Chilluminati Podcast - Episode 226 - Son of Sam Part 1: How Many Head Injuries is too Many?

Episode Date: November 12, 2023

The boys dive into the history of one of Americas most annoying serial killers of all time, Son of Sam AKA David Berkowitz and try to decide just WHICH head injury was the really bad one. SEE US LIVE DEC 3rd! - https://www.ticketmaster.com/event/09005F5B1FE45C10 GET THE DIGITAL LIVE SHOW HERE!! - https://shorturl.at/mCHZ2 Patreon - http://www.patreon.com/chilluminatipod MERCH - http://www.theyetee.com/collections/chilluminati Special thanks to our sponsors this episode - EVERYONE AT HTTP://PATREON.COM/CHILLUMINATIPOD PROMO CODE: CHILL Butcherbox - http://www.butcherbox.com/chill Talkspace - http://www.talkspace.com/chill Uncommon Goods - http://www.uncommongoods.com/chill Jesse Cox - http://www.youtube.com/jessecox Alex Faciane - http://www.youtube.com/user/superbeardbros Editor - DeanCutty http://www.twitter.com/deancutty Art Commissioned by - http://www.mollyheadycarroll.com Theme - Matt Proft End song - POWER FAILURE - https://soundcloud.com/powerfailure Video - http://www.twitter.com/digitalmuppet Patreon - http://www.patreon.com/chilluminatipod MERCH - http://www.theyetee.com/collections/chilluminati Special thanks to our sponsors this episode - EVERYONE AT HTTP://PATREON.COM/CHILLUMINATIPOD Nuts - http://www.nuts.com/chill HelloFresh - http://www.hellofresh.com/50chill CODE: 50chill Jesse Cox - http://www.youtube.com/jessecox Alex Faciane - http://www.youtube.com/user/superbeardbros Editor - DeanCutty http://www.twitter.com/deancutty Art Commissioned by - http://www.mollyheadycarroll.com Theme - Matt Proft End song - POWER FAILURE - https://soundcloud.com/powerfailure Video - http://www.twitter.com/digitalmuppet

Hello everybody and welcome back to the Chaluminati podcast. Episode 226, as always on one of your host Mike Martin. Join by the Jesse and Alex of LA, Jesse and Alex. Whoa! Whoa! We made the list! What is it about episode 226 that put us here? Does there need to be a reason?

No! I mean, I like a reason. I don't got to make one up. I could, but I don't have one. I'd rather your imaginations do the work. Perhaps there's a subconscious reason that I did all those things. And who knows why? Will we return to the bit next week? Will we have a new bit?

Hmm. Will see. I wouldn't see what the bit would be in replace of that. He's playing Alex games. Oh, that's got to be a surprise. That's what he's doing right now. He's playing Alex games. Alex games are the most confusing, but somehow the most satisfying in the end when your Alex the Alex games, let the Alex games begin the green stone and two per copper of LA. Yeah, I just took it to it. Welcome back everybody. I'm excited to be here.

I'm also excited to say, hey, we have tickets on sale right now for our December 3rd live show over at Telegraph, ballroom in LA. You can go get it the link below. It's ticket master link. Last I checked, we were under, we might be under 20 VIP tickets left now. So if you want a VIP ticket, grab it while you can.

You know what VIP means? It very important. Paranatural utilitarian. All right. Oh shit, that is not what I expected. Yeah, very, it's a, it's a, you know, a remedy versus thing. And if you know, you know, if you don't,

I don't know what to tell you. Hey, listen, Davis is gonna be there. Centels gonna be there. There's other guests that are also gonna be there. Wait, what do you mean? You're't? I don't know what to tell you. Hey listen, Davis is gonna be there. Centels gonna be there. There's other guests that are also gonna be there. Wait, what do you mean? You're inviting? Ladies and gentlemen. I've been doing that.

I've been putting the work. This is real. I'm gonna need someone to help me. This is real. This is gonna be, oh my, whole God. Yeah, this is real. It's me against the world. It's what it is now.

It's gonna be like a nativity play for a reason. You know what I mean? The birth of reason. Right, right, right. I'll dress up as baby Jesus. Yeah. And Alex will be one of the mules. Yeah.

Mathis will be the star. Centel will be the MC. Yeah, that's what it shows up. And it's like, you're running for a prisoner. Baby, baby, baby Jesus. Davis will be the guy who comes with the, he'll be all three wise men. But speaking of how great our live shows are,

first of all, go to that one. And second of all, if you feel like you missed out on the wonderful, fantastic live show that we had in October, at the very same venue, the Telegram Ballroom, you can get it right now, five smackaronis. How much did it cost to go? For the tickets were $30.

So this, for one, a mere sixth the cost. You too can be transported. It's a very special podcast episode. Mathis did us all a favor and edited his slide show into the episode so you can watch along with it as you listen. You can get your own copy of the slide show. There's a show poster in there. It's all good. It's five bucks and get, guess what, this is, this is marketing,

this is why I'm the Alex of LA, okay? Here's, here's the thing, here's the thing. If you're a patron at patreon.com slash chuminati pod, you don't have to buy this, you already fucking own it. That is why you're the Alex of Ally. That's that's synergy. So go over there patreon.com slash chaluminati pad.

You can buy it there. You can buy it there. You can also be there and be a member and have it there already. It's all there. It's the website patreon.com slash chaluminati pod pizza pizza. Ha ha. Uh, little seesers pizza is like that pizza that is so terrible, Chillin' with Nadi Pod. Pizza, pizza. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha It's never, it's like so consistent, right? Like, it doesn't matter where you go, what little seasors, it's gonna be the same like C++ to your pizza anywhere.

It's good. You want it. That's what you want. That's what your, it's exactly what it says on the tin. So you're saying we're like the little seasors of Patreon. L.A. Yeah, what? Yeah, in a way. In a way, we're the $5 hot and ready meal deal. The little seas losers and Panda expressive Always I missed you. I hope you're feeling better Jesse. I know you hurt your back last week

So I'm hope you're feeling better feeling great. I'm feeling fine. I had like two days where I was like probably shouldn't have done that but I'm fine I Was off in universal studios, flue or land, Florida, living a fantasy life and enjoying getting motion sick on the world's worst Simpsons ride. That was my life. You guys ruined me for two days, essentially. It was terrible.

We drove down there, mistake one, first of all, 15 hour drive there, 15 hour drive back. I wanted to die. And then by day two, it's like con brain, except somehow way worse out there with people, like the amount of people who just stop dead in the center of a walk path with like a thousand people behind them because it's fucking Halloween this weekend. And they're just taking pictures of themselves with like freaking dollar store Wolverine and the weird forgotten abandoned Marvel section of the universal studios like park made me want to actually become a serial killer. I feel like Jerry Seinfeld and I'm like eating like a big bowl of cereal and you're telling

me this and I'm like, that's a shame. That's how it feels. Like, you know how people get jokerized? Mathis is getting castanzerized. That's all, no. I sort of, I've seen a few episodes of Seinfeld. I get that right. Oh my god. Oh my god. You know what I mean? Yeah. It's humbling to remember, you know, that some people don't have the cultural

literacy that 99% of America has. You know what I mean? There's people out there that still want the world to be mysterious and curious place Alex. I love that. You know what? That's a great way. That's a great way of putting it. And that's a great segue into today's episode. Are you boys excited for today? Because, uh, I don't, how can I, I don't know what the same guy forgot what this is? Yeah. I had to shuffle it around a few times because we've been trying to get a couple guests on here. And then, you know, I was not here last week and so on. You guys missed out last week on the, uh, freeform jazz that was I saw Reddit post that simply, I didn't even, I didn't even click on it.

It just said this week's episode was like pure chaos. And I don't, what happened? I thought you were just reading spooky stories. It was. It just had a flow to it that our show doesn't normally have because I've known Santel a very long time. I know how fast he goes and we just kind of were like, better than that, like back and forth without really breaking for like a full,

like almost two hour long podcast. It was pretty, it was pretty chill, but it was very, it was very freeform. There was like a gauntlet thrown down that somebody responded to on the subreddit. I don't know what Santel said that people had to like prove him wrong, but I'm very curious what that was. Hopefully

hopefully a lot. It was just somebody it was just somebody who said that they have a PhD and that they could like speak to the geneticist post on Reddit. Oh, got you. Got you. And we were pointing out that this person is also just a person on Reddit Who says they have a PhD and that they're like saying this stuff. And so he was just, he was just being a sport and, you know, gotcha. Yeah, we weren't, we weren't really throwing down any sort of. Okay, so not, we won't need another Jesse breakdown. Mini show, mini series for Patreon on that. No, no, no, no, it was, it was chill.

It was cool. It was like throwing on your dad's jazz albums. You know what I mean? It felt good. Jazz albums, those weren't the favorite of today's topic, David Berkowitz say. It's time for True Crime, everybody. Oh my God. It's good. Jazz albums, those weren't the favorite of today's topic, David Berkowitz, say, it's time for True Crime, everybody. Oh my God. It's time.

It's been a while. I don't know what a segue. I just took a fucking hammer to the giant wall that was my segue and carved my own path. And here we are. Yeah, it's true crime episode, everybody. And I'm excited because you guys have gotten the foundation now of what I would consider the must know that everybody knows like serial killers, the domers, the gaysies, et cetera, et cetera. Now we're kind of entering what I would consider tier one of, you know, true crime knowledge.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, where we're going to learn here about people like son of Sam, which you may actually have heard the name, but may not know much else, unlike Dahmer, where everybody kind of knows the story. You might not know this, Mathis, but there's a movie about this. Is there? Yeah. What's it called? I think it's called Summer of Sam or something like that.

Oh, okay, and I'm assuming it didn't do well. It was a fairly popular movie. Okay. No, I watched a couple documentaries, but that's a bit different. it didn't do well. It was a fairly popular movie. Okay, not at all. I watched a couple documentaries, but that's a bit different. It was like a Spike Lee movie, I think. Oh, wow. Okay.

I don't need to look into this. Alright, yeah, David Berkowitz, aka The Son of Sam, is your typical kind of good old US serial killer that went on a one year killing spree in the 1970s and would be found guilty of eight New York City shootings claiming six victims along with eleven wounded before finally being put behind bars. He was also, however, one of the whineest, most worthless, pathetic excuses for a human being even compared to other serial killers, described often as difficult, spoiled, abouly, and insufferable, whose only friends growing up were those that were weaker and smaller than him so he could lord over them and force them to be his friends, Berkowitz is almost a paint by numbers picture of most serial killers forgotten by time and the public. So unsuccessful in the most basic aspects

of his day-to-day life, so pathetically consumed with his own mediocrity and a childlike narcissism that dictates it's every dictates to him that it's everyone else's fault, not his. That the only thing that sets him apart is that he wanted to go out of his way to prove how pathetic he was by just killing people out of a sense of ineptitude and not belonging. I this man is you, you got radicalized when you read it, whatever book you read. He's just, you know, he's one of those guys I've known a lot about him for a long time,

but been waiting to talk about him for a long time. Look him up, you can see pictures. He was arrested in the 70s. You can see the man's face and go, yeah, that's, that fits David Berkowitz. I think, I think Kramer bets David Berkowitz's mailbag when they're betting on airplane times Inside felt it's because Newman's a mailman and I got that and I think he has David Berkowitz is mailbag

And he uses it as like collateral in a bet like about airplane times Okay, good to know And to say I think it's the one with the Frogger machine, I think. I don't know. Yeah. No idea what you're talking about. So... That's so, you know what? It's so crazy that I, you when you say things, I can visualize exact moments from those episodes.

Yeah. Like when you say Frogger machine, I know exactly the top of it. It's like the moon landing. It's like the moon landing. We were all there, but Mathis was playing D&D. It was just, yeah. I was, I was not. So funny. So David Berkowitz was born on June 1st, 1953, not as David Berkowitz, but as Richard

David Falco, born in Brooklyn, New York, to Elizabeth Betty Broder, and a father whose actual identity is a little bit hard to pin down. There are some sources that say that his father was Tony Falco, an Italian American that was married to Betty for about four years until he cheated on her with another woman. So not Sam is what you're telling me? Yeah, no, no, Sam doesn't come from anything family related in his name. He gives himself the nickname son of Sam and for the dumbest reasons that will learn next episode. But most people seem to agree that his actual father was a man by the name of Joseph Kleinman who was just a business businessman that Betty had also been having an affair with for well over three years.

And if true, she also said that's where they also learned rather that David was conceived in the back of a car for a little detail in case you wanted to know. You know? Sure. All my main sources don't really do much digging into that aspect of his life, his biological father and his biological mother, and for good reason. Within days of her having her child, Betty gave him up for adoption. She was a single mother in 1953 working as a waitress in a small town restaurant. She had no support monetarily and no family support either since the child was out of wedlock and through an affair, which would not have gone down well in the small like Jewish community she was in. But he wasn't given up to, like, an adoption agency.

Instead, the child was directly adopted by what he would know as his parents, Nathan and Pearl Berkowitz. The Berkowitz is where a middle-aged, childless couple who'd wanted a family for a good while, at least Pearl did. And when they adopted him, they changed his name, simply just reversing his first and last name, instead of being Richard David,

he was now David Richard with the last name, Berkowitz. That is weird, that is extremely weird. Yeah, bizarre to like change his name. I mean, like I said, the mother gave him up with it. I think it was day four, the fourth day after. That's like when you're working on a project and like a producer comes in and just like, proposes like one huge sweeping change to the show that ruins everything just because

they want to like make their mark on the fucking show. Switching is fucking names around. That's fucking insane. Yeah, I mean, that's a weird example. Why switch him? Why switch him? I don't know. I really don't know.

Why not giving your own names if you're going to switch him? That's so weird. I like Lake claim. I imagine some sort of like, well, he's my child, so I'll decide at the very least, this is the order of his names. That's my guess, you know. But, you know, being adopted. They're like playing God, I don't know.

It's weird to me. It's weird to me out. Yeah, it's. And when he was adopted by his newfound family, he was raised a totally normal life, right? Yeah, well, no, not so much. Never goes that way. I hope you have your serial killer bingo cards

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Thank you to butcher box again for sponsoring the episode. Oh, baby, when the father Nathan Berkowitz worked six days a week and was rarely home at a family at work at a family-owned hardware store. And when he was home, while he was not physically abusive to David, he would often deride David and often call him and refer to him as a mistake, repeatedly, over and over in the years of his life. While on the other hand, his mother, Pearl, was a stay at home mom and maybe ended up

doting a little too much on David. Their relationship was described as close and intense for whatever that means. I don't like that. What does that imply? It implies an unhealthy amount of mommy touching, I imagine. Mommy touching. Okay. Yeah, you like that? I feel like I don't want to go that far, I imagine. Mommy touching. Okay. Yeah, do you like that?

I feel like, I don't want to go that far. I feel like, we don't know. I feel like it's, you know, she might have just been an overbearing, overloving, like just, you know, don't go, like, wants to approve of your friends before you go out, kind of mom, you know, and we don't know. And honestly, as a love lotion, mom, yeah.

Yeah, yeah, a little too much suntan lotion to keep her little boy safe from the burning rays of the scorching hot sun. But be even beyond the what little, and I wouldn't even call that wildly unhealthy home life, the dad being emotionally abusive is rough. But you know, we've seen serial killers with much worse lives than this. But even beyond this kind of unhealthy home life, David didn't get much of a chance to grow as a normal, healthy adult, unfortunately. This is where you want your bingo cards ready, because early on in his life, David suffered drum roll, please.

I can't believe. I said, I said, I said, at said, I said, I said, I go. Yeah. Wow. At the age of seven years old, while he was outside playing, at some point he had clearly made his way into the road while it on, on coming car was rather close. Made his way into the road. Yeah. Yeah. Hit by the car, suffering a rather nasty head injury because of it.

And like most serial killers, we've covered, there was a noted change in his behavior after the head injury, but not much could be noted before David once again had a second terrible head injury. Yeah. David, this time he was running at full speed, not looking where he was going and collided head first with the brick wall. Woo! Really? Yes, really. He just sprinted right into a brick wall.

That's how he got his- Right into a fucking brick wall, and he cracked his head open in the process of doing it. He wasn't looking and he ran full speed into a brick wall? That is correct. You can, if you say it more often, it doesn't become less cartoonish. That's the lessonier, I suppose. Why did he do that? He wasn't paying attention.

Maybe he was looking behind the bed. Kid chasing him or something. How did he find himself in that scenario? Not to outdo himself. David had a third traumatic head injury shortly after. As of course, it's new. This one, he just like ate a stick of dynamite. He knows New York in this construction and a pipe that was not secured fell and clogged

him on top of the head. Just sheer chance. Yep. Share. Just pipe accident. Wow. And if three wasn't enough, there were also sources that tell me there was a fourth injury when he was four years

old when a kid from the top of a building dropped a rock onto his fucking head. What the fuck? That is comically goofy. Yes, that's straight up at alluity tunes. Just like I can see the Anvil, his arms and legs getting distance. It's like an Adam's family character or something. We don't even need the fourth head injury. We do know like for a fact, three happen in multiple sources, sight of fourth, but I can't I could not confirm like factually if anybody

was there, that saw it happen. So it was just we definitely have three, which is, you know, about two more than most serial killers get Potentially with a fourth one there. God damn. Yeah. He ran into a brick wall I'm doing that just imagine how fucked up that would be I'm 35 years old that would that would probably Woon meme for life. He was probably a permanent in a century. Yeah. So you know, you get that kids like last city to them still, they can bounce back from a lot. That's right. That's right.

Well, those who knew David on a personal level noted that after all of these incidents, he became exceptionally more withdrawn. And after these series of injuries, honestly, I like who fucking wouldn't be. My head would be a bearable soup by now, I can only imagine. In school life, wasn't going too great for David, either. His social skills weren't exactly sharp, and the only people he called friends, like I said earlier, with those he was bullying into being his friend. David noted in one of his interviews that one of the reasons he felt so isolated school

was because while he was a Jewish kid Serena with a Jewish community he never felt like he belonged But wouldn't it be because he felt like he wasn't Jewish himself or maybe Redirected frustration and trauma from being adopted. We do know that in this point in his life David was told he was adopted and he knew it at that point, though his parents lied to him and said that his biological mother died in childbirth. So he's like, he's like holding coffee, but he's like got a head injury. So it's just like, who's that?

Who's that? Alex, why do you, why do you try? When you look around at the world. Alex, what do you see? It's the catcher in the rye. It's the guy from the camera. Okay, I won't read it in school. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Hold on, hold on.

You were assigned it? Yes. Or you read it. No, no, I was assigned to read it. Okay, I was about to say it. Hold on, one book I ever read, it was assigned stuck with me. It was 1984. Okay.

Well, that's, I got a man knows what he likes. You know what? Maybe I should go through my old school like assigned reading list and like read them for my actually read the classics. The incredible books that were assigned to you as a child that were just the timeless, ageless classics of literature that were and selected. It wasn't home waiting for me to figure out the actual

I played Final Fantasy seven as way. No, I get it. I get it. I played Final Fantasy VII as well. Yeah, I did it all. And I sang you didn't. It's just when I ran out of games. I just started playing games I had played before again. All right. So he was informed that it was adopted.

However, was told that his mother died at childbirth. And obviously, none of that's going to come back to haunt them. And he definitely didn't feel an overwhelming sense of guilt that ate at him feeling like he was the reason for why she died. Nor did it feed into the intense connection and relationship that he had with his adoptive mother, Pearl, and his mixed feelings and hatred for her as well as love. No, none of those are the reasons.

You sure about that? You sure about that? You sure about that? You sure about that? No, according to David, those weren't the reasons that he fell out of place in school. No, the reason was the other kids around him had a respect for their parents, a respect for the rules and the respect for common law. But David said he never felt right with him.

I never had a respect for common law. Literally, he's like, yeah, and as we watch him grow older and older, we see his petty crimes quickly escalate, which would all obviously eventually lead to his 1975 crime spree. And even more interestingly, David was living in the Bronx, and this is like from a more like, this is more interesting from a societal perspective. David was also kind of living in the Bronx, and this is like from a more like this is more interesting from a societal perspective. David was also kind of living in the Bronx during a time where the culture was slowly shifting from a Jewish, a Jewish neighborhood over to a Hispanic neighborhood, which I imagine also may have fed into David's feeling of isolation and not belonging.

For one little community he felt he may have had with the Jewish community. That was, you know, slowly disappearing as, you know, more people of different cultures moved in around him. And while the teachers in school continually saw David as quote-unquote bright, but a kid who was disinterested in learning and more interested in honestly just being a fucking asshole, by middle school it seemed like David started to explore what it could mean to be an asshole outside of the school too. Now, none of that excuses what his actions would be, of course. David started to explore what it could mean to be an asshole outside of the school too.

Now none of that excuses what his actions would be of course. David was known to have fits of pure rage even as a young kid with one incident that was noted that he was so furious with his mother over something so trivial that he went through the house and tore down an angry rage, the curtains from every window. What the fuck? That's just, I don't know, it was his revenge. That's like, that's not what somebody in the right mind does.

Well, no, no, definitely you got that correct. How old was he when he did this though? They were looking nine or 10 years old that's after the head injuries. Yeah, I mean, kids, look, there's a reason I'm not keen on raising children kids are kind of like Atrocious monsters and I from like eight till about 23. I'm gonna say early 20s Kids do like especially young men do some outrageous stuff

That's true, so I don't want to assign it to like he's a monster. I was a piece of shit. I was there. That's true. So, I don't want to assign it to like, he's a monster. I was a piece of shit. I was there. I lived it. Yeah, but, it, like, even me, I got, I have multiple head injuries as a kid. I am not going around killing people, you know what I mean? Po, there's something Edgar Allen Poe like. Okay, yeah, I can, I can see that.

Well, don't worry. If that wasn't enough on another occasion, David got so jealous of the attention that his mom gave her pet bird over here, he took the bird and killed it in a jealous way. Now that's the crazy thing. I'm still, like, this is still, like, my poem reading holds up still. It's like a perfect second po'beat. It holds up still. It's like a perfect second po-beat. Thank you to Talkspace for sponsoring today's episode.

And you know, sometimes you just get down. It happens. Life isn't up and down roller coaster. There's no formula to keep yourself in a happy place all the time. It's just not how life works and that's just not how brains work. For me, it took me to getting to kind of a low point to realize it would probably be beneficial to go see a therapist.

And it was hard for me to figure out how to get started, but one of the most important things for me was a flexible schedule. I'm always kind of busy doing something and not always able to go somewhere to get to an appointment and that's where Talkspace came in. Talkspace made it easy for me to find a therapist that I liked, it's convenient for me to

just meet online at home or wherever I'm most comfortable and Talkspace easily became a huge factor within my life. I get it, sometimes people wait until something bad happens to talk to a therapist, that's what I did, and I'm telling you right now it's not worth waiting for that. Why wait? You can get through a therapist through Talkspace Easier anyway, and therapy can help you shift your perspective in life, find tools to cope in difficult times, and just be a general guiding light.

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support for the show. That's ToxBased.com slash chill. Thank you again to ToxBased for sponsoring the episode. And if you wondered if this terrible individual had hobbies as a kid, they are equally as cartoonishly evil as you'd expect at this point. One of his favorite hobbies? Well, one of the things he quickly developed a love for was

fire. The man became a pyromaniac, and his one of his favorite things to do was burn bugs for hours at a time with a micro, like a, what do you call it, a looking glass thing. A magnifying glass? Magnifying glass and wet cement. He liked to like get them dressed in wets, like wet sticky cement subsises and watch them die slowly. Like that was his favorite.

That was one of his favorite things to go do. Man, that's a good time, you know, burning, burning bugs. I never burned a bug. Did you guys ever burn a bug, even at a curiosity as a kid? I must have. I don't, I never burned a bug, but I guys ever burn a bug, even at a curiosity as a kid? I must have. I don't, I never burned a bug, but I certainly took army men and blew them up with M80s. For sure.

What? I've had a lot of that. There was a time period where you could get those little firecrackers that were basically like TNT. And we would get the little army men, and we'd set up a battle, but each army man would have at least one fire or a catastrophe to him.

So if we got hit, he'd explode. And one day my dad came home and saw the scorch marks all over the driveway. He literally made me and my two friends that were there do pushups in the driveway. And my friends never came over after that. They were like, I'm not going everywhere else, you're not crazy. He's like, he's got like a bad coach vibe. If we were to look at your childhood as just like isolated, it's pretty similar to a serial killer's childhood.

The Ted Trauma, the violent hobbies of blowing up little green men. Oh, no, yeah, no, I mean like I definitely have serial killer vibes. That's absolutely true. That's what makes it so dangerous, ladies. So like, you know, watch out. I'm, don't take me home to mom. I'm dangerous. Are take me home to mom.

I'm dangerous. Are you the guy who does Netflix his marketing? That's me. So with David moving on to his weird life as a 13 or 14 year old at this point, he was starting off with the classics, stuff like petty theft from local stores and his neighbor's neighbor's houses. He just robbed the neighbor's homes. And eventually he was quick, or should say not eventually, he was very quickly upgrading

to small little acts of arson, things that could keep under control, but were a little dangerously close to where people would live at any given time, which definitely won't bloom into something more dangerous later in life. And if he wasn't already on a very suspicious life path at age 14, good old trauma comes around knocking on the door and a David's adoptive mother, Pearl, dies from breast cancer when he's 14 years old. In this moment, fractures, David emotional. His biological mother was dead as far as he knew at this point. And now adoptive mother had died leaving him alone again at a really young age and their intense relationship as it was described would cause even more turmoil for David with its sudden and abrupt

disappearance. He goes on to say he felt quote like she died because I weren't good enough. That's what the Ellie's in an interview. He says, that's what he felt like she died. And after shortly after that, his dreams became nothing but nightmares, every single night, horrifying nightmares where he said he woke up terrified. His behavior from this moment on spiraled further, becoming more erratic, unpredictable, all while he slowly and continually withdrew from society further. His petty crimes escalated to include fandalism and violence, getting into fights for whatever reason he could try and figure out. And despite all this,

and despite how David wants to be perceived as a total loner, even up to this point of his entire life, we actually have a glimpse from a different angle at this time, a rare glimpse. We learned that this actually isn't the case despite what he says in interviews. In fact, David during this time and later on, as he got older until about 17, he did have a sort of, I don't want to call her a girlfriend because she didn't call herself a girlfriend, but they were more than friends.

She was very much, I don't think she saw her as herself as his girlfriend. He definitely saw her as his girlfriend, a girl by the name of Iris Gathart. And they never slept together, never kissed any of that. And yet David continually kind of saw her as his girlfriend, regardless of how she tried to reframe it. And it's through an interview that was done with her from a New York Times journalist that was written for a book that was published in between the time he was caught, but before his trial that we actually learned David actually had a circle of friends. This guy went out, I think he wrote the book in like a month and he went out looking for

people that he that David knew personally Finally found this this girl Iris and it was able to like have a long interview with her Will we learn that despite David's what would be his future attempts at making his life seem completely solitary and alone Wasn't really true and that wasn't really the case He's getting the roshamon version. Yeah, Yeah, it's almost like he's building a pitiable, a more pitiable origin story for himself. When despite that, like that wasn't, maybe yet two a degree up until he was 14, 15,

but it's around then he seems to actually find a small circle of friends that he spends time with, that he then enjoys company. It's through again, specifically this interview from this book that was published at that time. Uh, in fact, as he grew older by the time he turned 17, David went off to join the military in 1971 after completely dropping out of high school years earlier to pursue his love of being a dick, I can only presume. And before he went off to boot camp, his friend, his friends threw him a going away party. They hung out and

they hung and they like spent time together and ate and were like, you know, having a good time. Now they did go on to say and further interviews that David was kind of always a bummer at any friend get together. He was always the guy who was just not a dark man. Yes. Very clearly. But let me ask you this. Do you think that he's plus in himself up for his own gain as like a vain person? Or do you think he's kind of giving you his like sort of twisted, like I said, Roshamon as conversion of events? I'm always, especially with serial killers, more keen to believe they're doing it to give themselves a more pitiful or soft approach.

There's no doubt that David wanted and in will learn this is that he wanted the, the man wanted to belong, wanted the attention. He wanted to be seen as something. That's sympathy. You were getting sympathy from doing all of that. Mm-hmm. If you're like, my childhood, my life, and all this, like the more you make people feel for you, the more in your mind it excuses everything you did

or at least we'll convince them, like he's not so bad, he just had a rough, you know, like that kind of stuff. Yeah, absolutely, yeah, I agree. And like these people, even after the party, they all got up with them early in the morning and went out to the port authority and drove out with them and said goodbye

and all this stuff. Like good-ass friends. Like a good friend would do. Yeah. Like that's what I'm saying. Like the man wasn't as alone as he pretends he was. He was in fact cared about by some people at the very least, despite what he'd have you believe in interviews.

And while this is the time where Vietnam is raging, Berkowitz did avoid getting deployed there. But not because of anything he did to actively avoid it. And here we have another interesting foil in Berkowitz as an individual. Well, there are a lot of like these serial killers we talk about in the past are very cowardly overall or don't want to actually go see combat for the most part for those who are in the military. David actually had grand visions of what his life in the military might be like. Something we learn about David after doing so much of the research into

this aspect of his life is that the man was just desperate, like I said, to belong to something, literally anything. Anything to not be left behind, be ignored, feel alienated and alone, to find something that gave him meaning. In the military, you seem to be exactly that for him. When he went off, he had a grand dreams of being an excellent Jewish soldier and would be sort of like a Jewish hero. He saw himself as like a Jewish super soldier who

would go off into the Vietnam and die a heroic death doing something incredible that everyone would remember him for. Like that was his bizarre dream. Like that's where you wanted to go. It's, it is. It's a bizarre, although I mean, still, we're not at like, like, death for me, Jesse, that's what these are for. We're not at, yeah, we're like a five on the little too much scale. Even though he killed his mom's bird at a jealousy. Yeah, that's what bumped into a five. Okay, catch it, catch it.

He's not completely there, because again, young men have all sorts of weirds. Like, I don't wanna get too much into the minds of young men, but young men are like, um, the soldier, and I'm gonna go, and then they're like, oh no, you got me. Like, they do that stuff all the time. It sounds hardcore with Jesse saying,

but I feel him so hard. Yeah, like, young men just are like that. So, I'm waiting for the moment when it's like, okay, all those things plus this. Well, maybe we'll get there. We'll see. I don't know if it's interesting, David Berkowitz, you know, you would think for me, or at least for me, I feel like the point where he was gone and lost is when his, his adoptive mother

died. But we're about to see another couple of points that may be the point that he went off the deep end. I'm excited to talk about it. Let's get through it first and then we'll revisit. So when he went off and he had these grand dreams of being this amazing soldier, going off to Vietnam and derying a dying heroic death, he actually when you got into the army, he tested well. He did well enough to get himself an administrative job. And instead of getting sent off to Vietnam, he got sent off to Korea and avoided all of the combat much to his dismay at least early on. And to drive the point

home of him just being desperate to belong, he would, this is, he would break into local fire stations, not to rob them, like he would rob his neighbor's homes, but to go put on firefighter uniforms and like kind of cosplay, like he's an actual firefighter in a weird little like fantasy he lived. And occasionally, he would wear them home. And he would have to be told like, David, no, like, no, no, David, you can't do that. You got to, that got to go back to the fire station. That's a little, uh, so how's nobody's eye on this guy? Yeah. You know, how are so many of the killers of this time,

they just get me slipped by, and a lot of people are way more obvious. Yeah. Even further to that point, where you just wanted to belong to something even later in life, you joined the auxiliary police force because he liked the uniforms. Is that because the, you know, I mean, it wasn't like a power thing.

No, it was very much the much like the firefighter thing. I think it was about the fantasy of like being a hero. Oh, so and that goes along lines with the fantasy of being a hero in the army and yeah. But the uniform is part of it because it's all part of the dress up. And like I said, when he went to the military, he tested well, got put as administrator, but even despite Berkowitz's want, even despite that, Berkowitz still like pushed to be trained in shooting, and he got the training. And he wasn't half bad, getting 37 bulls eye out of 100 targets, which you know, is less

than half, but this puts him in what's known as sharp shooter range. I don't know what the fuck that means. I don't know if that just means you're better than 25% bullseying. It's like a designation. Yeah, yeah, you just got that my eyes. Yeah, he just doesn't have a sniper, like he's not a sniper, but he's a good shot. But still, he wasn't in Vietnam, living that heroic soldier life, he was stuck in Korea, living a safe, boring life that he didn't want to be doing.

And what do you do when you get really bored in a foreign country? Sex, prostitutes. Hey, hey, go perfect. And according to David, he filled his time. That came to us so easy. Here's like sucks, definitely sucks.

Yeah, I know. Yeah. The problem is those he served with said, David very rarely ever went out. And the time they were did see him with a woman. He never brought her back to the bunker home and he never was like gone for a night. And we know for a fact that David was not having sex back in the US nor did it when he got home. In fact, I think David might actually be a virgin, but if he's not, he would have lost it in Korea according to David. However, that's not going to fill all the empty hours. What

else are you going to do in the military when you're chilling and living large in Korea? Drake gamble. Yeah, drink. I don't think you're wrong. Do a fuck ton of acid and starcraft. No, not not around yet, Jesse, not around yet. We're still it's still in the 60s. No, you you just do a fuck ton of acid and smoke an even equal amount of weed. That sounds extremely risky to do in a foreign country. Probably. You know what? You're right, though. He did balance it with an heaping amount of cocaine mixed in. Oh, all right. You know, that doesn't, um.

Acid, weed, and cocaine. This dude was doing in just one crazy night or all the time. No, no, constantly. Uh, what the heck? And the effect it had on him is kind of fascinating at first. He started to like, anamorph into your typical, nine, you know, like the books, anima.

No, but what do you mean? Like, gradually transform? Yeah, yeah, like gradually transform into your typical, like, 1970s, free loving, antivilance, anti-war hippie. And we know this from the letters he would write back to Iris. And soon after he started this exploration

with acid, shall we call it, David was declaring himself a pacifist and would soon refuse to carry a weapon on him regardless of the fact that he was in the fucking army. And he was trying to get, I think, discharged by doing this, but they wouldn't let him go because he was so close to finishing his tenure anyway. So do you think he was legit or he was trying to get out? I think he was legit. I think he fast-forwarded through acceptable 1970s hippie to where the point where like the Manson family kind of did a little too much acid and broke their brains in the process, which we'll talk about one day. Okay. Because his letters slowly, totally changed as well.

Within this again, kind of just a couple of year period, he left when he was a 17, he returned when he was 19. And his letters, he was even calling, initially in his letters, he was calling the military like war pigs, vehemently against all this shit, even signed one letter by crossing out his name and replacing it with quote unquote, the master of reality. Well, you know, I mean, this guy's, what, has his number gone up, Jesse? Now for sure, when you, when you reach master of reality, it's like you're like at a six. Yeah, okay. I think you do in LSD every day makes you feel like a master of reality.

I mean, like some Dr. Strange shit right there. Yeah. I mean, that's what he was doing. He was fucking doing acid, smoke and weed when he got tired, fucking snorting cocaine. That is, that is wild style. Yeah. He's destroying his brain very, very rapidly. Yeah.

Uh, and if that, if this is the point where he stopped though, like if he was like just a hippie, Annie war, maybe a little too annoying to hang out with, we'd probably be doing an episode on something else entirely. But as what some people who end up discovering psychedelics and what opening the third eye feels like, this guy didn't want to's the third eye that I'm going to be talking about? I'm just wondering, what's the third eye that I'm going to be talking about? I'm just wondering, what's the third eye that I'm going to be talking about? I'm just wondering, what's the third eye that I'm going to be talking about? I'm just wondering, what's the third eye that I'm going to be talking about?

I'm just wondering, what's the third eye that I'm going to be talking about? I'm just wondering, what's the third eye that I'm going to be talking about? I'm just wondering, what's the third eye that I'm going to be talking about? I'm just wondering, what's the third eye that I'm going to be talking about? They taught me about many weapons. I will use these tactics to destroy End quote whoa Yeah, so you know he was a slipping rather quickly in his Extremist belief how long was he out there? two fucking years a lot of time to get kuku a lot of time to get kuku and a lot of time to get Kuku. That's a lot of time to get Kuku and a lot of time to do like acid. I guess it's just really common out there for that time period.

I don't know where he was getting the mount he was doing. I mean, just in a lot of soldiers had a, that's true. That's true. MK Ultra was over at this point, but yeah, regardless toward the end of his service, he'd go from Korea to eventually stationing and finishing out a service in Kentucky, where he would be honorably discharged afterward in 1974. And depending on the source, somewhere between Korea, some people say it was in Korea, and Kentucky, David Berkowitz had one more life-changing revelation that would cement kind of his

weird beliefs moving forward. He found Jesus. We found Jesus. Everybody. Where did he find him, bro? What was he on? Yeah, what was Jesus doing at the time? I don't know what it was on at the time, but he very quickly became a dedicated evangelical.

And through this, his beliefs, once again, started shifting rapidly. He was all about like all about that to the point where sexual purity was such an obsession that he blamed the killings on. However, he also also will talk about is he is this LSD likely triggered his schizophrenia, as he was also hearing the devil speak through his neighbor's dog telling him who to kill. We'll worry about that. Whoa, next time.

Yeah, it gets even more crazy with the shit he was happening to him. And after a returned home, his unique mix of hard anti-war pacifism with extreme evangelical beliefs and sexual purity ensured that even those that did consider them their friend fell away. Hell, even his own father, who honestly didn't really like him, you know, to begin with as we learn,

couldn't stand to be around anymore. You have to rectify those two belief systems within the same virtue. Yeah, it's very bizarre. I'm just trying to wrap my mind around it, and I don't even really understand how he's able to do so, but different time, different time period. This is before the Southern strategy. Here's it during the, I can't remember. What year was this? 1974. This would be there in the middle of it. Okay. So this is like right before, you know, 80s Reagan. This is right

before, like this is all part of it. This is Nixon. You'd think you could point to him seeing combat, but the dude never saw combat. He never saw like that atrocious violence that so many are suffering through during this period in Vietnam. Like, so I don't know where like his bizarre beliefs are, he's all we know is became one of those insufferable people to just be around for anybody.

Most people, and I know I read the article on this recently, and I, it's shame that I cannot attribute to anyone, And I know I read the article on this recently and it's shame that I cannot attribute to anyone, but most people who experience combat don't go on killing sprees. They are so messed up from seeing other people die and they don't wanna be the cause of that anymore. It's usually people who, if they're in the military, they saw no combat at all.

And there's like something in them that they like need to get out. Like that kind of. This another like really good bingo slot is like, there's a few serial killers who say they were in combat but didn't see combat but like, talk about how much combat they fucking seen. Like claims to just see combat is just weird.

Yeah, those who actually see it usually aren't the ones going around boasting about. Yeah, most people who actually experience combat, like war, don't ever wanna do that again. And so it's usually people who, like we're ready to fight and had the dreams of like going off to go die and then they just sat around and they're like, I missed out on my calling.

And then like something, yeah, that happens with a frequency. Thank you so much to Uncommon Goods for sponsoring today's episode. And if you wanna hear where'd you get that in the holiday season, which is the secret little weapon, I got for you.

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He actually learned that his biological mother was actually still alive. And he didn't make an attempt to go find her until after he returned from being in the military. The year he returned from the military, 1974, was the year that he decided he was going to meet the woman he presumed dead for the first half of his life at this point. And he would be able to do just that. It's important to know, however, that Berkowitz had a kind of fantastical image of who his biological mother actually was. A almost like beautiful, almost princess-esque idea of who his biological mom was. He was kind of fetishizing it a little bit.

Kind of. A bit much like who he believed didn't have the choice, but to give up her only one and only son that in meeting this woman, all his hatred, all his insecurity about where he came from, feeling neglected, and isolated from his community would finally be cured, and he'd have the happiest of happy relationship with his biological mother that he so truly felt he deserved. Like this woman that he created just didn't exist and probably just doesn't exist at all out there at any, any, any fashion.

And when he finally met the his biological mother at a local restaurant where they got lunch, and she was an average slightly older than middle-aged woman who was still a server, who simply made a bad decision when she was a teenager, this moment in time seemed to be the thing that shattered Berkowitz. His life from here nearly exactly one year before he started his killing spree, he met his biological mother. And even according to that such a weird, like, my mom was a totally normal person.

I'm shattered. Like what is? The thing we kind of see at the core of all this, that is kind of muted by the insanity or that surrounds it. The what we'll see is his psychosis and his hallucinations speaking to the devil and stuff. It's a lot like Ed Kemper. It's a mother fixation. All he's ever been fixated on is, you know, finding like a mom that loves him and wants

him because to him, you know, he thought he killed his biological mother. Now, after meeting his biological mother, that shifts into feeling like, oh, she just didn't want me. She no longer wanted me, she threw me away like garbage. And that feeling of like, oh, she didn't have a choice, that disappeared rapidly. And it's from here, like even David says,

and his interviews were like, he feels like his mind just kind of fucking collapsed. Because it's all about the mommy, baby. It's all about those mother wounds that he couldn't fucking figure out, that he couldn't heal, that he couldn't navigate. And the over-doting of his adoptive mother mixed with the weird ignoring of his adoptive father and saying that he was a mistake, it was all being brewed. The problem is he got crushed in the head for fucking time.

It was too busy trying to set fires and burning bugs and stealing from his neighbors for anybody to realize what the actual issues deep down really were. And who knows if he could even be saved at this point? Did the head trauma just fuck him completely? Who knows? It's impossible to know. And yeah, from here, his life, like I said,

exactly one year from this point on, his one year killing this point on, his one year killing spree would begin. And in 1975, David Berkowitz's life was crumbling. Not only was he freshly out of the army with no job, no girlfriend, no friends, no family, no real prospects for his future, he also had limited social supports. The revelations about his adoption had shattered his relationship with his remaining parent, and the alarming personality changes he'd undergone while serving in Korea, mostly because

of all the fucking acid he was doing, had driven away almost all of his friends. He tried to briefly enroll in Bronx Community College, but left after his first year, and he moved into a, uh, a Yonkers apartment where he would eventually meet his neighbor, Sam Carr, the man whose dog he would later claim was channeling demons and ordering him to carry out his murders. Well, obviously. I kind of feel bad for the guy now. Each David spent some time trying to work at various blue collar jobs, including a brief stint

as a taxi driver, before eventually landing a position as a letter-sorter at the U.S. Postal Service. He was still working at the Postal Service a few months later when he carried out his first recognized son of Sam shooting, killing an 18-year-old by the name of Donna Luria and wounding her 19-year-old friend, Jody Valenti. But before we get to that, we need to rewind just a little bit before that, about six months prior. His neighbor, downstairs neighbor, not the one prior, not the one that lived next to him that we just spoke of.

Mr. Glassman, Craig Glassman, was getting fucking insane letters from David Berkowitz for three straight months. It was nuts. In the most, some call it like, in one of the most bizarre things that I've ever read about, what's like the way he wrote to him, Mr. Glassman lived in the same apartment building and had suspected that Berkowitz will might be responsible for four of the rambling frequently obscene, always threatening letters that he had been receiving since June of that year. The last letters came on August 6th, just after someone had set a fire in front of Mr.

Glassman's door. I want to also point out that during this time, David Berkowitz set something akin to about a thousand different fucking fires. All of them in front of heavily populated areas before always getting caught by somebody or him backing out of the last minute from letting it go too far. A thousand? According to David 1000. So many.

See, like just setting fires all the fucking time. So much so that the police started watching him specifically because of the fires that this guy was setting that like Berkowitz was being followed because the man was just fucking a menace. And but like he was uncommunicative to his neighbors, other than these bizarre letters. In the letters to Mr. Glassman, the writer's weird world is one people with demers, Satan, an apocalyptic references to the streets running red with blood at the judgment were being sent.

Mr. Glassman would say that it would emerge in these letters as a character that he and he, I mean David Berkowitz referred to as the master and he David the writer, the slave, but the paragraphs written in a nearly illegible scroll on blue lined notebook paper. Mr. Glassman was at one point, quote, Craig darling. And another point, a force that the letter writer David wrote drove him into the night to do your bidding, claiming that he was the reason he was going out and starting fires and being violent that Craig was the reason. And he goes in the letter, quote, this is part of the letter, quote, true. I am the killer, but Craig, the killings are your command. I shall see you standing naked at the

judgment seat upon your condemnation. The world shall rise in jubilation. The terrible wicked Craig is dead. They shall shout." End quote. Makes no fucking sense. Genuinely makes just no sense remotely. Just like one of those people that's like got a car that they like ride on all the time and just drive around. It's just like ravings. Yeah, it's literally boils down to like insane ravings. Here's another one. I am deeply hurt by your calling me a women hater. I am not, but I am a monster. And this is where he gives himself his nickname. I am the son of Sam. And he puts that in quotes, I'm a little brat, also written in quotes. When father Sam gets drunk, he gets mean, he beats his family. Sometimes he ties me up to the back of the house. Other times, he locks me in the buggarage.

Sam loves to drink blood. Go out and kill command, father Sam. Behind our house some rest, mostly young, raped and slaughtered, their blood drain just bones now Papa Sam keeps me locked in the attic too. I can't get out, but I look I look out the attic window and watch the world go by I feel like an outsider. I am on a different wavelength than everybody else program to kill What the shit? Jesus Christ, dude.

Chilling. And he always signs his letters something bizarre. That one was signed, I am the monster, Beelzebub, the Chubby Bahemoth. Ugh. I don't know why he calls himself the Chubby Bahemoth. It's just what he calls himself. And one, he simply says,

I say goodbye and goodnight. Police, let me haunt you with these words. I'll be back. I'll be back to be interpreted as bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, uh, yours in murder, Mr. Monster. What? Like, let me get you a picture of this freaking letter. So you know, I'm like not kidding.

This shit is like his letters were just nonsense. And again, these are the ones I read are the ones during his crime spree, but his letters to Mr. Glassman are similar and tone essentially, so it's a very good example. Here goes a picture of the fucking letter. Like even the hug part, you can see I'm not kidding. It looks like a cartoon.

It doesn't it? It really does. It looks like a cartoon. Doesn't it? It really does. It looks like it's from a comic book or something. It's very weird. I mean, the man wrote UG-UGH. Yeah, I know. I can just... So living in this apartment for the three months, his first letter arrived on June 7th,

only three months after he and his wife, Marguerite, who was a social worker, had moved into their studio apartment on the sixth floor, just below him, and he lived in, just to give you an idea, his apartment cost $230 a month. Okay. In New York.

I mean, like, I don't wanna, like that's the most scandalous thing I've heard so far. So. Right, Jesus Christ. I don't want to, like, that's the most scandalous thing I've heard so far. So. Right. Jesus Christ. Then another letter arrived to June 13th and Mr. Glassman said he had not really worried until the previous Saturday when someone started the fire outside his door and dumped about 20, 22 caliber shells into the fire.

And what that was was David Berkowitz trying in his weirdest way to kill Mr. Glassman. He started the fire, hoping that it would get his attention. And when he threw the bullets in the fire, he had hoped that when Mr. Glassman came outside, the fire would set off the bullets, and then the bullets would fly in random directions, hitting Mr. Glassman and potentially killing him. That was his grand plan. And he also then received two more letters, one addressed this to my master and signed your brother and white planes, God help and keep the dead. The other

opened simply with Craig and was signed with either the word dimel schmertzer or himmel schmertzer. It's hard to fucking figure out if it's a deer and age at the beginning. What? Yeah. Yeah. The arson was reported to the ocarus police who were investigating Mr. Berkowitz's possible connection to the other letters sent to area residents. And the April 27 shooting of a dog in the neighborhood. And at 8 p.m. on Wednesday, Mr. Glassman had went outside the building to check on the

suspects car he said. And he saw a duffle bag with what appeared to be the butt of a rifle sticking out And then about 10 men came up and asked me if I was David Berkowitz It's a Mr. Glassman identified himself as not they that's when he realized Berkowitz at that point was being watched by Fucking New York City detectives like they were all waiting for him to come outside So he was he was in that time in about six months time So he was he was in that time in about six months time. He fucking spiraled out until he was ready to try and and make his first attempt at killing and it wouldn't be the shooting I previously mentioned. No, initially David Berkowitz had an interest in trying to stab women to death and it was women that

were his target from the very, very beginning. So he was a woman hater. He was a women hater. Yes, he was, yes, he is a woman hater, even though he claimed he's not in his own letter. You know, he was making up all sorts of stuff in that one. And those letters. So, you know, yeah, true, true. He wanted to try stabbing because in the movies, it looked so simple. He could get nice, close and personal, slide the dagger into their stomach and they would just collapse dead like they always do in the movies, it looked so simple. He could get nice, close and personal, slide

the dagger into their stomach and they would just collapse dead like they always do in the movies. So when he tried to attack two women in a car and stabbed one of them successfully injuring her, but not killing her and she didn't immediately die and she started fighting back Berkowitz ran. He just booked it, left the like left the knife gone and both women lived, the victim injured. And that was Berkowitz's first attempt at trying to take a life to saint some bizarre inner desire to get back at whatever mother figure

he was so desperate to get to at that point. It was after that failed stabbing that he decided a gun would be the thing that he would use. And with that gun, he took the first two victims, as I mentioned earlier, while they were simply sat in a car, minding their own business. And that's where we'll pick up next week for the second and final part of the Son of Sam's story. That is, uh, that was an absolutely chilling tale that was like all too believable in today's day and age. With some of the most cartoonish incidents that he had as a child, I've ever read.

Yeah, I can't believe the head injury. I can't believe a pipe just fell on his fucking head. A pipe fell on his head, he just ran into a wall. It was just a rough time to be a kid, I guess, in the 19s fucking 60s. Thank you guys so much for listening. And thank you, boys, so much for taking the step into tier one of true crime. You're one that's so difficult.

The S tier. This is our S tier ranking of serial killers. I'm going to be back next week with the second and final episode. We're off right now to head over to patreon.com slash chaluminati pod Where we'll be doing a mini-sode as we always do and head over to the Eddie dot com slash chaluminati because your collectors coins are there and waiting Oh, it's cool. Thank you guys so much. We love you. We'll see you next time. Goodbye. Bye Anyway Me and my wife were sitting outside indulging on our porch one night enjoying herself

I needed to go to the bathroom so I stepped back inside after a few moments. I hear my wife were sitting outside indulging on our porch one night enjoying ourselves. I needed to go to the bathroom so I stepped back inside and after a few moments I hear my wife go, holy shit get out here! So I quickly dash back outside and she's looking up the sky and fall. I look up too and there's a third of a line of dozen lights traveling across the sky. 1 nd 2 nd 2 nd 2 nd 2 nd 2 nd 2 nd 2 nd 2 nd 2 nd 2 nd 2 nd 2 nd 2 nd 2 nd 2 nd 2 nd 2 nd 2 nd 2 nd 2 nd 2 nd 2 nd 2 nd 2 nd 2 nd 2 nd 2 nd 2 nd 2 nd 2 nd 2 nd 2 nd 2 nd 2 nd 2 nd 2 nd 2 nd 2 nd 2 nd 2 nd 2 nd 2 nd 2 nd 2 nd 2 nd 2 nd 2 nd 2 nd 2 nd 2 nd 2 nd 2 nd 2 nd 2 nd 2 nd 2 nd 2 nd 2 nd 2 nd 2 nd 2 nd 2 nd 2 nd 2 nd 2 nd 2 nd 2 nd 2 nd 2 nd 2 nd 2 nd 2 nd 2 nd 2 nd 2 nd 2 nd 2 nd 2 nd 2 nd 2 nd 2 nd 2 nd 2 nd 2 nd 2 nd 2 nd 2 nd 2 nd 2 nd 2 nd 2 nd 2 nd 2 nd 2 nd 2 nd 2 nd 2 nd 2 nd 2 nd 2 nd 2 nd 2 nd 2 nd 2 nd 2 nd 2 nd 2 nd 2 nd 2 nd 2 nd 2 nd 2 nd 2 nd 2 nd 2 nd 2 nd 2 nd 2 nd 2 nd 2 nd 2 nd 2 nd 2 nd 2 nd 2 nd 2 nd 2 nd 2 nd 2 nd 2 nd 2 nd 2 nd 2 nd 2 nd 2 nd 2 nd 2 nd 2 nd 2 nd 2 nd 2 nd 2 nd 2 nd 2 nd 2 nd 2 nd 2 nd Thank you.