David Berkowitz

by Peggy Theo

Nineteen Seventy Six and Nineteen Seventy Seven were an exciting time to be young.  The War in Vietnam had ended only three short years before, fledgling video arcade games like PONG were just rearing their electronic heads, movies like ROCKY and STARWARS were box office mega hits and disco ruled the airwaves.  I turned twenty-one in July 1976 and I lived on Long Island, just a stones throw from The City. 

 Life was grand!  I had just finished my sophomore year in college with a 3.5 average, I had a good summer job with the recreation department, a steady boyfriend (now, my husband of twenty years) and Friday nights were never boring.  Parties and discos were abundant and the best ones were over the county line in the boroughs of Queens and Brooklyn.  Little did anyone know at the time, during that hot summer of A76", amid the Bicentennial celebrations and the Summer Olympic Games in Montreal, that a monster was birthed.  A monster, who was at first tagged "The .44 Caliber Killer"  but later came to be known to the world as "The Son-of-Sam". 

What warped part of the human psyche dictates a human being to become not just a murder, but that terrifying breed called a serial killer?  Who was this person that was able to hold an entire city and adjacent areas in a year long reign of terror?

 
An innocent baby boy was born on June 1, 1953 into less than desirable circumstances.  He was the product of a thirteen year illicit affair between Betty Falco, a married woman with a daughter, who's husband had abandoned her years before, and Joseph Kleinman, a married business man with children of his own. She named the child Richard and listed her long gone husband, Tony, as the father, then gave him up for adoption.  Three days after his birth Nat and Pearl Berkowitz, brought home their new son  and named him David. They were older than the average adopting couple, forty-three and thirty-seven;  a little late in the game to be taking on an infant for the first
time.  Nat and Pearl were a Jewish couple and kept a Kosher household.  They celebrated the Sabbath every Friday night, went to Temple and their son would eventually go to Hebrew School and celebrate his Bar Mitzvah. They lived in a small one bedroom apartment in the Bronx, where David shared the same bedroom with his adopted parents until he was nine or ten years old.  He distinctly  remembers that when his father wanted to have sex with his mother he would shine a small flashlight in his face and ask if he was awake.  He would pretend to be asleep because he did not want to anger his father.  In an interview with Dr. Abrahamsen, one of the psychiatrist's that examined Berkowitz after his arrest, Berkowitz stated he didn't remember hearing sounds or seeing  his parents having sex, but he must have at the time.   His future sexual fantasies had a start in that room.  According to Berkowitz , he was  belligerent and antagonistic towards his father, but he was very close to his mother. His father didn't make time for him because he was always busy with his store. David also resented his father because of the physical closeness he had with his mother. He did not like to share his mother with anyone and anything that stood in the way of his mothers attention was fair game for David's aggressions.  He once slowly poisoned his mothers parakeet to death with cleanser because she paid to much attention to it.  He also poisoned his mother's tropical fish for the same reason. His parents just stopped buying tropical fish. They never acknowledged David's actions, though, he is certain that they suspected.
As a child, David suffered from horrific nightmares, which his father blamed on his very vivid imagination.  His adopted parents never looked into the deeper meaning of his nightmares which often dealt with death and dying. Dr. Abrahamsen believed that nightmares are always caused of conscious or unconscious fears.  David was so fascinated with death that he once stated in an interview that I do love death.  I've always loved it.  I've wished for it, and tried to understand it.  Death is fascinating...its power, its hold; it is wonderful.    Abrahamsen,  believed that David's preoccupation with death goes back to his adoption. Did David know of his adoption before he enlisted in the Army?  Some text state that he was ignorant of the fact until was eighteen and other text state he knew he was adopted from the time he was six or seven.  According to his father, he was told when he was three years old. This is significant, because it is believed in some psychiatric circles that if a child is told about his adoption when he is to young, the child becomes anxious and confused and does not establish strong family relations and retreats into a fantasy world.  It seems that his adoption was never hidden from him, but, he was led to believe that his biological mother died at birth, and his broken hearted father gave him up for adoption because he could not care for him on his own. The guilt of having killed his birth mother plays an important part in his future actions.
Despite an above average IQ of 118, David was not what you would call a good student.  He didn't like school and was disruptive and hard to control. More than anything, he hated the separation from his mother.  He was chronically truant, which is an important early indictor of criminal behavior.5   He would fake being sick to stay home with his mother. I'd loved staying home.  My  mother, thinking I was sick, would wait on me hand and foot.  Boy what a con artist I was.   During his school years he would lash out at authority by starting fires, petty thievery, vandalizing property and hurting or killing animals.  He prided himself on never getting caught; that was the thrill, the kicker.  He'd steal small change and insignificant items from friends and family for no reason and then throw the items he stole away.  It was the thrill of the act that drove him, not the desire for the item.  He was proud of the fact that he could lie his way through any inquisition.  He liked to torture small animals and bugs. Then there were the fires.  David was a prolific writer and in his detailed diaries he admits to starting over 2000 fires in the Queens-Brooklyn area.  According to Dr. Robert Simon, author of Bad Men Do What Good Men Dream, Afire setting by a child is usually a symptomatic expression of sexual and aggressive over stimulation.  Fire often expresses the child's hyperactive excitement and deep seated anger. The sight of fire is thought to be sexually arousing in children and sexually immature adults. His destructive and deviant behavior was never discovered because he was secretive and a loner.  Though he had a few friends he was unable to establish any lasting relationships because no one was more important to David, than David.   He seldom, if ever dated. Girls didn't find him attractive or interesting, but he would fantacise about them.  Whether it was running a magic marker across a wall in school or setting cars on fire, it was done alone. Per David,I did this by myself--no one else knew about it.  There was no motive.  At a very early age his criminality was well established, states Abrahamsen,  He had come to believe he was outside the his family, authority, the law, outside of society itself.
David's world drastically changed when he was fourteen years old.  Just two months after his Bar Mitzvah his mother, Pearl, died of breast cancer.  He felt abandoned, as he had not even been told his mother was ill.  His reaction to her death is a study in opposites.  On one hand he sobbed uncontrollably at his mother's funeral and on the other he felt free, I was both happy and sad, stated David in a conversation with Dr. Abrahamsen.   Mostly, his mother's death left him angry and rootless,  but unchained.  His father was preoccupied with the store and his relationship with his son deteriorated further.  During this time Berkowitz took up mountain climbing to fill a void in his life, another solitary activity.   To him mountain climbing was like playing Russian Roulette with death, a suicide trip.  One misstep, one lose rock  and you are history.  In an interview after his incarceration he described his infatuation with mountain climbing as fantastic--that close walk with death--challenging God and fate. Death and thoughts of suicide were an all consuming force in David's life.
 
His chronic truancy almost kept him from getting his high school diploma, but in 1971 he graduated from Columbia High School  with a 83.4 average.  Not bad considering he cut half his classes.  The year before he graduated, he and Nat, moved to Co-Op City, a massive apartment development that you can clearly see from the Cross-Bronx Expressway (at least when its not to smoggy).  There he became both an auxiliary fireman and an auxiliary policeman.  Six years later, the people who knew him from this neighbor hood would describe him as quiet and a loner.  He had no close friends and no one ever remembers seeing him with a girl.
In 1971 Nat married a woman named Julia.  She had a twenty-five year old daughter that David came to resent as a threat to his security. She was smart, pretty and had lots of friends.  That same year David enlisted in the Army.  By his own admission, he was fanatically patriotic and wanted to die for a cause.12  He wanted to be sent to Vietnam, but instead he was stationed in Korea.  It was there that he had his first sexual encounter and promptly caught gonorrhea. He was transferred back to the states in 1973 and ended up at Fort Knox,  Kentucky.  It's here that he, basically gave up his Jewish faith and became heavily involved with a hell fire and brimstone type church, where all the sermons were about demons(!), sin, hell, eternal damnation.  Outwardly, he appeared to embrace his new found faith whole heartedly, except the face that he showed the outside world was not the face he wore inside.   After his arrest he stated that he would never witness for women because, Women--I blame them for everything. Everything evil that's happened in this world--somehow goes back to them.  I  hate them for messing up everything in the world.  They really screwed my life up good.   He secretly hoped that all the men would accept God so they would go to heaven, but not the women.  He didn't want any sluts in heaven.   He was a habitual masturbator and after spending hours preaching the word, he would hurry  back to his barracks to fulfill this need.  He had no need or use for a real woman.  Besides blaming women for all his problems and attitudes, David was angry at God and blamed him for being born and personally disappointing him.
David was discharged from the Army in 1974 with no job, no girl friend and no place to live.  He moved in with Nat and  Julia, but it didn't work out.  He felt threatened by Julia and resented her daughter.  In December of 1974,  when Nat and Julia decided to move to Florida, David began his search for his biological family.  In his own mind, his father had rejected him and he was abandoned again.
 
He joined the ALMA, The Adoptee's Liberty Movement Association.  Believing that his biological mother died at birth, he had intended to search for his biological father, but was told at a meeting that virtually all adoptees are told that their mothers had died. 17  He confronted Nat with this information and he admitted that his mother hadn't died, she just couldn't take care of him.  His whole life he had carried around the guilt of killing his mother, only to find out that it was all a fabrication.  The search for his mother became an all consuming passion.  A copy  of his birth certificate gave him his birth name, Richard David Falco; his mothers name, Bettie Falco; and his fathers name Tony Falco.   Like many adopted children, Berkowitz was searching for his perfect fantasy  family.  It didn't quite work out that way.  He met his mother his mother in 1975.  She didn't reject him outright and they had a few discouraging meetings. It was not what David expected. He was gravely disappointed by the reunion and what he learned from his mother destroyed his fantasy world.  First, he found out that he had an older half-sister, Barbara, who was not put up for adoption.  Next he found out that he was illegitimate and the man listed on his birth certificate wasn't even his father!  But the most  injurious of all the findings was that he was given up for adoption because he was not wanted by his mother or by her lover, Joseph Kleinman....He was an accident, nothing more than a mistake.  This was the beginning of the end for Berkowitz and his victims.
Now, consider the following:
           Berkowitz, was a white male of above average intelligence and illegitimate by birth.
           He was adopted by a couple that  unintentionally  skewed his views on sex and family.
           He felt guilty for killing his birth mother, only to find out her death was a lie and his birth a mistake.
           He was truant, destructive and hard to control as a child.
           He'd lie, steal and abuse animals without remorse and was proud of the fact he never got caught.
           He was a self-centered loner, without close friends, male or female.
           He was attracted to police work, and at one time was an auxiliary police man.
           He was a prolific fire starter.
           He had a fascination with death and suicide.
           He was a compulsive masturbator and sexually imature.
           He blamed women for his problems and he held them in low esteem.

Most of all he felt betrayed, abandoned or threatened by the closest or most influential women in his life: Julia, his step-mother who took his father from him;  his step-sister who was in competition with him; his half-sister  Barbara, whom his biological mother kept;  his adopted mother Pearl,  abandoning him at 14 with her death and Betty Falco, his birth mother, who threw him away.

It was only a matter of time before the human time bomb exploded....and explode he did!

His rage escalated. He set a fire on  December 22nd and then on  December 24, 1975, in Co-Op City, just six months after his initial meeting with Betty Falco, he attacked a fourteen year old girl with a 3 2 inch hunting knife.  It was David's first attempt to kill and he chose a small, younger, easily subdued (he thought) victim. To his surprise, she fought him and screamed her head off.  The bloodiness of the attack terrified Berkowitz and made him sick.  States Berkowitz, I wasn't going to rape her or take her money.  I was only going to kill her.  That's all.  He ran away and the girl lived.  From then on, no more of that hands on stuff for him!
Soon after this incident he moved to Westchester County.  His apartment was in the attic of a private home owned by the Cassara family.  He left after three months over an argument with his landlady about her dogs.  At the time, Berkowitz was working as a night watchman and her German Shepherds, which he detested,  barked continuously and kept him awake.   In April 1996, he moved to Yonkers into a tiny 7th floor, $233.00 a month hole in the wall studio apartment.  He had the same problem at this apartment as at the last;  barking, howling dogs.  Particularly problematic was a dog named Harvey, owned by a sixty-four year old answering service owner named Sam Carr. 
 
Berkowitz fought his murderous urges for a while, but six months after his first botched attempt at murder, he procured a .44-caliber Charter Arms Bulldog hand gun, with the expressed purpose of murdering women.  A gun was more to his liking and would later distinguish him from other serial killers who enjoyed getting down and dirty.  His reason for wanting to kill, in his own words, I was determined and in full agreement with myself that I must slay a woman for revenge purposes and to get back at them for all the suffering (mental suffering) they caused me.  He didn't know his victims before hand, pretty much any young female would do, though, he did have a propensity for women with long dark hair.  He didn't stalk his victims, he stalked the neighborhood by  familiarizing himself with landmarks, streets, alleys and escape routes.
His first victims were close to his childhood home in the Bronx, very significant territory.  On the night of July 29, 1976, Donna Laurie and Jody Valenti were sitting in a double parked car, on an open street, talking.  Berkowitz walked up to the passenger side of the car,  held the .44-caliber Bulldog in one hand, (not the double handed shooters stance sometimes reported) fired into passenger side window, killing Donna Laurie and wounding Jody Valenti in the thigh. Then he fled in a high adrenaline, frightened panic.  (Due to the assassination style of the killing, police originally speculated that the incident, somehow, was gangland related.)  After his arrest he stated in an interview, I felt happy.  I felt some peace.  That built up tension was dissipated temporarily. I felt powerful and cunning, especially when I put on my innocent look.   He felt absolutely no remorse over the killing.  When asked why he chose this particular woman he stated, I detested her because of what she represented.  A pretty girl, a threat to me and my masculinity and she was a child of  God, Gods creation.  Have no doubt, David knew what he was doing, I knew my gun could snuff someones life.  I developed such an obsession to do what I did, all the laws or promises of the gas chamber couldn't get me to stop or turn back.   David got a taste of playing God, the power of life over death, and he liked it.
 
Berkowitz went out hunting every night with the intention of killing a woman. He would later tell the police that when hunting proved to be fruitless he would visit his previous crime scenes to relive the joy and power of the moment and then go home to masturbate.  He even went so far as to visit Donna Lauria's  grave.  After a three month hiatus, on October 23, 1976, Berkowitz struck again, this time in Queens. He walked up to a  red Volkswagen Bug where Rosemary Keenan, the daughter of a NYC detective, and Carl DeNaro were making out, (good trick in a V.W.)  raised his gun to the passenger side window and fired four shots. One bullet hit Carl DeNaro, shattering his skull.  DeNaro had long hair and was sitting in the traditional girls side of the car. The other three shots went wild, none striking Rosemary.  He drove off in a blind panic and in an anxious frenzy stopped at a White Castle (hamburger joint) and  pigged out.  He was disgusted with himself because his intended victim was the girl and he missed.
His next two victims, Donna DeMasi and Joanne Lomino, were shot a month later, on November 27th, while sitting on Joanne's front porch in Bayside, Queens.  Nervous and anxious, he walked straight up to the porch, raise the  .44-caliber Bulldog in one hand and fire at the two girls.  Donna was wounded in the neck.  Joanne was hit in the spine and paralyzed from the waist down.
 
During his first three shootings, he was agitated and nervous.  Part of the reason for these feelings was his fear of being caught or killed.  The other reason, in his own words, When I was about to commit my crimes, I was cognizant of finally being able to pass that point, in which a human plays God.  Sure I was nervous.  Why?  Because I was about to commit the ultimate of crimes taking another's life.  This was a very  traumatic event.  It was about this time that the police began to realize that they had a problem on there hands.  This was definitely  verified on January 30, 1977.
 
A month after the New Year, in the Forest Hills section of Queens, Berkowitz shot Christine Freund and John Diehl. Christine Freund died within hours.  This shooting was different though.  First, Berkowitz used two hands and the shooters stance for more control.  Secondly, and more importantly, he had no fear.  He, by his own admission, was becoming more cold blooded.  He had succeeded in justifying his crimes and had convinced himself that that it was good to do it, necessary to do it and that the public wanted me to do it. He wasn't far from the truth in that respect.  The media was in a frenzy and they named this unknown assailant the .44-Caliber Killer. The FBI even coined a new term to describe his actions--serial murderer.  If you were a young adult female, living in or around the city, you didn't go out after dark with out some apprehension. An air of danger prevailed and soon it would get worse.
In March of 1977 Berkowitz started working for the post office as a zip code checker. That same month, on the 8th, in the early evening, David was prowling the streets for hours looking for another victim. He found her within a block of spot that he had shot Christine Freund to death.  For no particular reason he chose Virginia Voskerichian, a pretty, intelligent young lady of Armenian anscestory, who was walking home from Bernard College.  He walked up to her, crouched and raised the .44-Caliber Bulldog in both hands.  Virginia held a large textbook in front of her face in self defense. David calmly put the gun up to the book and shot through it, killing her.27  Later that evening he watched the news and gloated.  The next day he bought the New York Daily News, The NY Times and The Post and the headlines screamed of his exploits.  He was getting to know his audience and he was getting bolder.
 
April was a busy month for David.  He started an anonymous letter writing campaign against Sam Carr, threatening his life, because his dog barked to much. Carr's daughter, Wheat, a civilian employee of the Yonkers police department, also received threatening letters.  He accused Carr of tormenting him and ruining his life.   A few days later he shot Harvey, the dog, with a .22 pistol.  Carr reported the incident to the police.  At first they figured it was just another crazy, but later they would  they would have cause to reconsider this opinion. 
On the evening of April 16th 1977 David  set a another  fire. The next night, right around the corner from his first shooting, David shoots Valentina Suriani and Alexander Esau while they are sitting in a parked car. The murders were becoming more frequent.  Berkowitz considered this shooting to be his best job, not only because both people died, but because he left his first carefully concocted Sam note at the scene of the crime.  The police would not release the contents of the note, which was signed Mr. Monster,  except to say  it was rambling, incoherent and ghoulish. He professed not to hate women, and in the note left at the scene states, I am deeply hurt by your calling me a wemanhater (sic.).  I am not.  But I am a monster.  I am the Son of Sam  I am a little brat   David proceeded to write, in his slanted longhand, that  his father, Sam, keeps him locked in an attic and programs him to kill.  At this point, the police made their first attempt at profiling the killer.  Dr. Harvey Schlossberg, a patrolman-turned-psychologist,  stated He is somebody who is looking for help.  He is lonely and has no friends.  I see him in a cheap furnished room.  He is probably afraid of women.  I don't know who rejected him--wife, girlfriend, sister, mother--but now his fear has turned to rage. Not so far off the mark.  On April 29th, the New York Times printed an appeal, by the police to the little brat, the Chubby Behemoth.   The police implored to the Son-of-Sam to let them help him.  They tried to second guess his reasons for the killings and considered that perhaps Sam was an evil parent or possibly  Uncle Sam of the government.32  A task force of 300 persons was formed.  Berkowitz had his audience...the whole country.
The first week in June, a letter arrived at the New York Daily News addressed to journalist, Jimmy Breslin.  In part, it read, Hello from the gutters of NYC which are filled with dog manure, vomit, stale wine, urine and blood.....Hello from the cracks of the sidewalks in NYC and the ants that dwell in these cracks and feed on the dried blood of the dead that has settled in the cracks......Sam's a thirsty lad and he won't let me stop killing until he gets his fill of blood.  Is it any wonder that the police figured they were after a madman.
 
Unbeknownst to the NYC police, on June 7th, Berkowitz  sent an anonymous letter to a Westchester County auxiliary deputy sheriff named Craig Glassman. He was to receive a total of four  bizarre, threatening letters.   Glassman, a registered nurse and his wife, a social worker, lived in a 6th floor apartment directly underneath Berkowitzs'. He was singled out for David's special attention because he played his television to loud and late into the night. In the letters David proclaims Glassman as his master the commanding force behind the killings and alluded to demons, satan and the streets running red with blood at the judgement.  At the time, Craig Glassman was curious but not really bothered by the letter, but in August that ambivalence would  change to concern.
Meanwhile, Sam Carr was still getting threatening letters, and in June would get a phone call from a couple named Cassara.  They  became concerned when they received a get well card  signed by Sam and Frances Carr.  They didn't know anybody by that name and no one in their family was sick.  To clear up the mystery they contacted Sam Carr.  On closer inspection of the card, Carr realized that the handwriting on the card matched the handwriting on the harassing letters he'd been receiving.  Carr  voiced his suspicions to the Cassara's about his oddball neighbor and his possible connection to the strange mailings.  The Cassara's were astounded to discover that Carr's oddball was none other than David Berkowitz, their one time tenant and  dog hater.  The two families began to suspect that Berkowitz was guilty of a whole lot more than just harassing letters and they contacted the police, but nothing was done.  Carr would eventually  contact the police again in July, when he saw a police sketch of a suspect that looked like Berkowitz. This time his name was added to the list of people to check out.
 
On June 16th, 1977 David set a fire at Ferry  Point Park.  Ten days later gun shots rang out in the night.  Son-of-Sam struck again.  He again chose Bayside, Queens to be the site of his violence.  Judy Placido and Salvatore Lupo are shot while sitting in a parked car around the corner from a disco.  Fortunately, they  both survived.  Berkowitz was killing people during a mayorality election and the police department was under incredible pressure to find the shooter. They grasped at straws, going so far as to exam a 1967 Jimmie Hendrix song that contained the words Son of Sam.  The New York Daily News and WABC-TV offered a $10,000.00 reward for the arrest and conviction of the murderer. The public, while afraid to go out at night, were eating up anything dealing with the killer. In Central Park, vendors were selling Son-of-Sam T-Shirts with the logo Son-of-Sam--Get him before he gets you.  David was in control and loved it.
Another  fire, and a week later another murder.  It would turn out to be his last.  In the very early  morning hours  of July 31, 1977 he parked his car, a Ford Galaxy Sedan, in front of a fire hydrant in Bath Beach section of Brooklyn.  He watched from a distance as a police officer ticketed his car and then he walked toward a playground. The fact that he saw the police officer ticket his car is significant because it showed that he knew he was getting reckless and careless. In addition, he walked smack into a middle-aged woman who was out walking her dog at 2:00 a.m. who got a really good look at him. That parking ticket and the accidental encounter with the dog walker  were to be the focal points in his eventual undoing.  David, then walked to a playground,  sat on a swing and watched the couples make out.  This was a change of  venue, as Berkowitz's last attacks were of the shoot quickly and run like hell type, no more than twenty minutes from the choosing of a victim and the act.  His first choice of victims abruptly drove off, so he had to chose again.  David watched Stacy Moskowitz and Robert Violante making out in the playground for almost an hour.  He would later admit he was sexually aroused.  After the couple returned to the car, Berkowitz presented himself at the passenger side window, and fired four shots from the .44 Caliber Bulldog.  Stacy was  mortally wounded and Robert Violante, lived, but was  blinded for life.  Then he put his gun in a plastic bag and ran like hell to his car.  The police went into high gear.  A new description, given by the dog walker and a couple in another car, was released describing the killer as clean shaven, white male, 25 to 30 years old, 5'8" to 5'9" inches tall, 165 to 175 pounds, dark almond-shaped eyes, dark wavy hair, a sensuous mouth, high cheekbones  A pretty close description of David Berkowitz.
August saw David taking an unfulfilling trip to The Hamptons, on Long Island, and stepping up his campaign of harassment against Craig Glassman.  On August 6th, he set a fire in the front of Glassman's door and in it had thrown a handful of .22 Caliber bullets.  Glassman also received another letter, written in slanted long-hand,  which in part read upon your condemnation the world shall rise in jubilation.  The terrible wicked Craig is dead, they will shout.  Glassman contacted the Yonkers police, who were already  investigating Berkowitz for a possible connection to other letters sent to area residents, including Sam Carr's letters and the Cassara's get well card.  Meanwhile Brooklyn's finest started checking the recipient of every parking ticket issued in the area on the morning of the attack.  Sometimes shear luck can be a powerful force.  On August 9th Brooklyn Police Detective James Justus contacted the Yonkers police station to ask them to get in touch with a Mister David Berkowitz about a parking ticket.  As luck would have it, Sam Carr's daughter, Wheat, was on phone duty that day and recognized Berkowitz's name.  She told the detective of her and her father's suspicions and they acted immediately.
The next morning, Glassman, still oblivious to Berkowitz's possible Son-of-Sam association, decided to do some snooping on his own in connection with the fire and the letters. What Glassman did not know was that policemen from Yonkers, Westchester County and NYC, heavily armed and with search warrant in hand, had surrounded the building.  He was approached by 10 policemen as he peered through a window into David's car. Glassman did some fast explaining.  With that, the police proceeded to search David's car.  On the front seat there was a beige duffle bag with what appeared to be the butt of a rifle sticking out.  On the dash board there was another letter, this one read Because Craig is Craig, so must the streets be filled with Craig (death) and huge drops of lead poured down upon her head until she was dead--Yet the cats still come out at night and mate and the sparrows still sing in the morning. Doesn't make a whole lot of sense, but it's imaginative!  Also found in the car was a reference to the aborted Long Island attack and plans for a mass murder at one of South Hamptons upscale discotheques.  If he had carried it out this plan, it would have been a blood bath. When the police eventually enter David's apartment they find the walls  scrawled with strange poetry and references to Sam Carr, his dog and Craig Glassman. At 10:00 a.m. Berkowitz left his apartment building and entered his car.  Police surround his vehicle with guns drawn.  The end was anticlimactic and he surrendered without a struggle.  His words upon his capture were Well, you got me.  How come it took you such a long time?
 
Under heavy guard, manacled and chained, Berkowitz was escorted to the Golden Street Station and booked for the murder of Stacy Moscowitz and the attempted murder of Robert Violanti.  When asked why he killed, he told the police that Sam a 6000 year old man, who was actually a fallen angel come to earth to destroy, and his 1000 year dog commanded him to do so.  The big question....what did the police have on their hands;  a madman  or  a bad man?  Come one come all, the psychiatric circus was  about begin!
Outside the courthouse, where he was being arraigned on murder and attempted murder charges, a crowd chanted, Kill! Kill!  Inside, Berkowitz, with his court appointed attorneys, stood in front of Judge Richard Brown while bail was denied.  Judge Brown ordered David to undergo psychiatric testing at Kings County Hospital because, A I am under the opinion that this person may be an incapacitated person--one who as a result of mental disease or defect, lacks the capacity to understand the procedures against him or to assist in his own defense.   He will later be arraigned for two murders and five attempted murders in Queens and two murders and one attempted murder in the Bronx.  He pleaded not guilty to all charges.
The court appointed two psychiatrists, Dr. Daniel Schwartz and Dr. Richard Weidenbachker, to examine Berkowitz.  After examining the letters, looking at photographs and spending a total of eleven hours of interviewing David, the doctors decided that he was an incapacitated person and would be unable to assist in his own defense. Berkowitz was a master manipulator. He spoon fed them exactly what they wanted to hear and they slurped it up like hungry babies. Their Diagnosis: Paranoia. The 6000 year old demon and his side-kick the 1000 year old talking dog story did the trick!  They didn't say that Berkowitz didn't understand what he did was wrong, because he clearly did.  They based the finding on the fact that he repeatedly made it clear that the outcome of the case was of little interest to him.  At one point he stated, AIf  I go to court, I'll say, >If you lock the door and throw away the key, I'd like that very much. This finding did not sit well with Brooklyn's District Attorney  Eugene Gold and he retained Dr. David Abrahamsen, an authority on criminal behavior, to re-examine Berkowitz. After thirty days of examination, he came to the conclusion  that David had basically talked himself into believing in the demons, that he was lying to himself and that Athey were a product of his conscious, deliberate thoughts; they came at his beck and call.  He was their creator rather than their subject. His diagnosis greatly differed from the other Doctors: Psychopathic personality with malingering concomitant paranoid and hysterical traits with acting out.
 
On October 20, 1977 Judge Starkey rejected the findings of the Kings County staff psychiatrists and declared Berkowitz fit to stand trial.  A trial date was set for November 2nd but it was considerably delayed by motions and more psychiatric examination.  By the time March 1978 rolled around Berkowitz had begun to doubt the existence of the demons and the original two psychiatrist reversed their opinion and found him, still paranoid, but fit to stand trial.   During the time he was being held for trial, David professed to have found Christ and decided he would take his punishment like a man.
 
A second competency hearing was held in April and still he was declared sane and a trial date was set.  On May 8th 1978, in front of three Supreme Court Justices--Joseph Corso, Brooklyn; Nicholas Tsoucalas, Queens; and Milton Kapelman, Bronx--David Berkowitz declared himself guilty of all the crimes.46  Sentencing was scheduled for May 22, 1978 and it wouldn't go nearly as smoothly as the trial.
On May 22nd, while waiting to enter the court room Berkowitz went berserk. Jimmy Breslin, a reporter for the New York Daily News and recipient of some of David's bizarre letters, described the scene as follows: AThis little ball of suet sat in a 7th floor office of the chief court officer.  He was in handcuffs chained around the middle and had a dozen guards.  Now he detonated.  From this fat, weak little body there came an eruption of power from a cave, a glacier, a swamp.  He threw guards against the walls and trampled them, and with a scream from the bottom of his stomach he rushed for the pale light of the window.   At 11:20 Berkowitz, agitated and upset, was dragged, chained and manacled into the court room.  He  was chanting, loudly  Stacy is a whore, Stacy is a whore.  I'll shoot them all.   Mrs. Moskowitz hurled back at him, You're an animal! and left the court in tears.  Berkowitz was thrashing around and bit one of the guards.  The court was in an uproar, bedlam ruled and sentencing was rescheduled for June 12th. This time he was tranquilized prior to sentencing and had been warned to behave himself.  He received 547 years, 25 to life on each count of 2nd degree murder (in NY State 1st degree murder is reserved for cop killers).  He was sent to Attica, a prison in the Catskill Mountains of  New York, to serve out his sentence.
AFTER THOUGHTS
In February 1979 Berkowitz called a press conference at Attica and announced that story about
SamCarr, the dog and the demons were nothing more than a well developed. thought out, hoax.

A year and a half into his sentence a fellow inmate tried to kill him with a razor. It didn't succeed but it did take 56 stitches to close up the neck wound.

  In 1981 it was reported on television that Berkowitz claims to have part of a satanic cult and that there was more than one killer, a story that Dr. Abrahamsen hotly disputes.  In his interviews with Berkowitz never once did he ever mention any kind of ritual group killing.  In addition, Berkowitz by nature was a loner, secretive and even as a youth perpetrated his crimes alone. His later 1993 Inside Edition interview, purporting multiple shooters, let the world know he is still around.

He spends his days counseling troubled inmates,  reading the bible and preaching God's word.  He has a Web Page called The Son of Hope--A Testimony where he professes his faith and where, among other things, claims to have been a victim of childhood possession.

He is eligible for parole in the year 2003  

 
Mother of Satan

Old Mother Hubbard
       Sitting near the cubbard (sic)
with a hand granade
under the oatmeal.

Who will you kill now
Daughter of Satan?

In the image of the
Virgin Mary--pure and innocent
The Great Impersonator--
Is that you?  Yes
        How many have you decieved--(sic)
lured to slaughter like a
fat cow?

By David Berkowitz                     
September 22, 1976                     



BIBLIOGRAPHY

Confessions of Son of Sam, David Abrahamsen MD, Columbia University Press, New York, 1985

The Psychoanalyst Quarterly, 1977, 46-2, pp.188-200, AThe Family Romance Fantasies of Adopted Children,@ Herbert Wilder (footnoted in the book Confessions of Son of Sam)

Bad Men Do What Good Men Dream, Robert I Simon MD, Chapter 11, Internet Site-NO TITLE http://www.appi.org/simonb.html

Mind Hunter, Douglas,John & Olshaker,Mark, Simon & Shuster, New York, 1995

New York, April 19, 1993, Vol. 26,  pp 151-153, ASon of Sam-25th Anniversary,@ Jimmy Breslin

New York Times, April 29, 1977, II p. 2:3, APolice Appeal to Killer of Women to Seek Help,@ Molly Ivins

New York Times, April 26, 1977, L+ p. 43, APolice Trying to Out-Psych The .44 Killer,@ Molly Ivins

New York Times, August 11, 1977, p. 1:4, ANeighbor Who Got Threat Letters Was At Arrest Site,@ Ronald Smothers

New York Times, August 10, 1977, p. B5, APolice Begin Distributing New Drawing of .44-Killer,@ Leonard Buder

New York Times, August 11, 1977, p. D17, APostal Worker Traced Through Car Believed Used in Getaways,@ Robert D. McFadden

New York Times, Aug. 12, 1977, p.A10,  Sam Suspect, Heavily Guarded, is Arraigned and Held for Testing,@ Robert D. McFadden

Pogo's Killer Page....David Berkowitz, Internet Site

Son of Sam to Son of Hope, Internet Site

Newsweek, February 3, 1992, Vol. 119, Issue 5, pp. 50-51, "Silence of the Wolves," David Kaplan

National Review, January 23, 1995, Vol. 47, Issue 1, p. 34-41, "The Face of Evil," Martin Olasky
I want to Thank My Brain For Remembering Me--A Memoir, Breslin,Jimmy, Little Brown and Company, Boston, 1996

Photo: Original purchased by The Crime Web


Back to the Index

Hosted by www.Geocities.ws

1