00:00:07
- MALE NARRATOR:
29th of July, 1976. New York, USA. 18-year-old Donna Lauria and her
19-year-old friend, Jody Valenti
00:00:19
had returned home
after a night out. As they sat talking
outside Donna's apartment,
00:00:24
a man approached and fired
five times into their car. - [gunshots] - DR. YARDLEY: They represented
everything that he hated,
00:00:32
everything he resented. They were people with, uh,
their lives ahead of them. They were out having fun.
00:00:38
- NARRATOR: Donna
died instantly, and Jody was seriously wounded. The gunman was 23-year-old
David Berkowitz,
00:00:46
a delusional loner who christened himself
the Son of Sam. He took five more
young lives in just a year.
00:00:56
- BRIAN: Some people called
it the Summer of Sam. It captivated everyone. It created fear.
00:01:02
The frenzy of activity was
like nothing I'd ever seen. - GEOFFREY: People genuinely
were afraid to go out.
00:01:10
You cannot overestimate
or exaggerate just how much that fear gripped the city. - NARRATOR: The killings
prompted the largest
00:01:18
police manhunt that
the city had ever seen. - What he did to those families
that have been devastated
00:01:25
and never got over what
happened to their children. Bad times.
It was bad times.
00:01:31
- NARRATOR: Berkowitz
was a serial killer who had an obsession
with the occult. He murdered and maimed 13 young
people in just over a year,
00:01:40
spreading panic across
the city that never sleeps. That makes David Berkowitz one of the world's
most evil killers.
00:01:49
- ♪ ♪ - NARRATOR: 17th of April, 1977,
New York. When courting couple Valentina
Suriani and Alexander Esau were
00:02:22
shot dead, a letter to the chief
of police from their killer, Son of Sam, was left
at the crime scene.
00:02:29
With five young
people now murdered, detectives knew they had a
serial killer on the loose.
00:02:35
A wave of fear descended
on the city, as former reporter
Brian Kates remembers. - These series of shootings
really did grip the city.
00:02:44
People avoided going out late. This was a time of
sex, drugs, and disco. And many of these shootings
were involved
00:02:51
in lovers' lanes
and around discos. So you began to sense
this growing fear, particularly among young women.
00:02:59
People could talk
about nothing else. - NARRATOR: The fear of
Son of Sam was fueled
00:03:04
by a battling press
hungry for the latest scoop on one of the biggest-ever
stories to hit the city.
00:03:12
- I was in New York
in the 1970s. And the crimes literally
hypnotized the city. They were everyday
tabloid headlines.
00:03:21
Uh, Son of Sam terrorizes,
people afraid in Queens, Brooklyn, and in the Bronx. It was as though the city
was afraid to take a breath.
00:03:30
It literally grabbed the
imagination of New York. - NARRATOR: At the
height of the killings,
00:03:36
New York City Police Department had 75 detectives
and 225 patrolmen working to hunt down the killer.
00:03:45
A former detective on
the case, Bill Gardella, remembers how the hysteria even led to women
changing how they looked.
00:03:54
- Once it was determined that
he was targeting young females and, like, maybe by coincidence,
they had long, brown hair,
00:04:02
women were going to the beauty
salons buying wigs, blonde wigs, or dyeing their hair.
00:04:10
No case can match
the frenzy and the fear of the Son of Sam killings. - NARRATOR:
At a time when New York
00:04:20
was the murder capital
of the US, even Berkowitz's killings
left an indelible mark
00:04:25
on the place known as Fear City. - DR. YARDLEY: If you think of
the time that this happened,
00:04:30
women's liberation,
rights for women. But all of that freedom,
all of those liberties,
00:04:36
were suddenly curtailed because there was
this monster on the loose. - NARRATOR:
This killer's story begins
00:04:43
on the 1st of June, 1953,
New York. David Berkowitz
arrived into the world under the name of
Richard David Falco.
00:04:53
He was born out of an affair
between his biological mother, Betty, and a married Long Island
businessman called Joseph.
00:05:01
- BRIAN: She became pregnant. He essentially said that
he would not adopt the child.
00:05:05
He would have nothing
to do with the child. And, uh, David was
given up for adoption.
00:05:11
- NARRATOR: He was adopted by
Pearl and Nathan Berkowitz. They renamed him David.
00:05:17
- DR. YARDLEY: They were a
middle-aged couple, Jewish, working class, and
they had no children.
00:05:22
So I think this was a family which was set up
for happiness, really. You have this childless couple.
00:05:27
You have this baby
that needs a home. - NARRATOR: At the age of seven,
David learned the hidden truth
00:05:34
through a slip of the tongue. - DR. YARDLEY: He heard
the word "adopted" from his adoptive father.
00:05:40
And they had to explain to
him what that, uh, meant. - GEOFFREY: I think that
probably made David
00:05:45
very, very uncomfortable. I don't think
he could...grasp it. - NARRATOR: Soon, the
happy-go-lucky child
00:05:54
became disruptive and difficult. - BRIAN: At one point, I
understand they enlisted
00:05:59
the help of a therapist or
a psychologist to deal with his disciplinary problems
both at home and in school.
00:06:06
- DR. YARDLEY:
Berkowitz never really gets along with his peers. He doesn't form particularly
healthy relationships with them.
00:06:12
He's a kid who always
flies off the handle. He has poor behavioral control. So he becomes
increasingly isolated.
00:06:21
- NARRATOR: But
at the age of 14, Berkowitz's world fell apart. - DR. YARDLEY: His adoptive
mother dies from cancer.
00:06:29
And he's facing a loss here. But I think the culture
at that time was still very much, "We
don't talk about our feelings,"
00:06:35
so this would not have been
a helpful thing for him. - A few years later,
his father remarried.
00:06:43
David was not happy about that.
It made him angry. And this is where
we begin to see
00:06:46
the growth in real rage
in his personality. - NARRATOR: On the 23rd of June,
1971, at the age of 18,
00:06:56
Berkowitz joined the Army
to escape the strains of home. Here, he learned to use weapons,
including the M16 rifle,
00:07:04
and trained as a sharpshooter. Whilst he was serving, he chillingly wrote in
a letter home to a friend,
00:07:11
"All of these courses
will come in handy one day." He cryptically ended
his letter by writing,
00:07:17
"One day, there will be
a better world." - GEOFFREY: Berkowitz
wrote saying, "I've learned things in the
Army, and I'm gonna use them."
00:07:25
Well, it may be
a bit of bluster, but maybe also
a horrifying first note in what would become a
desperately criminal career.
00:07:36
- NARRATOR: After three years, Berkowitz decided
the Army wasn't for him. So in June 1974, at the
age of 21, he returned home.
00:07:46
But his father soon
left New York when his hardware store
was robbed, leaving his son
alone in the city.
00:07:53
Berkowitz had dreams of
becoming a firefighter, but instead had to settle
for low-paid security work.
00:08:01
The night shifts provided
endless hours for him to ruminate. - Berkowitz already sees
himself as an outsider.
00:08:12
But he's not settled. He feels hurt. He knows he's a loner. He knows he can't relate
very well to other people.
00:08:21
- So this is when he starts
to become quite dangerous. - NARRATOR: Feeling
increasingly isolated,
00:08:28
Berkowitz decided to track down
his biological mother, Betty. He found her and sent her
a poem on May the 11th, 1975,
00:08:37
Mother's Day. Betty was over the moon to
hear from her long-lost son, and they arranged to meet.
00:08:45
- BRIAN: She's
delighted to see him. And they have this wonderful
reunion, apparently.
00:08:50
And they continue to meet. And they had this kind
of loving relationship. - NARRATOR: But soon, the
love for his newfound mother
00:08:58
would sour. - BRIAN: He meets
his half-sister. This was the child that
his mother didn't give away.
00:09:06
And he realizes that
he was a throwaway child, and there's this other child that's been loved
all this time by his mother.
00:09:14
And he becomes furious. - NARRATOR: It's believed this
rejection by his mother as a child was the genesis of
Berkowitz's hatred for women.
00:09:23
Once again, isolated and alone
with his paranoid thoughts, he wrote to his father.
00:09:29
"Dad, the world is getting
dark now," he said. "The people, they are
developing a hatred for me."
00:09:38
- DR. YARDLEY: So what
he's doing in this letter is presenting himself as
the victim, saying, "Poor me,
00:09:42
I have this horrible life now." And he's essentially saying
to his adoptive father,
00:09:47
"It's your fault
because you left me." - GEOFFREY:
I'm sure at that point, he is building yet more
fantasies that he's been
00:09:57
rejected, not just by
the world, but by women. - NARRATOR:
That November in 1975,
00:10:04
Berkowitz spent a month in
isolation in his apartment. He nailed blankets
over the windows
00:10:10
and scrawled dark ramblings
on the walls. "In this hole lives the
wicked king," he wrote.
00:10:16
"Kill for my master"
was another. - DR. YARDLEY: I think this
was attention-seeking behavior.
00:10:22
And he gets very frustrated that
nobody comes to check up on him. I think there's a kind of
sense of entitlement there,
00:10:27
that, "Other people
should be looking after me." - NARRATOR: On December
the 24th, Christmas Eve,
00:10:33
a delusional David Berkowitz decided to make his scrawlings
about killing a reality.
00:10:40
He'd left his self-imposed exile
armed with a hunting knife. He wanted to seek out revenge
for the rejection
00:10:47
by his birth mother. Now the ex-soldier was
on a mission to kill. - BILL: He was in
the area of Yonkers.
00:10:56
And he had a knife with him. And he walked up to a young
lady, started stabbing her.
00:11:00
She screamed. Left, went a couple blocks away, and started stabbing
another lady.
00:11:07
She screamed, and he left. Only one of those
two ladies reported it. - DR. YARDLEY:
I think the timing
00:11:13
is really significant here, because Christmas,
it's a family time. And I think it's when Berkowitz
is feeling the most resentful
00:11:19
towards people who have
things that he doesn't. I think the thing that he
would've come away with is,
00:11:26
I enjoyed that.
I liked harming them. But I didn't achieve
the outcome that I wanted,
00:11:31
and that was to kill them. - NARRATOR: That evening, Berkowitz reflected
on his failure.
00:11:37
In the coming months, he
would try a change of tack. - BRIAN: David Berkowitz,
to the people who knew him,
00:11:44
was this kind of
puzzle of many pieces. And many of the
pieces didn't fit. So that there were some
that saw this happy-go-lucky,
00:11:53
slightly shy, helpful young man, and others who saw
this angry edge. - NARRATOR: Berkowitz developed
an angst-ridden obsession
00:12:04
with one of his neighbors,
retiree Sam Carr. - DR. YARDLEY: His
neighbor's dog, Harvey,
00:12:10
barks during the night. And he finds this
really annoying. And he will ruminate about this.
00:12:15
He dwells on it. - NARRATOR: On May the 13th,
things came to a head when Berkowitz threw a petrol
bomb into Sam's backyard.
00:12:24
Scared for his life, Sam
reported it to the police. But they couldn't
find the attacker.
00:12:30
Meanwhile, Berkowitz
continued his reign of terror, setting fires in nearby
apartment buildings.
00:12:38
- DR. YARDLEY:
When we look at young people who engage in
this kind of behavior,
00:12:41
fire-setting is a way of
them maintaining control. It's an externalization. They have these feelings.
00:12:48
They want to do something
with those feelings. And rather than turning
it in on themselves,
00:12:52
they turn it outward, to start harming other people
and other things. - NARRATOR: Soon the world
would know of David Berkowitz.
00:12:59
After his knife attacks failed, Berkowitz decided on a
different weapon of attack.
00:13:05
He illegally bought a gun
that he could use with cold, calculating precision,
a Bulldog .44-caliber revolver.
00:13:14
On Thursday, July the 29th,
Berkowitz was stalking the streets of the Bronx. - BILL: David Berkowitz
was driving in the street,
00:13:24
looking for his next victims. - NARRATOR: 18-year-old
Donna Lauria and her 19-year-old
friend, Jody,
00:13:31
had been out playing backgammon
at a local bar. They'd returned home,
and were sitting in their car
00:13:37
outside Donna's apartment. - GEOFFREY: They are
chatting to one another when all of a sudden,
out of the blue, out of nowhere,
00:13:45
the passenger-side
window explodes. And what's happened is that
Berkowitz has gone into
00:13:52
a firing position, extended
the gun with both hands, and fired five
times into the car.
00:13:58
- [gunshots] - NARRATOR: Donna was
fatally wounded in the neck. Her friend, Jody,
was shot in the thigh.
00:14:07
Berkowitz fled as Donna's
father, having heard gunfire, rushed down from his
apartment to the scene.
00:14:14
But nothing could be done
to save his daughter. - BILL: It turned out that
the bullet recovered was
00:14:21
a .44 bullet from a Bulldog
revolver, which was a rare gun. David Berkowitz said that
when he left that scene,
00:14:32
he sang a song on the way home,
because the demons had told him to go out and kill,
and he killed.
00:14:42
- DR. YARDLEY: I think he
quite enjoyed that high, that kind of elevated
sense of status
00:14:46
of taking someone else's life. He's targeting young
people who are happy, people who have their
whole lives ahead of them.
00:14:53
And he feels, "Actually, I'm
entitled to take that away from them because they
don't deserve it and I do."
00:14:59
- NARRATOR:
The police were puzzled at the motive for the shooting and wrote it off
as a botched mafia hit.
00:15:05
Berkowitz was disappointed that
his first killing didn't create headlines in the press, as he
later revealed to the police.
00:15:14
- BILL: After that first
murder, in August of 1976, David Berkowitz was at
the Westchester County Mall.
00:15:22
And he said nobody
recognizes him, as if somebody should
know who he is. And he says, "I wish
I had a machine gun."
00:15:30
- NARRATOR: In an attempt
to gain the recognition he so desperately craved, three months later,
on the 23rd of October, 1976,
00:15:39
David Berkowitz struck again. This time he targeted a couple
on a date in the nearby borough
00:15:45
of Queens, in a
so-called lovers' lane. - An individual by the name
of Carl Denaro is parked
00:15:53
with his girlfriend,
sitting in a car at night. And he's sitting in
the passenger's side.
00:15:59
And Carl Denaro has long hair. It's believed that Berkowitz
thought Denaro was a girl.
00:16:07
- NARRATOR: Berkowitz
shot into their car, hitting 20-year-old
Carl in the head.
00:16:12
To Berkowitz's disappointment,
Carl survived, and his date, Rosemary, was unscathed.
00:16:20
A month later, he stalked
the streets of Queens looking for more victims. In the early hours of
the 27th of November,
00:16:28
he found 16-year-old
Donna DeMasi and 18-year-old Joanne Lomino
sitting on a step.
00:16:36
- BILL: He then walks over,
says a few words, and shoots, and flees the scene. Miss DeMasi survived.
00:16:45
Miss Lomino is confined
to a wheelchair for the rest of her life. Devastating injury.
00:16:52
- NARRATOR: Berkowitz
had once more failed in his quest to kill again. But his time would come
in the new year of 1977,
00:16:59
on January the 30th. 26-year-old Christine Freund
was on a date with her fiancé,
00:17:06
30-year-old John Diel,
when Berkowitz spotted them. - BILL: He parks not far
from where that couple was.
00:17:14
And he observes
a Christine Freund sitting in a car
with her fiancé. Runs up to the car and
shoots Christine Freund,
00:17:22
killing her. - [gunshot]
- BILL: Instantly. - NARRATOR: Christine was shot
in the temple and in the neck.
00:17:28
Her fiancé, John,
ran to get help, but Christine was later
pronounced dead in the hospital.
00:17:34
The young lovers were
about to tell their parents about their engagement before
Berkowitz took Christine's life
00:17:41
in his second fatal shooting. - None of the Berkowitz
shootings were seen as particularly unusual until, uh,
the murder of Christine Freund.
00:17:51
And here, for the first time,
police said that they saw some connection between this
shooting and previous shootings.
00:18:01
Now we begin to see that there
might be something more than a series of isolated shootings.
00:18:08
- NARRATOR: Three days
after Christine's killing, a 16-man homicide task force
was established
00:18:14
by the New York City
Police Department. A pattern was emerging
of a killer who had a hatred for women.
00:18:21
Just like his stabbing victims,
Berkowitz was targeting females with long, dark hair.
00:18:29
- BRIAN: They were in
lovers' lanes, around discos. Berkowitz clearly had
problems with women.
00:18:34
He said later that he saw his
mother sitting in those cars when he shot the girls.
00:18:40
- NARRATOR: A pattern was
also emerging of the killer's fascination for a particular
location, lovers' lanes.
00:18:47
It is believed that
Berkowitz was a virgin. - GEOFFREY: There could be
a voyeuristic element--
00:18:53
"I've never had sex myself, "and I bet they're about
to have sex, and I want to see
what it's like."
00:18:57
I do believe that there
may have been an element of trying to destroy his mother.
00:19:01
What is clear is he's
completely off the wall. - NARRATOR: Berkowitz
had now shot six people
00:19:08
and killed two women. Barely a month later,
on March the 8th, he was back out on the streets
of Forest Hills, Queens.
00:19:17
The brazen killer was now
gaining in confidence. This time, he chose early
evening and a lone victim.
00:19:25
- BILL: College student
Virginia Voskerichian is walking down the street. The time of 7:30 is much earlier
than the previous incidents.
00:19:35
She's walking down the street and the assailant
is approaching her. She sees him pull out a gun,
00:19:42
and she puts her books
in front of her head. And he shoots through the
books and kills her instantly.
00:19:50
- NARRATOR: Once again,
Berkowitz fled the scene, even saying hello to a passerby.
00:19:56
- DR. YARDLEY: So when
we look at Virginia, his third murder victim,
he's starting to increase
00:20:01
in confidence now. He feels quite invincible. He feels kind of elated. He attacks her in
the middle of the street
00:20:08
because he feels untouchable. He feels like he can
get away with it. - GEOFFREY:
What was it that made him
00:20:12
change his modus operandi? I think he just felt
like experimenting. He's been in this state
of collapse, if you like,
00:20:21
this fugue of horror, this terror reign for 15 months. - NARRATOR: A single
bullet from Berkowitz's
00:20:31
.44 Bulldog revolver
had penetrated 20-year-old Virginia's skull. When pathologists removed it,
00:20:38
it confirmed
the police's suspicions that they had a
serial killer on their hands.
00:20:44
- They did a forensic
comparison and found that the same gun used
on the Freund shooting
00:20:50
was used in the
Voskerichian shooting. - NARRATOR: Two days
after Virginia's murder,
00:20:55
New York City police
commissioner Michael Codd held a press conference. He told reporters that
they were on the hunt
00:21:02
for a serial shooter. - BRIAN: He announced
that the bullet was a .44-caliber bullet,
00:21:08
that it was fired from a
Charter Arms Bulldog revolver, and that it was linked
to at least three killings.
00:21:15
And for the first time now,
we see officially that all these shootings
are linked.
00:21:22
- NARRATOR: For serial
killer David Berkowitz, his murders now made the
headlines that he so craved.
00:21:30
- For the first time,
we had a name for the killer, the .44-Caliber Killer. It was a perfect
tabloid headline.
00:21:37
And any time there was a
shooting with young people involved, reporters went
scrambling to find the story.
00:21:44
Now the city is in
Berkowitz's palm. He's got the city now
where he wants it. He's accomplished
what he wants to do,
00:21:52
which is to have the city
in total fear of him. - NARRATOR: Even though he'd
taken three innocent lives,
00:21:59
the killing wouldn't stop. Berkowitz enjoyed the
drama that was unfolding. He watched the news
and took clippings
00:22:07
about his killings as trophies. New York's number-one news story was now spreading fear
in the city.
00:22:16
- BRIAN: People read the story. Girls begin to worry. Parents wouldn't let their
kids out for late-night dates.
00:22:22
People began to see a pattern
in these shootings that the victims were pretty young
women with long, brown hair.
00:22:31
Girls began cutting
their hair, dyeing it blonde. There was an overall
growing sense of fear.
00:22:39
- NARRATOR: The NYPD's Omega
task force now investigating the shootings was boosted
from 16 to a 30-strong team.
00:22:47
But Berkowitz wanted to make an even bigger splash
across the newspapers. Barely a month after
being christened
00:22:54
the .44-Caliber Killer,
he would strike again. But this time, his hunting
ground was the Bronx.
00:23:01
- BILL: On April 17, 1977, Valentina Suriani
and Alexander Esau, at 3:00 AM in the morning,
were parked in a car,
00:23:10
when the assailant
came up to the car, put his hand on the hood, and
fired through the front windows.
00:23:20
- NARRATOR: 18-year-old
aspiring actress Valentina died within
a minute of the attack.
00:23:25
Her 20-year-old
boyfriend, Alexander, died two hours later
in the hospital. Berkowitz had successfully
fled once again.
00:23:34
But this time, he had
a surprise in store. - BRIAN: They found a letter
that had been left by the killer
00:23:41
for Detective Joseph Borelli, the, uh,
Omega task force leader. And the killer complained that
00:23:48
he had been referred to
as a woman hater. And he was angry about that. - NARRATOR: Despite this,
Berkowtiz stated in the letter,
00:23:57
"I love to hunt,
prowling the streets, "looking for fair game,
tasty meat. The women of Queens
are prettiest of all."
00:24:06
For the police's
psychological profilers, they were convinced this message revealed his motive
was a hatred of women.
00:24:14
- BILL: What was
interesting about the note, the spelling was good, but he always spelled
the word "women" incorrectly.
00:24:22
He would spell it W-E-M-O-N. If you change the "w" to a
"d," it would have "demon."
00:24:31
Now, whether in his mind women
were demons or what have you-- but he was threatening
to commit more murders
00:24:39
as a result of that note. - DR. YARDLEY: He's
wanting recognition. He's wanting attention now
for the things that he's done.
00:24:46
But he's also
saying things like, "I don't belong on this earth." In other words, I am
better than everybody else.
00:24:54
- NARRATOR: Chillingly,
one of Berkowitz's last lines of his letter to
Captain Borelli warned,
00:25:00
"I don't want to kill anymore. "No, sir, no more. But I must honor thy father." Most disturbing of all
was the name he signed off as,
00:25:09
Son of Sam. - BRIAN: It was the first time
we had any mention of this name, the Son of Sam.
00:25:16
And immediately his
moniker changed from the .44-Caliber Killer
to the Son of Sam.
00:25:21
And no one at that time
really had any clue of exactly what that meant. - DR. YARDLEY: He wants
that brand, that identity.
00:25:29
You can see that this is someone who thinks very highly
of himself. And he's quite disappointed, I
think, that he hasn't had that
00:25:34
recognition that
he feels he deserves. - NARRATOR: What the press and
public didn't know is that
00:25:40
the Sam Berkowitz was
referring to was, in fact, his neighbor, Sam Carr. Berkowitz was also sending
this same neighbor threatening
00:25:49
anonymous letters about
his Labrador, Harvey. - GEOFFREY: He's disintegrating
in front of his own eyes,
00:25:55
let alone anybody else's. He's living alone. He's obsessed by the fact
that his neighbor's dog
00:26:03
is barking all night. - NARRATOR: Berkowitz's torment
came to a head on the foggy morning
of April the 27th,
00:26:10
when the ex-soldier
shot Harvey the dog from his apartment block
with a .22-caliber rifle.
00:26:18
- GEOFFREY: This is a man
falling apart literally. He's convinced that he's hearing
voices, that his neighbor, Sam,
00:26:24
is influencing him, and that
the dog is sending him messages that he must commit
demonic acts.
00:26:31
- NARRATOR: Luckily Harvey
was not seriously injured. And with no clear
view of the shooter,
00:26:36
the police had little to go on. A month later,
at the end of May, Berkowitz crafted another
taunting, cryptic letter,
00:26:44
this time to "Daily News"
columnist Jimmy Breslin. - BRIAN: Jimmy Breslin was
the top columnist in New York.
00:26:52
So, if Berkowitz wanted
publicity and wanted to find someone who could take
his story to the people
00:26:58
and whose story
would then be read, Jimmy Breslin
was the man to do it. - NARRATOR: In the letter,
Berkowitz told Jimmy,
00:27:05
"Sam's a thirsty lad. "And he won't let me
stop killing until he gets
his fill of blood."
00:27:12
- BRIAN: The city room was
flooded with police officers. And then, for the first time,
00:27:17
the "Daily News" wasn't
simply reporting the story. The "Daily News" was the story.
00:27:22
- NARRATOR: Son of Sam's letter
confessed to the murder of his first victim,
18-year-old Donna Lauria.
00:27:28
And he asked Jimmy Breslin
to celebrate the anniversary of her killing. - BRIAN: This prompted
outrage among everyone.
00:27:36
So we had, in that story,
not only the infuriating letter that, uh, Berkowtiz had written,
saying that Donna Lauria
00:27:44
was a wonderful girl and
she should be memorialized, but also her family's
reaction to that.
00:27:50
Uh, their anger, their deep,
deep sadness and grief, all came out in a
single column by Breslin.
00:27:59
- DR. YARDLEY: A lot of people
have interpreted this as some kind of affection,
some kind of love.
00:28:03
But what it is,
it's about ownership and possession and control. And for many serial killers,
00:28:09
the first victim is
a very significant one, the first time that they start
to feel like they're in control.
00:28:14
So that's why there's an
importance attached to her. There was no feelings
of affection whatsoever.
00:28:20
- NARRATOR: As newspapers battle for the latest scoops
on Son of Sam, Jimmy Breslin's letter was
published in the weekend edition
00:28:27
of the "Daily News" to
achieve maximum impact. - The letter wasn't
published until Sunday,
00:28:34
when the larger circulation
would be available. The public release of
Berkowitz's letter
00:28:40
to Jimmy Breslin did create
a frenzy and a fear in the public and
among journalists.
00:28:47
- NARRATOR: The media spotlight
on the case resulted in 250 calls a day
to the police hotline,
00:28:53
with people reporting suspicions
about neighbors, boyfriends, even their husbands.
00:28:58
With the pressure of having
to catch a serial shooter on the loose
before he struck again,
00:29:03
the NYPD even planted decoy
female mannequins in parked cars to try and entrap the killer.
00:29:11
- BILL: I think the biggest
challenge was to get him as quickly as possible,
because you knew
00:29:16
this wasn't gonna be the
last time he was going to kill. That was the pressure
that was put upon, I think,
00:29:21
all the investigators
at the time, and the fact that you knew
that it wasn't gonna end.
00:29:29
- NARRATOR: Sure enough,
on June the 26th, Berkowitz struck again, shooting
another man and woman in Queens.
00:29:36
Luckily, they escape
with minor injuries. But his next attack, just over
a month later in Brooklyn,
00:29:42
would whip up a wave of hysteria that New York City
had never seen. On the 31st of July,
00:29:49
20-year-old Stacy Moskowitz went out on a date with
20-year-old Robert Violante.
00:29:56
- BILL: That was
their first date. And both Robert Violante's
parents and Stacy Moskowitz's parents
were concerned.
00:30:04
And Stacy and Robert both said
to their respective mothers, "He doesn't go after blondes.
00:30:11
He doesn't go after blondes." They felt that was gonna
be the case that night. - NARRATOR: After
dinner and a movie,
00:30:18
Stacy and Robert headed to a
park in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn. Berkowitz was also
cruising in the area,
00:30:25
looking for his next victim. He pulled up close by. - BILL: Berkowitz fired
four times into the car
00:30:32
and fled back into the park. Stacy remained in the
car, seriously injured. Robert Violante
blasted the horn.
00:30:42
He got out, staggered, and was
leaning against the light pole. - NARRATOR: Robert was
shot twice in the face.
00:30:51
His left eye was shattered, and
he was left permanently blind. Stacy was pronounced dead in
the hospital 38 hours later.
00:31:01
- BILL: When he struck
in Brooklyn, I mean, there was hysteria
within the city. "The New York Post"
had on the front page,
00:31:11
"No One Is Safe
from the Son of Sam" The number of calls that came in
to the hotline was overwhelming.
00:31:19
People now felt he
could go any place. And he did. - [indistinct chatter] - BRIAN:
So the people who thought
00:31:29
that they were safe before
no longer had that assurance. Suddenly he was
all over the city.
00:31:34
And his victims were changing. So clearly that created
a whole new element of fear
00:31:40
that hadn't existed before. - It is the most... horrifying crime. People genuinely were
afraid to go out.
00:31:51
You cannot overestimate or
exaggerate just how much that fear gripped the city. - NARRATOR: He'd taken six
young lives within a year.
00:32:00
And the serial killer
was the talk of the town. Berkowitz was relishing
in his rising notoriety.
00:32:07
The New York Police Department now had 225 patrolmen
and 75 detectives working full time on the case.
00:32:16
Former detective sergeant
Bill Gardella was brought in to investigate
the latest killing
00:32:22
of 20-year-old Stacy Moskowitz next to a park in Bensonhurst. - BILL: I was awakened in
the middle of the night.
00:32:30
They said, "Sarge, it looks
like we got a shooting in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn.
May be the Son of Sam."
00:32:36
I jumped out of
bed, got dressed, and drove over to the scene
at Bay 17 Street, in the park.
00:32:43
We were then given other
detective units in Brooklyn to assist in questioning
as many people as we could.
00:32:49
No one was safe. He could strike anywhere. - NARRATOR: Whilst Detective
Gardella and his colleagues were
00:32:56
hot on the trail for any leads,
New York's rival newspapers were also on the hunt for a
scoop on the latest killing.
00:33:04
Former news reporter Brian Kates
was sent to the home of Son of Sam's
sixth victim, Stacy,
00:33:10
where he met her mother, Neysa. - BRIAN: Neysa Moskowitz
was stunned, really, by her daughter's death.
00:33:18
We'd talk about what a beautiful
girl her daughter had been. "How could this
have happened to us?"
00:33:23
And then she'd fall silent. She looked down at the floor,
and then look at the pictures
00:33:28
she had of Stacy
and start to cry. Sitting through
this experience of grief was very difficult
as a reporter.
00:33:36
You have this great
sympathy for this family, for this horrible death. - NARRATOR: Meanwhile, Detective
Bill Gardella and his team
00:33:46
were on the hunt for witnesses
who may have seen her killer. Three days after her murder,
on the 3rd of August,
00:33:53
they had a breakthrough. They found a 49-year-old woman
who'd been out walking her dog
00:33:59
just minutes before
Stacy's shooting. - She observes a male
coming in her direction.
00:34:06
And he was carrying
something in his hand. "I don't know what it is,
but I was upset.
00:34:12
"I was afraid. "I pulled my dog,
went back, made a U-turn, "went back into my apartment.
00:34:18
"And a few minutes
later, I heard shots. I heard shots." - NARRATOR: This new witness
had seen a car being booked by
00:34:27
a patrolling police officer for
parking next to a fire hydrant. When detectives checked,
00:34:33
there was no record of
any tickets being issued. - BILL: She insisted. "I saw a summons
being given out."
00:34:42
We checked a second time. No summonses. We went back. She insisted so much,
"We'll give it one more try."
00:34:53
- NARRATOR: Fellow NYPD
detective James Justus was sent to meet the patrolling officer
on duty that evening to see
00:35:00
if he knew anything about
this elusive parking ticket. - JAMES: When I was able to
speak to the uniformed officer,
00:35:07
he informed me
what had happened, that he had left
it in his locker. - BILL: And sure enough, there
were four summonses given out,
00:35:14
one of them to a David Berkowitz
that lived in Yonkers. That third attempt
pick up that summons.
00:35:21
If we didn't make
three efforts... we would've not
got Berkowitz then. - NARRATOR:
Finally, David Berkowitz
00:35:30
came onto the police radar. When Detective James Justus
called Yonkers PD, another stroke of luck meant
the dispatcher who picked up
00:35:39
the phone was the daughter of Berkowitz's nemesis
and neighbor, Sam Carr. - Wheat Carr happened
to live with her dad
00:35:48
in an apartment house right
behind the apartment house that David Berkowitz lived in.
00:35:53
And she related to me various
stories around about Berkowitz and their association with him,
00:35:59
and the problems
that they had with him, and the fact that Berkowitz
shot their black lab.
00:36:06
- NARRATOR: He was also told
about another neighbor who'd been receiving
strange letters,
00:36:11
and had recently found a
fire burning outside his door. The neighbor suspected
Berkowitz was to blame.
00:36:19
- JAMES: The strangeness
of what this guy was doing and the fact that he wasn't
related to Sam Carr,
00:36:25
but the name Sam was there. And I put this all in a report. My inspector asked me
how everything went.
00:36:32
And I said to him, "I got a
good feeling we have the guy." - NARRATOR: Two detectives from
the Son of Sam investigation
00:36:42
were sent to
Berkowitz's apartment on Pine Street, Yonkers. They found his Ford Galaxie
parked outside
00:36:49
and cautiously peered in
through the window to see if there was any
incriminating evidence.
00:36:56
- BILL: They look into the car. And on the floor of
the rear of the car, there was a Army duffle bag.
00:37:03
And protruding from
the duffle bag-- we thought was a submachine gun, it was a semiautomatic rifle.
00:37:10
- NARRATOR:
The detectives found that Berkowitz's car
was unlocked. - BILL: They enter the vehicle,
and they come up with a letter
00:37:18
addressed to the
Suffolk County police chief. The letter stated,
"You can't stop me.
00:37:24
I'm coming out." And this was the straw
that broke the camel's back, just split the case wide open.
00:37:31
This was the Son of Sam. - NARRATOR: Detective Sergeant
Bill Gardella was called
00:37:36
with news of this exciting find. With five of his NYPD team,
they rushed over to stake out
00:37:42
Berkowitz's apartment block. Four hours later, at 10:00PM,
their patience finally paid off
00:37:49
when the killer
approached his car. - I took my gun out,
ran down the sidewalk as fast as I could
to confront Berkowitz
00:37:57
before he had an opportunity
to go for his gun. And I screamed at him, "Police!
Don't you go for a gun!"
00:38:03
And he slowly turns his
head like this and smiles. Said, "Well," he
says, "you got me.
00:38:08
What took you so long?" - DR. YARDLEY: I think he
knew that this was coming. He knew he wouldn't be able
to get away with it forever.
00:38:16
But this is someone who is
very used to being in control. And he remains in control.
00:38:22
He smiles, which I think the
police find quite unnerving. - NARRATOR: Once handcuffed
and arrested,
00:38:28
on the journey in the police car
from Yonkers back to New York City Police
headquarters,
00:38:33
serial killer David Berkowitz was ready to indulge
in his newfound fame. - BILL: Berkowitz
says, "Hey, guys,
00:38:42
"I guess the press
is waiting for me "at New York City Police
headquarters with their cameras.
00:38:46
Can you do me a favor?
Can you comb my hair?" He's gonna serve a
life sentence in jail,
00:38:52
he's concerned
about his hair. And then when we pulled
up to police headquarters,
00:38:57
there were a few people
on the street screaming. And I told the captain that
was with me, "Cap," I says,
00:39:02
"I want to go in the garage." He said, "Bill, no, let's
get our pictures taken."
00:39:08
The mayor was at
police headquarters. And that was the end. That was it. - NARRATOR: "New York Daily
News" reporter Brian Kates
00:39:16
was on a night shift
when he got the news that Son of Sam had
finally been arrested.
00:39:23
- BRIAN: Everybody
was abuzz with this. There was jubilation
in the city. Um, and in fact, there were
parties at, uh, bars and clubs,
00:39:33
celebrating the fact
that he'd been captured. There was a collective
sigh of relief
00:39:38
that the police
have got their man and that hopefully
the killings were over. - GEOFFREY: There's no question
00:39:45
that Berkowitz
would have gone on. He would have killed
again and again and again
00:39:50
until he was eventually stopped. The classic serial killer--they
don't stop until they're caught.
00:39:57
- NARRATOR: The police
have captured Berkowitz just in the nick of time. Using the semiautomatic rifle
found in his car that weekend,
00:40:05
the Son of Sam was
planning a mass shooting. Detective Sergeant Bill Gardella was one of the
first police officers
00:40:12
to search his apartment. - BILL: Any time I speak
about his apartment, my body starts to chill,
00:40:18
because it's something
that I had never seen before. He had photographs of all the
girls he killed on the floor.
00:40:24
He had cut 'em out
of the newspapers. And he had holes in the wall. Voices used to
come out of those holes
00:40:30
to tell him to go out and kill. And he used to try to stop
the voices by hitting the wall.
00:40:37
And then he would write a note
next to each of the holes. One of the notes I pretty
much committed to memory.
00:40:43
It said, "Hi, my name
is Mr. Williams. "I live in this hole. "I'm raising little
children to be killers.
00:40:49
I can't wait until
they grow up." It just--it was a sight
I never forgot. And it's the only thing
in my lifetime that,
00:40:55
if I talk about it,
I get the chills. - NARRATOR: Strange, satanic
symbols were also scrawled
00:41:03
across Berkowitz's walls. During the police
interviews that followed, he confessed to carrying out
the shootings
00:41:10
and claimed that the devil
was talking to him through neighbor Sam Carr's dog,
instructing him to kill.
00:41:17
When it came to his trial,
psychiatrists were split on whether he was
mentally fit to stand.
00:41:24
- DR. YARDLEY: These claims
that he was hearing voices, that his neighbor's dog, Harvey,
was essentially talking to him,
00:41:31
and this was the
voice of a demon, um, I think this is
nonsense, to be honest. I think this is just part
of his performance
00:41:37
of trying to appear
to be insane, 'cause he's been caught now, and he wants to secure the best
possible outcome for himself.
00:41:44
And that outcome would always
be better if you claim you're not responsible
for what you've done.
00:41:49
- NARRATOR: In the end,
Berkowitz was deemed fit to stand trial, as it was ruled
00:41:54
he understood
the charges against him. But after consulting a priest, Son of Sam had an unexpected
surprise up his sleeve.
00:42:04
- BRIAN: His lawyers wanted him
to mount an insanity defense and go to trial. Berkowitz determined
that he would not do that,
00:42:11
that he would plead
guilty, which he did, meaning that there
would be no trial. - NARRATOR: On the
12th of June, 1978,
00:42:20
25-year-old David Berkowitz
was finally sentenced to a total of 365 years
in prison.
00:42:29
- DR. YARDLEY: This is
someone who's never, ever going to be
released from prison.
00:42:32
And I think he would've
gone on to kill more people had he not been arrested. This man is
incredibly dangerous.
00:42:39
- NARRATOR: But the name
Son of Sam is indelibly marked on the city he terrorized.
00:42:45
- BRIAN: That fear was fueled,
of course, by the media. At the time of his last murders,
the entire world reported on
00:42:51
the capture of David Berkowitz. That's how far his
reach, uh, extended. - He didn't do it for money.
00:42:58
He didn't do it for...sex. He did it because he felt
like it, because he wanted to.
00:43:06
And that makes him a
very evil man indeed. - NARRATOR: Berkowitz
mercilessly gunned down
00:43:12
and killed six young people who were merely out
enjoying themselves. He brutally wounded
seven others,
00:43:19
leaving them with
life-changing injuries. He terrorized a city
that's still living
00:43:24
with trauma of his crimes. That's what makes
David Berkowitz one of the world's
most evil killers.
00:43:33
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