David Berkowitz

Richard David Berkowitz was born as an illegitimate child to Betty Broder. She was pregnant to a married man, Joseph Kleinman, who was a real estate agent who wanted fuck all to do the kid. So, to save her relationship with Kleinman she dumped the kid, putting him up for adoption. This is where he was picked up by Nathan and Pearl Berkowitz, who couldn't have kids of their own.

Well, it seems David was a dud. The guy was a loser. He had no friends, got bad marks and to make things worse, he was Jewish which no doubt led to some major taunting. When he was 14 his adopted mother died of cancer and this seemed to really screw the kid up. His grades got even worse, they moved into a shitty neighborhood in the Bronx and David's problems with communication got even worse, particularly with chicks. In 1971 his dad remarried. Berkowitz hated his step mom and eventually he decided to join the army to get away from the new family.

In 1974 Berkowitz returned from the army and denounced Judaism. This made his home life pretty difficult, so he moved out into his own place. Berkowitz moved into 2151 Barnes Avenue, the Bronx. He also found his real mother. They became friends and David seemed to have found a happy family that he could become a part of.

The first 'Son of Sam' murder was on July 29, 1976. Donna Lauria, 18, and her friend Jody Valente, 19, were sitting in Valente's car chatting about guys at 1 a.m. The conversation came to a finish and Donna opened the car door and said goodbye. But as she opened the door someone came out of the shadows, put his hand into a brown paper bag, pulled out a .44 bulldog revolver and dropped into a crouched position. Donna said, "What does this guy want?" Before she got an answer a bullet went through her neck. She then raised a hand to protect her face and a bullet went into her elbow where it traveled up her forearm (a rather painful injury I would think). Donna then dropped to the footpath and berkowitz fired at Jody, hitting her once in the thigh. She dived forward and hit the horn, which alerted Mike Lauria, Donna's father. By the time he got outside Berkowitz was gone and his daughter was dead. Jody Valente was able to give police a pretty good description of the killer.

Twelve weeks later on October 23, 1976, a young couple, Rosemary Keenen, 18, and her 'male companion' Carl Denaro, 20, were sitting in Keenen's red VW in Flushing, Queens - a long way from the site of the first murder in the North Bronx. This time Berkowitz came better prepared. He had the .44 tucked into his belt and wasn't taking any risks. He walked up to the passenger side window pulled the gun out, and fired five shots into the window. Unfortunately the Bulldog .44 is well know for having a big kick, and only one of the bullets found it's way into Denaro's head, and luckily for Denaro all it did was blow away a bit of his skull and completely missed his brain and he survived.

Berkowitz was a little more successful on November 27 in Queens. Joanne Lomino, 18, and her friend Donna DeMasi, 16, were sitting on the front steps of Lomino's house. As Lomino decided to call it a night she stood up and grabbed her keys. Just then Berkowitz walked past the house on the other side of the road. when he seen the girls he quickly changed his direction and walked toward them. He began to ask for directions when he pulled out the .44 and started firing. The first shot pierced Lomino's spine, the second went through DeMasi's neck. The next three missed both girls as they scrambled into nearby bushes. Berkowitz was seen running down the street, still carrying the gun, by a neighbor. When the girls made it to a hospital it was found that DeMasi was not badly injured, but Lomino was less lucky - she has spent the rest of her life in a wheelchair. Some detectives tried to link this shooting with the two previous ones, but decided it was unlikely as the description these girls had given didn't match the previous ones.

On January 29, 1977, John Diel, 30, and Christine Fruend, 26, were sitting in their Pontiac Firebird in Queens after seeing Rocky. The pair had been getting it on and the windows were all fogged up, so they never seen Berkowitz coming. All they seen was an explosion of glass as he fired into the car. Before Diel knew what had happened his girlfriend was bleeding to death and Berkowitz was gone. She died a few hour later in hospital. But police were able to get a bullet out of her that matched the bullets that came out of the others. Police still didn't believe they had a single murderer on their hands as the descriptions didn't match.

On March 8, 1977, Police soon stopped thinking about different killers as Berkowitz struck again. Virginia Voskerichian, 19, was walking home in Queens at 7.30 pm when she stepped sideways to allow a young man to pass her. Instead he raised a .44 Bulldog to her face. She raised the books she was carrying but the bullet ripped through them into her skull via her lip where it also collected some teeth. She died instantly. A witness gave yet another different description of the murderer, but the bullet was a perfect match for an earlier killing, so police decided they were after one guy.

Operation Omega was set up to catch the man the press had dubbed "the .44 killer" and Berkowitz decided they needed some help catching him. He wrote them a letter but mustn't have trusted the mail system so decided to leave it where it couldn't be ignored. On April 17, 1977, at 3 am Berkowitz stumbled upon Valentina Suriani, 18, and her boyfriend Alexander Esau, 20. Suriani was sitting on Esau's knee and they were going at it. Berkowitz must have believe that they should wait 'til they were married (or dead) before they could get it on, and fired into the car. The first two shots smashed Valentina's skull, killing her instantly. The next two went into Esau's head. berkowitz then put then note a few feet from the car in the middle of the road and left. Police found the note, and rushed Esau to Hospital were he died two hours later.

The letter didn't really say anything, it was just a taunt, but there was no chance of lifting prints off it as 8 cops had handled it before it made it's way into evidence. Following his arrest berkowitz said that the only reason for the letter was to gain publicity. Berkowitz obviously didn't get enough from it so he mailed another letter, this time to a journalist, Jimmy Breslin, at New York's Daily News. Over the next week the paper teased it's audience, and sold over 1,116,000 copies, a record that was only beaten following Berkowitz's arrest. The letters proved to mean very little but it did provide the press with a new nickname from the 44 caliber killer - "Son of Sam"

On June 25, three weeks after his last letter Berkowitz struck again. Judy Placido, 17, and Slavatore Lupo were sitting in Lupo's car talking about "Son of Sam" when the window exploded. A bullet hit Lupo in the wrist and rebounded into Placido's neck. The next shot went into her shoulder. Salvatore decided to be a hero, and run away toward the disco they pair had just left. By this time Berkowitz was gone. Both victims survived the attack.

July 31, 1977, two days following the anniversary of his first murder Berkowitz decided to celebrated by trying for two more. Robert Violente and his date, Stacy Moskowitz, 20, were getting into it in Robert's car when Berkowitz fired two shots into Violente's face. He was blinded by the shots so he didn't get to see Berkowitz put a few bullets into Stacy. She died two days later and he was left blinded for life. Unfortunately for Berkowitz he had been seen by the occupants of the next car who gave a good description of him. His car was also seen by a heap of witnesses. But the worst of the evidence was a parking ticket that he received for being parked too close to a fire hydrant. Police didn't realize this until a nosy old cow came forward and told of how she seen a ticket being given to a car that she seen a man fitting the description of 'Son of Sam' getting into not long after the shooting. This was the end for poor David.

It took police ten days to finally get around to check for the ticket, but once they found it, well it didn't take long to decide David was their man. On August 10, 1977, David Berkowitz was arrested for the 'Son of Sam' attacks. Police sat outside his apartment for six hours waiting for Berkowitz to surface. Prior to him coming out they had searched his car and found a semi-automatic rifle and an envelope addressed to a detective high up in the murder task force which contained a letter threatening another attack. So when berkowitz jumped in his car a few hours later it's fair to assume that half the NYPD was waiting for him. Police surrounded him, guns out, but Berkowitz simply smiled and when asked, "Who are you?", he calmly answered, "I'm Sam."

He confessed to the attacks and went on to blame it all on the 'voices' in his head. He said he was urged to kill by Sam Carr, his neighbor, who transmitted the messages through his dogs barking. he also had 'Demon' voices telling him what to do when he was out hunting. This was obviously an early attempt at an insanity plea, and one which was rejected.

Berkowitz pled guilty to all the murders, and was sentenced to 365 years.

Since then many authors and investigators have tried to say that the murders were not the work of one man. The most popular of these concerns Sam Carr's sons. Certain people want us to believe both of these boys died in mysterious circumstances. It is true that both died in 1978 but their actual deaths were not particularly suspicious (one was suicide, the other a car crash) but as both were allegedly involved in satanism (never really verified), and both could possibly fit the descriptions given at earlier 'Son of Sam' attacks certain people begun to jump onto this bandwagon. A major problem i have with this is that most of us could fit the various descriptions it's not really conclusive proof. The Biggest wanker out of these conspiritists was Maury Terry, a crappy author of particularly stupid books - one being The Ultimate Evil. Some may choose to believe these tedious links to the case, but for me I like to think that Terry is an idiot that just likes to sell books.

In February, 1979, David Berkowitz admitted that his Sam Carr obsession was a hoax aimed at getting diminished responsibility, which would seem to destroy the 'Satanism/Carr' link.

Also in 1979, on July 10, Berkowitz was attacked in prison. his throat was slashed and it required 56 stitches to sew him up. He refused to name his attacker, and the conspirators claimed it was a Killer Cult that did it to shut him up.

Then a few years ago Berkowitz decided to say he was a part of a cult, and that they did the murders, not him. What's most amusing about this is that he has a heap of Christian dickheads that believe it, and have called for his release.

A VERY FUNNY FACT
David Berkowitz was a virgin when he went to prison. One would be inclined to believe that his cherry didn't last very long once inside.

QUOTES
"Dad, the world is getting darker now. I can feel it more and more . . . The girls call me ugly and they bother me the most."
- Taken from a letter to his dad one month before the first murder.

"The demons were protecting me. I had nothing to fear from the police."

"I must slay a woman for revenge purposes. To get back at them for all the suffering they caused me."
- prison diary entry

"Yes, the demons are real. I saw them, I felt their presence, and I heard them."
- prison diary entry

"At this point (following the Fruend and Diel shootings) I imagine I didn't care much anymore, for I finally had convinced myself that it was good to do it . . . and that the public wanted me to do it."

After the shootings, I thought I might weep for some of the people killed. But I couldn't.
- It was all puzzling, you know."

"Sam's a thirsty lad and he won't stop killing until he gets his fill of blood."
- From a letter to the press

"The demons wanted girls. Sugar and Spice and everything nice."

"I never thought I could kill her. I couldn't believe it. I just fired the gun, you know, at the car, at the windshield. I never knew she was shot."
- David's thoughts on the first killing.