Criminology - Son of Sam Part1

Episode Date: August 10, 2019

The .44-caliber killer, then later known as Son of Sam, David Berkowitz terrorized New York City in 1976 and 1977. He targeted individuals parked in cars on the street. The shootings appeared to police to be random which made it that much tougher for them to catch their target. He taunted the police with bizarre letters which fueled public panic even more as the press coverage heightened. Join Mike and Morf as they discuss one of the most infamous killers in NYC history. Once caught, Berkowitz captivated the public when his reasons for the killings were revealed. He is a killer who has been studied exhaustively over the past 40+ years and his case brought about some important changes in the law regarding those that kill. You can help support the show at patreon.com/criminology An Emash Digital production Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Criminology is a true crime podcast that may contain discussion about violent or disturbing topics. Listener discretion is advised. Hello everyone and welcome to episode 73 of the criminology podcast. I'm Mike Ferguson. And this is Mike Morford. Mr. Morford, how are you? I am not doing good. I've been sick this entire weekend and I'm feeling a little bit better and hopefully as the week goes

along I will be feeling much better. How about you? No, I'm doing great. man, you got to get your immune system up. You got to get it revved up. Yeah, we've got a lot of stuff going around this house and I blame it all on the kids. They bring stuff home and no. I will, I will say, I remember back to when my kids were younger and it was like, they were bringing stuff from everywhere. Everybody's house, other kids, not, not so much as they, you know, as they get a little bit older, I think some of that starts to wane, but. I've got two words, hand sanitizer. Yeah, no doubt,

No doubt. So this is part one of our coverage of the son of Sam. You know, we kind of talked about it last week. This is a case that's fascinated me for a long time. It's going to be a three part series. Kind of harkening back, maybe a smaller version of, you know, what we started out doing. But this is a big case. And we wanted to give it as much attention as we could. So I think we want to start out this episode with a little bit of audio. I'm very pleased to announce that the people of the city of New York can rest easy this morning because of the fact that the police have captured a man whom they believe to be the son of Sam.

So that soundbite that you just heard, it's well known in the annals of true crime history. That's the former mayor of New York City, Angelo Martinelli, a now. that the son of Sam was arrested. It was August 10th, 1977. And we are releasing this episode on that anniversary. It marks 42 years to the day that son of Sam was arrested. And again, this was such a big case, right? In true crime history. And luckily, there was an arrest. Because I think, Morp, you could make the case that this could have been another zone. The two killers were similar in many ways. If the son of Sam was not arrested and continued to be an unsolved case,

I think it would be up there with Zodiac as far as unsolved goes. Yeah, I think there's definitely a lot of similarities between Zodiac and the son of Sam murders. And the fact that the killers like to kill unsuspecting young people parked in secluded quiet spots at night and taunted police. with letters they mailed to the newspapers, just eerily similar. And when the arrest of David Berkowitz came in the son of Sam murders, New York City breathed the sigh of relief. He was sent to prison for what will be the rest of his life, but there's some people that believe that he is just one piece of a puzzle and that he may not have acted alone. And we'll definitely explore that possibility as well. So I mention it. This is a big case. There's a lot to unpack. But before we get

started. Let's do our Patreon shoutouts. We had Louis Butler, Deanna Sylvester, Mary Hashegan, Emily, and Ginger Seaman. So a lot of great new support. We appreciate that. We appreciate all the continued support we get. We've got some really great listeners and we can't thank you enough. If you'd like to help support criminology through Patreon, you can do so by visiting patreon.com slash criminology. All right, morph, we're diving right in. For a period of about one year, a callous murderer roamed the streets of New York City,

targeting women and couples as they set in their cars or walked along sidewalks. The New York Police Department was in a frenzy to catch this killer who, in the beginning, the press dubbed the 44 caliber killer, and who later called himself the son of Sam. 24-year-old postal worker David Berkowitz was arrested for the murders and shootings and became one of the most infamous serial killers in U.S. history. After his arrest, the reign of terror was finally over for New York. But in the wake of Berkowitz's arrest, the public would finally learn just how bizarre the story behind the son of Sam was. And for some, unanswered questions remain to this day about the son of Sam.

Sam case, one of the victims of the shootings, Carl De Niro, who thankfully survived his ordeal, joined us to discuss what happened to him and the aftermath. And you'll hear from Carl later in this episode. So Carl had some really great things to say, and I think people are going to want to hear what details he has. And you'll hear from him not just in this episode, but the other episodes as well. New York City is comprised of five boroughs, the Bronx, Queens, Brooklyn, Manhattan, and Staten Island. All five boroughs are part of New York City, and each borough coexist with a respective county. The boroughs of Queens and the Bronx are concurrent with the counties of the same name, while the boroughs of Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Staten Island correspond to New York, Kings, and Richmond

counties, respectively. The son of Sambers took place in the boroughs of the Bronx, Queens, and Brooklyn. Looking into David Berkowitz's upbringing and background helps to understand what went wrong and led him to commit murder. Elizabeth Betty Broder grew up in a Jewish family and married an Italian American named Tony Falco in 1936. The couple had a daughter named Roslyn. The Falcos ran a fish market together until Tony left Betty for another woman. In 1950, Betty had an affair with a married man named Joseph Kleinman. Kleinman was a real estate agent. When she became pregnant, three years later, he threatened to leave her if she kept the baby. But on June 1st, 1953, Betty gave birth to Richard David Falco, but immediately gave him up for adoption in order to

maintain her relationship with Joseph Kleinman. The baby was adopted by Nathan and Pearl Berkowitz, and they changed his name to David Berkowitz. David was raised in a Jewish household and was bar mitzvah at age 13 at Temple, Adith, Israel, on the Grand Concourse in the Bronx. He attended public school 77, and David was known as a prankster to his classmates. Nathan, David's adoptive father, ran a hardware store, and the family lived modestly in a small apartment in the Bronx. Growing up, David enjoyed baseball. He was hyperactive, spoiled, and some say he was a bit of a neighborhood bully.

Although he had above-average intelligence, David showed no interest in school and therefore didn't perform well. When he was old enough, his parents told him that his biological mother had died giving birth to him, which caused him to him. which caused him to feel guilty. He then became antisocial and aggressive, and at some point, obsessed with petty theft and setting small fires. Nathan and Pearl consulted at least one psychotherapist due to David's misconduct,

but it never resulted in legal troubles or impacted his school records. On October 5th, 1967, Pearl Berkowitz died of breast cancer. David was only 14 years old, and he struggled with her death. It left him feeling like the women in his life always left him. He and Nathan moved into a new apartment, and it really wasn't that long after Pearl's death that Nathan remarried.

David had a very strained relationship with both his father and his new stepmother, and he started to rebel even more. While David was still in high school, he and Nathan moved the co-op city in the northeast Bronx, where they lived in a four-and-a-half-room apartment on the 17th floor of 170 Dreiser Loop. One floor below the Berkowitz's lived Bruce Handler. He and David and two other youths organized a volunteer fire company in Co-Up City in 1970, when the fire department had no on-site facility. The teens put out brush fires and turned on alarms, sometimes helping at the scene of apartment fires before regular firemen arrived. In October of 1970,

David joined an auxiliary police unit as a trainee and accompanied members on unarmed patrols in his neighborhood. David graduated from high school in 1971. While his father wanted him to go to college, David instead enlisted in the Army on June 23rd, 1971. He took his basic training at Fort Dix, New Jersey, advanced infantry training at Fort Polk, Louisiana, and then was sent to serve in South Carolina. Korea as a specialist for. He was demoted and ranked to private first class after he missed a convoy, but later regained his specialist rating. While in South Korea, David had sex with a sex worker, and he contracted a venereal disease.

Reportedly, this was his only sexual encounter. He returned to serve in the U.S. at Fort Knox. There, he bragged to a fellow soldier named Paul Billo about. using pills in Korea. Although to the men that knew him, he didn't seem to be under the influence of drugs at Fort Knox. Although Berkowitz didn't seem to be under the influence of drugs, Billow noticed that David dramatically changed in other ways while stationed at Fort Knox. From social to reclusive and toward a revivalist form of the Baptist religion, David was baptized, went to revival meetings, and tried to convert others, including Billow. Two months before leaving,

Fort Knox, David's personality changed even more. He started to swear, and Billa thought maybe he had started using drugs because the change happened so fast. David was honorably discharged from the army in 1974, and he returned to New York City. He took a job as an unarmed security guard with IBI Security Services Agency and moved back for a while with his father at Co-op City. In 177, Nathan Berkowitz retired and moved to Florida. David stayed in New York City and moved into a studio apartment at 2161 Barnes Avenue in the Bronx for about six months. It was during this time that Berkowitz suffered from some sort of identity crisis and he found

out that his biological mother was still alive. He tracked her down. and they two of them became, I guess, Morp, you would call it friend. But the other thing that David found out about was that he had a half sister, Roslyn. However, the relationship between David and his biological mother became strained and he stopped seeing her. But this is important, Morph, and I think I want to touch on it just a little bit, I think it's a big moment in the life of David Berkowitz, right?

he had been told all along by his adoptive parents that his biological mother was dead. He finds out that she's still alive. That's a monumental thing to happen in someone's life. He also finds out that he has a half sister. I just kind of want to, you know, touch on a little bit because I think it's huge. I think it's huge in the history of David Berkowitz, in his psychology. I think it has a major impact in his future. Yeah, I think you're right because who he was or who he thought he was wasn't actually the case.

He found out that his backstory was just wasn't true. So you have to wonder how that affected his psyche. Well, add on top of that that his adoptive mother died and he thought his biological mother was dead. He had this feeling that. that the women around him just kept leaving. So I think to find out that he had been living somewhat of a lie, I don't know if that's the right term, I do think it was a big deal. And I think when we look back to all the famous or infamous killers, a lot of them have

issues surrounding relationships or lack of relationships with their mothers. Oh, yeah. I don't think there's any doubt about that. And a lot of the times it comes out that, you know, it's this relationship, flawed relationship with their mother that drives them to want to hurt women. I think that's very well documented. Berkowitz struggled to fit in and began to try and find acceptance wherever he could, sometimes seeking out other people on the edge of society. As Berkowitz continued to struggle, dark thoughts and fantasies filled his mind. Later that year, on December 24, 1975, David Berkowitz attempted to kill two women with a knife,

Michelle Foreman and an unidentified female. Both women were hospitalized for stabbing injuries but survived. Michelle was treated for six stab wounds. David Berkowitz was never suspected than stabbing's. But the feeling of attacking someone and getting away with it gave Berkowitz a feeling of power, and his dark urges continued to spiral. In early 1976, David moved into an apartment in a two-family home in New Rochelle, New York. This apartment was owned by Jack and Nan Casera. The home was located at 171 Caligney Avenue. He only stayed there a short time because he complained about their dog barking.

David said the dog howled all night long, causing him to not be able to sleep. In April, Berkowitz, who by now had taken a job with the post office, rented a $230 a month apartment at 35 Pine Street in Yonkers. Next door to David lived a man named Sam Carr. And Sam Carr owned a black Labrador named Harvey. And once again, David claimed that he heard the dog howling. He would later say that he thought the howls were messages to his. him from demons. Berkowitz claimed that those messages told him to kill. David became convinced that both Sam and Harvey were possessed. David even shot Harvey, the dog at one point, but the dog

survived and continued to bark as if to torture David Berkowitz. So by this point, Berkowitz was angry. He was displaying symptoms. that he was mentally ill, but he hatched a plan to take revenge on the city that he felt ignored and overlooked him. On July 29th, 1976, 18-year-old Donna Loria and her friend, 19-year-old Jody Valenti, spent the night dancing at a local disco. Afterwards, Jody drove Donna home and double-parked her two-door blue Oldsmobile Cutlass with the windows closed in front of the Lauria family's six-story apartment building located at 2860, Beirrere Avenue in the Westchester Heights section of the Bronx. Valente lived nearby at 1918 Hutchinson River Parkway. Outside Donna's apartment building,

Donna and Jody ran into Donna's parents. They were just getting home after an evening out and the four exchanged hello. Donna's parents told her not to be out too late and they invited Jody to come inside their apartment, but she declined. And the lorias went inside. And to me, more if that sounds like a perfectly reasonable exchange, right? Parents saying to their daughter, hey, don't be out too late. For one thing, this is late 1970s New York City, not the safest place to be late at night. And what's that old saying, nothing good ever happens after midnight? That is very true. I can attest to this. that from my younger days.

The two girls chatted for a while longer about the summer and how they were going to spend it. Jody was in nursing school and Donna was training to be a medic. About 15 minutes later, a man in a blue striped shirt came out of nowhere and within eight feet of Jody's car. Donna asked Jody if she knew who he was, but she didn't have a chance to answer. The man leveled a handgun at them and fired four shots through the closed passenger window. Dono was struck in the neck and arm. They shot to her neck killed her instantly.

Jody was shot in the left thigh, but survived. When Jody was struck by the bullet, she slumped over, causing the car's horn to blow. Donna's father raced from his apartment after he heard the shots in the horn. He jumped in the car to try and help the girls, but his daughter was gone. Jody was rushed to the hospital, and when questioned by police, she told them, that she didn't recognize the shooter, but said he was a white male with curly hair in his late 30s, maybe 5'9, about 160 pounds. Police questioned neighbors and they reportedly saw a yellow car in the area. It was gone by the time police arrived. I think in the beginning especially,

Police thought that this was a random shooting or could have possibly been some type of mafia hit. The shooting received very little coverage from the press. Again, this was 1976 in New York City. There were a lot of murders. And at the time, there was no 44 caliber killer. There was no son of Sam that people knew of. A few months after the attack on Jody and Donna, 20-year-old Carl De Naro was getting ready to report for duty after enlisting in the Air Force, and he wanted to have some fun before leaving. He had been out a few times with 18-year-old Rosemary Keenan, and he asked her if she wanted to go and hang out with him before he shipped out.

In the suburbs of D.C., a woman fails to show up for work and is found brutally murdered. I wonder what's emergency? We just walked in the door, and there's blood in the foyer. For the next two decades, the case remained unsolved until new technology allowed investigators to do what had once been impossible. A new series from ABC Audio in 2020, Blood and Water. Listen now, wherever you get your podcasts. The fall of 1976 up to that point had been uneventful for Carl. But Carl had no idea of what was coming.

To me, it was a very normal life. you know, smoking some pot, drinking some beer, chasing girls, going to concerts. That was pretty much my life. In the summer of 76, I realized, and I enlisted in the United States Air Force. It was going to be, I had way past my shoulders. Going into the Air Force was kind of the last thing I would have thought I would do. But, you know, with that being said, I was a little nervous, but it was also a little excited, you know, getting out of starting a career, getting out of New York, going to Texas for boot camp. I hadn't really been, I hadn't really traveled at that point in my life.

So that part was exciting. But again, a little nervous also. I dropped out of college. and it just, you know, sitting in the classroom just wasn't for me. And, you know, a year later, I realized, you know, if I'm not going to go to college, I have to do something because it's going to be a wasted life. The Air Force seemed like a viable solution. Carl talked about his relationship with Rosemary Keenan.

Yeah, we definitely weren't boyfriend, girlfriend. You know, back then, most of us just traveled in groups, you know, a group of guys, a group of girls, and we, you know, we would meet and we'd all hang out. And it wasn't really a dating thing. A few relationships were formed within that group. But Rosemary and I would just, you know, we were just friends. And, you know, we went out in a few dates, but by no means we were. On Saturday, October 23rd, 1976, Rosemary picked up Carl in her red Volkswagen. Carl discussed with us how that night unfolded for him and Rosemary.

It started out like any other night for me. Me and my friends, we met at the local bar, Pex Depot Grill, and we heard there was up a house party going on. So we got in the car and drove over to this park. party and hung out there until about, I guess, about midnight. Then we got back in the car and drove back to Peck's bar. And when, you know, when I got there, Rosemary and a couple of her friends were there. And, you know, we all said hello, got a drink.

And I guess about to have to leave. We got into her car. And we're just kind of randomly driving around not really looking for, you know, I'm not really sure to be honest with this long time ago. I mean, but I know we were going to make out. That was that that was the ultimate goal. So we just drove around. Of course, it's my neighborhood.

So it was just kind of weird. So we wound up on, we wound up on 159th Street and 33rd Avenue. You know, we stop at a stop sign. And I saw it was like the streetlight was out. I said, pull over there. So she pulled over there. and we started making out and three, four, no more than five minutes, everything changed. And Morif I think it's very powerful to hear these details firsthand from Carl De Nara.

He's walking us through that night and we know what's coming and there's no way to stop it. It's very strange because I don't remember, and to this day, I don't remember hearing anything or seeing anything. You know, I didn't hear gunshots, although I found out later there was five shots taken at the car through, you know, through the ballistics and found. But I didn't hear anything. I knew I was hurt because the class, you know, back then, Volkswagen's were airtight. and so I guess when the bullet the first bullet penetrated

the car all the windows blew out so it was you know little little shorts and glass all over the place and embedded in my hands and my arm I didn't know I was shot

but I knew we were in trouble that's that's for sure because I turned to her and said you know let's get out of here and then I I she you know started the car and drove down the street then at the corner briefly for about 10 seconds. And when I came to,

she was in a total panic because this wasn't her neighborhood. She didn't know where she was. So I directed her back to the bar that we started at. And she pulled in front of the bar. I got out of the car, walked into the bar.

And the guy at the door said, you know, call you don't look too good. And I said, I don't feel too good. I said, I think the car makes no sense at all. That's how I was feeling and that's what I said. So with that, he sat me down and my hair, my long hair was holding, holding the blood in from the head wound that I didn't even know I had in seconds. And everyone in the bar just looked, said, oh, my God.

So back into a friend's car, we drove to a flushing hospital. He started, put me on a, put me on a gurney and started picking bone fragments and glass shorts and, and pieces of, the bullet. But it's funny how some things, some things you, you know, just go blank and other things are as clear, clear as it happened yesterday. I don't remember, I remember getting into a car, and I don't, but I don't remember the drive there. The next thing I remember is laying on my stomach. I kind of had my hand in front of me. I could feel the, you know, touch in the back of my head. They had numbed it, so it was just kind of a weird feeling. but I knew something was going out.

Every time the swinging doors into the emergency room would open, I could see my friends standing there, and I'd wave to them. Apparently, I didn't realize the severity of my injuries. Except for that 10 seconds that I passed out in the very beginning, I believe I was totally conscious for the next three hours. And I remember waving to my friends, like I said, like it happened, you know, it's very strange. The pain didn't start.

The pain didn't start until about the shooting happened. I finished in the emergency room. They brought me to get x-rays. That's when the pain started. The cold plate against whatever they're going to end. And then I drew a bile, and I didn't know what bile was. So it's green stuff. Don't worry, it's just vile.

You'll be fine. And the next thing I remember was waking up in a room with five other patients. It was gores. The way I understand it was the bullet that hit the back of my head actually went through the roof of the car. The ballistic tells me they were, the shooter was probably 15 feet behind the car on the passenger side. So, you know, if you recall, you know, a Volkswagen Beetle kind of has like a curved arc roof. I think that had something to do with the bow and the bullet. down before it actually hit me. It did put a nice hole into the top of the car. A fragment of the

bullet that it wasn't a full-on bullet. Carl was struck multiple times in the head by bullet fragments and had to have surgery to have a metal plate replaced part of his skull. Luckily, Rosemary was not hit by any rounds, but she suffered from wounds caused by shards of broken glass. There were no witnesses to the shooting, no motive, and very little evidence. But Rosemary's father, was a New York City detective who had been on the force for 20 years, and police pulled out all the stops to try and figure out who targeted the young couple and why. Police wasted no time before talking to Carl. Only hours after being shot, Carl was answering their questions.

As they said, there are five other patients. I have a splitting headache, as you can imagine. They would only give me Tylenol because it was a head injury, so they couldn't give me any kind of pain killers. And I'm not really sure of the time, but I'm going to guess it was around noon. It might have been earlier. Two guys walk into the room and didn't take me long to realize that Mr. Keenan, Rosemary's dad. I met him officially once, and I probably saw him two or three times.

Like, oh, boy. And I knew he was a cop. So sure enough, him and Detective, his partner, Detective Blues, was, we're on the spot. and they wanted to know who did it. I said, I happened. And I told them, I told them 160th Street and 33rd Avenue. They come back an hour later and they were really pissed off. You can only imagine the iron.

Are you kidding me? At this stage it again, I really don't care what you do. The pain was, I can't even describe it. It was the worst pain that ever suffered. and here's these two cops telling me they're going to arrest me. So what they said was they went from 160th Street to 172nd Street and found no traces of the shooting. So I'm thinking about it.

I said, did you try 159th Street? And they looked at each other and left, came back half hour later. So, okay, we found, you know, we found, you know, we know what it happened. You take that as you may. To me, to me, it was, in retrospect, it was like, you know, the investigation is not going well from the get-go. To give them a pass, I mean, you have to realize Detective Keenan, his daughter was shot at. She was not injured, although she did have glass, just like I had. You know, she had glass, you know, embedded in her arm.

And, you know, the windows of her car was shot out. and this all happened, I don't know, eight, ten hours prior to this, to this interrogation. So he had a few things on his mind, on his mind. So, you know, I don't want to be too critical at this juncture on the United Kingdom was thinking. The cops operated on the theory that it was the drug deal got wrong. And like I said earlier, I certainly smoked pot. didn't deal drugs. I wasn't involved in any of that. My mother wasn't happy with my lifestyle. So she bought into this drug deal gone wrong, which just fed into the cops thinking.

And they said, oh, we might be on to something, you know. So until the NYPD was able to put together some ballistics reports from four shootings and said, wow, we have a serial killer. But four seemingly random shootings all came from a 44 caliber, which is not the average, you know, it's not the normal gun people use. You know, for 38 it would have been a totally different story. But 44 kind of stuck out because it's just not that. So that took six months. I was, it turned out I was the second victim of the Sun of Sam shootings.

So, you know, but back in October. of 76, it was just a random, a random shooting. Some, you know, some poor slop and flushing queens got, you know, got shot in the back of the head that, you know, that was it. I mean, there was no, you know, there was no fanfare because there was no son of Sam. And Morve, I will say this. If you're a person that's going around shooting at random victims, the worst thing that

can happen for you is that you pick, most likely unknowingly. the daughter of a New York City detective who's been on the force for a long time, that's going to galvanize the police department. Not that they're not doing their job in the first place, but they're really going to rally around one of their own. And I think that's what happened in this situation. But because there was virtually nothing to go on, right? In the attack on Carl and Rosemary, the investigation didn't really go anywhere.

And again, that is the hard part about trying to solve random crimes, random shootings. Where's the motive? Well, there is none, right? Where's the connection? There is none. As time passed and Carl recovered from his wounds, he asked himself, who would shoot me? And why? Carl became paranoid.

And he wondered, and I think rightfully so, if the person that, you would shoot me. had shot him was still out there and maybe was going to try to finish what he started. So it was three months of me not knowing who shot me or why and would they come back, whoever it was, would they come back and finish your job? And I quickly convinced myself that wrong place, wrong time. that was based on absolutely nothing except I think self-preservation. I think I kind of convinced myself wrong place, wrong time, to just make it easier for me to cope with life.

But I definitely was a little bit nervous as to, like, why did this happen? And who did it? And are they going to come back and finish the job? That was always running through my head. So in a recuperation period between getting out of the hospital the first time and waiting for January 20s to come along, so I was going to go back into the hospital to have a plate put it in the back of my head to cover the hole. I would just sit by sitting in the living room my mother's house and bored out of my mind. At this point, the pain had kind of gone away.

I still had like a little bit of a constant headache, but, you know, it's one of those things you could live with. But, you know, but it was always there. And I happened to live on the corner of my mother's house that was on a corner of it with a streetlight. So cars were constantly stopping in front of the house, like the light turn, red. And it was one day this green car just kept showing up, you know, and it would pull over and pull over and pull. park and it would take off and then come around and stop at the red light. And this went out for like 20 minutes and I started getting really nervous. And it turned out, it turned out the guy was waiting for his wife's come out of the doctor's office next door to us. You know, so it was

nothing to worry about, but it did put a little fear in me. I don't think you can imagine what Carl was going through looking at cars outside of his apartment and wondering if the person that shot you is out there someplace. that's got to be a very helpless feeling. And as you heard Carl mentioned, his case would eventually be connected to the son of Sam case. Carl talked about finding out

about his shooting being connected to the son of Sam attacks. I started thinking about serial killer. It's like, oh, like, you know, talk about one place, wrong time. Weird, weird feeling being thrust into, into this whirlwind of, you know, newspapers and six o'clock news and it was a wild time.

And I have to admit for a couple months, it was exhilarating. At this point, I pretty much healed. I started a new job in June of 77. So, you know, life was almost back to normal, but I'm still in the middle of this, this crazy mayhem. The New York Post was publishing 15 pages a day

of, you know, who's the serial killer, who is the 44 caliber killer? You know, where is he going to strike next? And, you know, it got to the point where they had no more information. They would just cut in. Regurgitate the same information because people just couldn't get enough. The Delhi News was doing the same thing.

There's no doubt that the attempt on Carl's life affected him forever. He was unable to end up. enter the Air Force after he was injured, and around his Queen's neighborhood, he no longer felt like himself, but rather the kid that got shot by son of Sam. In the ensuing year and a half, after a while, the whole son of Sam, as I mentioned earlier, it was very exhilarating and like, you know, all of a sudden I'm thrust into the public guy and, you know, at first it was kind of cool. After a while, it got to a point where this is quickly becoming my identity. I just thought I had a lot more to offer. You know, being known as

that's the guy that got shot by Son of Sam. And wherever I went, that, that would happen. I mean, in some cases, I'd walk into like a bar and the place would go quiet and you just hear whispering. And it was very disturbing to me. So much disturbing that I got rid of everything I had. I gave up my apartment. I gave my friends all the stuff in my apartment. I packed all my belongings into my Air Force duffel bag and moved to California. Just to get away from the whole thing.

And I stayed in California for two years. I eventually came back to my neighbor. I was looking to New York, and it was just kind of like something I had to do for my own self-preservation and my own. That's really when I started thinking about, all right, what am I going to do the rest of my life? So it was a long journey. We can't thank Carl enough for joining us and recounting what happened to him. And we'll hear more from him in part three of our son of Sam coverage.

And what he reveals in that episode may surprise some people. on November 27th, 1976, this was about one month after Carl and Rosemary were attacked, 16-year-old Donna Damassie and her friend 18-year-old Joanne Lomino were walking to Joanne's house from a late-night movie in Bella Rose Queens. When the girls arrived, they sat on the front porch, a man dressed in military fatigues approached them and started to ask for directions. But as he did so, he pulled a gun out of his waistband. The man began firing at the pair, and both girls were hit with one bullet each. The rest of the bolts that were fired had missed their mark. Fortunately, the girls would both survive,

but their lives wouldn't be the same. Donna was shot in the neck, and Joanne was shot in the back, which shattered her spine, leaving her paraplegic, forcing her to live the rest of her life in a wheelchair. On January 30th, 1970s, 27, 26-year-old Wall Street worker Christine Freund and her boyfriend 30-year-old John Deal had gone to see the movie Rocky. Then they had eaten at the Wine Gallery restaurant. Afterwards, the two walked to John's car, which was parked in front of one station square, opposite the Forest Hills Inn at the Long Island Railroad Station. The two were planning on going to Ridgewood Hall to attend a Masonic dance. This was about 12.30 a.m. John opened up the car. Then he leaned over and opened up Rosemary's door. He started the car. The engine was warming up. The two had kissed each other. I mean, this was a nice night, right, for this pair up to this point.

Suddenly, without warning, the car window shattered. A man standing just outside the car had shot two bullets through the car's passenger window. The young couple never saw a thing. Christine was struck twice, in the head above the ear, and in the right shoulder. A third bullet ricocheted off the car's windshield. After Christine was struck, her head slumped onto John's shoulder. John began yelling help, and he was in shock. At first, no one responded, but as people nearby began to investigate the shooting, they heard his cries for help and called police. But John didn't wait for help and drove his car a short distance away to the intersection at 71st Avenue

and Byrne Street, where he blocked traffic and got the help he needed. Christine later died at the hospital, but John wasn't injured. And again, there were no witnesses to the shooting. But despite not having any witnesses, after this shooting, homicide detectives started to put some of the pieces of the puzzle together. And they realized that the previous shootings were very similar to this one. A gunman approached the car, fired shots through the window.

They also knew that all of the shootings were done with a 44 caliber gun. So at this point, Morf, police started to think they might have a madman on the loose. When word leaked to the press that some of these shootings might be related, the Queens District Attorney told the media, we are checking into the possibility that cases with similar circumstances may have occurred in this borough and other boroughs over the past year or so, and whether there are any connections between those, possibly similar cases, and this one. Less than two months later, another shooting took place. The victim this time would be 20-year-old Virginia Voscarichian, who lived at 6911 Exeter Street in Flushing.

She had transferred to Columbia University from Queens College the previous September. She chose Columbia for its reputation for Russian courses. She was close to an A student in these courses with a specific interest in Russian literature. On March 8, 1977, Virginia left the school in the late afternoon. The reason why she left is a little unclear, but it's believed she left either because she had a late class or because she often worked at the library there after class. Virginia left the subway at the Continental Avenue Station in Forest Hills, and she walked a few blocks along well-lit and heavily traveled Continental Avenue.

She turned right on Dartmouth Street at about 7.30 p.m. Dartmouth Street was quite different from Continental Avenue. It was a dimly lit, quiet area. And one of the bulbs on the street lights was shattered. So that section of the street was almost entirely unlighted. So you would think that this. may have made Virginia uneasy, but Virginia pressed on and walked through this area anyway. All of a sudden, an armed man confronted Virginia and started firing shots at her.

She had only enough time to instinctually raise her textbooks up in front of her face in an attempt to protect herself. However, one of the bullets ripped through the books and struck Virginia in the face, killing her instantly. She had not been sexually assaulted or robbed. There was $35 in cash in her purse. When police investigated the murder, something immediately jumped out at them. Like the other victims we discussed, she was shot with a 44 caliber gun. The location where Virginia was killed was only a half a block from where Christine Freund was murdered. And more if we've talked about the lack of motive. And here again, no sexual assault, no robbery.

That makes it very tough for police. Essentially, what you have is a man. walking up to people with no warning and opening fire. Those have to be some of the toughest cases to solve. But in Virginia's case, there was a witness who told police he had seen a pudgy youth running from the vicinity of the killing. Apparently, this man ran right by the witness and pulled a stocking cap low over his face and muttered, oh, Jesus, as he raced past.

It was just the next day. Police said they were looking for a young man 16 to 18 years old in connection with the killing. After Virginia's senseless murder, the tall hedge near where she was killed was cut down to about a foot high. And local residents said they would all cut their hedges to make it more difficult for someone to hide behind them. This murder really prompted that neighborhood to take action. Additionally, the streets would be more brightly lit with murder. mercury vapor lamps, according to Dr. Gerald Galvin, who was president of the Forest Hills Gardens Corporation, he was quoted as saying, those lights will go on now. I don't think people will be

concerned so much now about who pays for it. But unfortunately for Virginia, Voscarician, these changes would come too late. By April 1977, news reports about the 44 caliber killer were becoming more and more common. In many of the reports, a common thing. was noted about the female victims. Many of them had long dark hair. In fact, some of the male victims even had long dark hair. This prompted women to race to their hair salon to get their hair cut short. Some dyed it a lighter color. Beauty shops around the neighborhoods also saw a big uptick in wig purchases. And local news reporters only helped to spread this hysteria by going out and asking women on the streets about changing their hair.

Do you feel personally threatened by the 44-calorie killer because you have long, dark hair? Yes, I do. Has his existence in any way interfered with your movements at night? Yes, I stay in. You didn't stay in in the past? No. I don't feel free to go out to walk the streets or go out at all. I'm afraid to go out in the car.

I'm afraid to do anything. I don't even know where he's going to be. Did you ever think of cutting your hair because? No, I never thought of going to that extent. I just don't want to be reckoned. I thought of maybe dying at a little redder or something, really. We used to stay in front of my house and walk and you know and kiss good night, but we can't do that no more.

You know, just go right in. You have to be careful. You have to watch really go now, you know, how late you stay out and... Have you restricted your own movements? Yeah. You don't go out as much as you used to? No. And I'm always with somebody, you know. know, that I know I'm going to be taken right home or whatever, you know.

What about your friends? Are they doing the same thing? Yes. Even when they don't have long hair, you know, same thing. It scares you. I know what it is to walk around in my childhood without any problems and happy go lucky and go where I want, but no longer like that. You have to look over your shoulder and I find people, when you're walking, people just look over their shoulder. A month after Virginia Voscarichian's murder, 20-year-old, Alexander Esau and 18-year-old Valentina Siriani, two long-time friends, became the next victims of

this unidentified shooter, who the press had dubbed the 44-calibre killer. Soon this killer would give himself a new moniker. Alexander was a tow truck operator and lived with his father in a hell's kitchen fourth-floor walk-up apartment. He was a nice, quiet young man. Valentina was described as a dynamite kid and real friendly to talk to. She lived with her parents. She lived with her parents. on the 12th floor of a 13-story apartment house. Her older sister, Nancy, had moved out several months prior after getting married. On the night of April 17, 1977, Alexander picked up Valentina around 9 p.m. took out for the evening.

Her parents expected her home by 3 a.m. As Valentina's curfew approached, the pair headed to her home. They stopped briefly and parked on a street about a mile from Valentina's house. Without warning, a gunman jumped in front of the driver's side of the, the car and fired three quick shots at close range through the window. Both Alexander and Valentina were shot in the head. Residents called police who quickly responded along with EMTs. For Valentina, it was too late. She had died instantly. Alexander was alive and was rushed to Jacoby Hospital in critical condition. His family kept a vigil at his bedside in the intensive

care unit until he died shortly after. The shootings of Alexander and Valentina took place near where Donna Lurie was murdered the previous July. As police combed the scene, they felt that they were undoubtedly dealing with the 44 caliber killer. Near the car that Alex and Valentina had been parked in, the killer had left a handwritten note for the police, specifically stating, come and get me, signed son of Sam. He stated that he was determined to continue killing. This was the first time.

The killer referred to himself. as Son of Sam. It was official. Police had a maniac on the loose and he gave himself a name. Perhaps he was not content with the 44 caliber killer name. And the New York City press picked this up. They picked up the Son of Sam letter and a full scale panic ensued as every paper and TV station in New York City made Son of Sam the headline almost every day. Days after the killing of Alexander and Valentina, the police formed the task force to help locate Son of Sam. They named that Operation Omega, and it consisted of 75 detectives and over 200 uniformed officers. At around the same time, Operation Omega was getting underway. Sam Carr, David Berkowitz's neighbor, received an anonymous

letter, the second one in less than two weeks. The first letter received on April 10, 177 was one complaining about his dog barking and was signed a citizen. The second letter received by Sam Kaur on April 19th was more serious. It read, There will be no peace in my life or my family's life until I end yours. This letter scared Sam Kaur, so he took it to the Yonkers Police Department, but there wasn't much they could do about it. That's a scary proposition, right?

You get letter number one saying, hey, your dog's barking too much. No big deal, right? You try to keep the dog from barking as best you can, but you don't lose any sleep over that. But you get a letter that says, I'm going to end your life. That's scary. And it was to Sam Carr. And as you said, he went straight to the police. Yeah, I can't blame him for going to the police.

I would do that too. And I'd be extra guard and I'm sure he was as well. But the problem with that is, where do police take it? They don't know who wrote the letter. It's not like it was signed with a name. Very tough, right? Very tough to investigate. Unless the writer left the fingerprint or something like that, that they could

definitely trace back to someone. It would be a hard thing to figure out. In May of 1977, 22 detectives were working out of a second floor office in room 2-24 of the 109th precinct in Flushing Queens. The detectives were planning. were scheming on how to get the upper hand. They were trying to predict moves and come up with counter moves against Son of Sam. This was essentially like a Son of Sam war room, so to speak.

And this was completely independent of Operation Omega. They had maps on the walls indicating the times, dates, and places of the shootings. They also had photographs of the 44 caliber charter arms Bulldog pistol, which by this time, ballistics had determined to be the make and model of the gun used in the shootings. They had photographs taken into crime scenes. They also had composite sketches of the possible shooter that were created with the help of witnesses at some of the different crime scenes. The other thing they had up in this room were pictures of the victims. And those reminded everyone setting foot into this war room of just why they had to stop this guy so that more young people would not die.

Deputy Inspector Timothy Dowd headed up this special unit. In May of 77, a New York City newspaper asked out about his work in the case, and he responded by saying, oh, we're going to get this guy. I'm very optimistic. We'll just spend as long as it takes. There's no way we can close the file on it. How can you drop a case like this? It's a continuing homicide. I can't wait till the end of this case. I just want to see what kind of human being this is. So you think about it, 22 detectives in the 109th precinct. And on top of that, the 75 that were on this

Operation Omega, I don't think there's any doubt. Catching Son of Sam was a lot. of the utmost priority. During this time, police released a psychological profile of the killer, stating that he was neurotic and quite possibly a paranoid schizophrenic. There were religious aspects to the killer's thinking process, and hints that he believed he was a victim of demonic possession or compulsion. It also described him as being odd and shy. Detectives investigating son of Sam were having a hard time leaving their work at the office. They constantly bounced ideas off one another. Even when they were out grabbing a beer, they asked each other, why do you think he calls himself son of Sam? Or has anyone checked the book of Samuel to see how many sons he had?

And should we go through all the Samson's and Queens and the Bronx where the killings took place? These cops were working hard to identify a son of Sam, but in a city of over seven million people, the answer alluded them. But they kept brainstorming in an effort to catch the killer. Police assumed that the killer had a car. So they thought they could get the Department of Motor Vehicles to break out all the registrations by white males from the ages of 20 to 30 in the last couple of years in Queens and the Bronx. Then they could go through the registrations to check the handwriting against the note the killer left at the scene of the last killings. But detectives quickly learned that the DMV couldn't do that. The registrations were in alphabetical order, and there were 253,000 for Queens alone.

Again, you know the police are desperate. They're trying to pull out all the stops, but that is a very tough feat to accomplish. It's hard to imagine them going through 253,000 registrations just in Queens. It reminds me of the old days when they had to go through fingerprint file cards, one at a time, comparing them to a suspect print that they found and how pre-digital age, how hard a task that must have been. Yeah, no doubt. Right.

I mean, if you look at, and I think I've said this before more, if you look at trying to get away with a crime or, you know, a series of murders in 2019 compared to, let's say, the 60s or 70s, much tougher. I mean, just look at all the. technological advances that the authorities have at their disposal, how quickly they can match fingerprints. All the different databases that they have to tap into, it's a wonder people get away with anything anymore. But unfortunately, we know they still do. Because the one thing we know is that while all these databases are great, these advances in technology are great,

if a perpetrator is not in any of those databases, all that technology does nothing. You're just not going to get a hit, whether you're talking about fingerprints, DNA, whatever it is. Police encountered lots of frustration in red tape from privacy issues with mental health records to a similar problem with juvenile records. If the killer was around 20 years old at the time of the son of Sam killings and he committed a crime before he had turned 18, police would have no access to those records. Morph, I think one thing was clear at this point for police. This was going to be an uphill battle, right, to stop son of Sam. But it's a battle that they were willing to wage.

And they weren't going to give up. They made that very clear. This is New York City. The amount of press on this case was, I don't know, I don't want to say unprecedented, but it was massive. and we'll get more into the battle on the part of police against Son of Sam in the second part of our Son of Sam coverage. Very special thanks to Carl De Naro for sharing his story with us in this episode. Thanks also goes up to Debbie Buck at True Crime Diva.com and Kate Morris for writing and research assistance in this episode.

As always, if you haven't done so and you love the show, go out and give us a five-star rating. It goes a long way towards helping other. people find the podcast and keep telling your friends. It's amazing what that type of word of mouth can do. And if you'd like to find us on social media, we're on Twitter with the handle at Criminology Pod. You can also find us on Facebook for searching for Criminology Podcast. And if you'd like to join our discussion group to discuss the case or the show, you can do that by going to Criminology Podcast Discussion and Fans on Facebook. So more from this first episode, I feel like we We've just scratched the surface.

And there is so much to this story. And that's why, you know, it's going to be a three-part series. The one thing that clearly jumps out to me when you talk about the murders that we detailed out in this episode, very scary. I mean, all murders are scary. All attacks are scary. I think with the 44 caliber killer with son of Sam, the fact that this person is essentially just showing up by your car. You know, it's not like you got into an altercation

with someone and they followed you. Road rage incident. This was nothing like that. These people were just going about their daily lives and happened to become the target of someone that was just out looking for someone to shoot. That's a very scary proposition. Especially when he can paralyze New York City in fear the way that Son of Sam did. And that's why this case is so big because of the impact that he had. Well, and I think that's absolutely right. We're talking about New York City. And that changes the dynamic. If this happened in a small Midwestern town, it would still be terrifying. But the fact that it's New York City with that massive, population, you think, how are we going to find this guy? This guy could be anyone, he could be

anywhere. So to me, there's no doubt that New York City plays a huge part in the case of Son of Sam. But that's it for this first episode in the Son of Sam series. Morp and I will be back with you next Saturday night with part two. So until then, this is Mike Ferguson. And Morph. And we'll talk to you next week. Take care, everyone.