I miss my beautiful princess most of all. She is resting in our ladies’ house. But I’ll see her soon.
I am the ‘Monster’ – ‘Beelzebub’ – the chubby bigmouth.
I love to hunt. Prowling the streets in search of fair game – tasty meat. Queens wemon are the prettiest of all. It must be the water they drink. I live for the hunt – my life. Blood for dad.
Mr. Borrelli, sir, I don’t want to kill anymore. No sur, no more, but I must, ‘honor your father’.
I want to make love with the world. I love people. I don’t belong to the earth. Return me to Yahoos.
To the people of Queens, I love you. And I want to wish you all a happy Easter. Can
God bless you in this life and the next.
And for now I say goodbye and good night. Police: Let me chase you with these words: I’ll be back! I’ll be right back! To be interpreted as – bang bang bang, bank, bang – ugh! Yours in murder, Mr. Monster
It was the first time the term “Son of Sam” had been used and the press picked it up in a big way. At the height of this wave of murders, there were more than 200 police detectives assigned to the case. The city was in a panic. The police had more leads, but they still couldn’t piece them all together to find a solid suspect.
There would be two more shootings before it was all over. On June 26, Judy Placido and Sal Lupu were shot as they left a nightclub. Both survived. And finally, on July 31, 1977, Bobby Violante and Stacy Moskowitz were shot in their car while parked in Lover’s Lane. Stacy died from a gunshot wound to the head, and Bobby lost vision in one eye and partial vision in the other.
David Berkowitz was eventually caught after receiving a parking ticket at the time and near the scene of Moskowitz’s murder. That evidence led the police to his door. When he was arrested, he immediately turned himself in to the police and identified himself as Sam.
He pleaded not guilty and received a 365-year sentence and stands today as New Your City’s Most Notorious Serial Killer.