Criminology - Son of Sam Part3

Episode Date: August 24, 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 for the final part of their discussion on 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. In this episode, we dive into some of the theories that Berkowitz may not have acted alone. You can help support the show at patreon.com/criminology Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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disturbing topics. Listener discretion is advised. I'd like to welcome everyone to episode 75 of criminology. I'm Mike Ferguson. And this is Mike Morford. Morph, how are you today? I'm doing good. A little bit overcast today.

We're expecting some rain, so I'm hoping we can knock out this recording before the storm's coming. How about you? Yeah. You know, people don't, well, I'm sure they, they realize it, but probably don't think about the lot. You know, it's, it's not like we are in a super soundproof bunker at all times, right? So if my neighbor is mowing the grass, you know, if you've got a guy outside using a chainsaw, well, we might have to put off recording for a little bit.

It happens. Or like you said, a massive thunderstorm. If it's pretty loud, it'll come through for sure. Yeah, a lot of times they've got planes and helicopters and everything. thing else going over and the microphone picks that up. So, well, it's because you live like three steps from this big Air Force base. There's like bombers flying over, sorties. Like there's missions coming out of there.

I don't know what's going on. There's a cannon that fires sometimes. Yeah, it's, it rocks the house a little bit, but you get used to it. It's like living in Chicago right next to, uh, the L or something. You know, you see in those movies, like in seven, remember they bought that apartment. and it was like every 20 minutes that the whole apartment was was rocking. Yeah, a couple days of that you get used to it, no big deal. Right.

So two episodes down, right? For our son of Sam coverage, we're into episode three. This is the last episode. And I think people are going to enjoy what we have for this third and final episode. Because not only are we talking more about. son of Sam David Berkowitz. We're going to hear from Carl De Naro a little bit more, but we're also going to get into some conspiracy theories. Not everyone believes that David Berkowitz acted alone in carrying out his killings. And Carl De Naro is among those people

that has come to believe that and some of the stuff we're going to cover. It makes you pause for a second and ask yourself, could there be something to this? Yeah, and I think what makes it interesting is that, you know, Carl De Nara was a victim. You know, you heard from him in episode one. So to get his take, to get his thoughts on Berkowitz and, you know, what he believes really happened, to me it was fascinating. Yeah. And I think when you're talking to somebody that is involved in the case that was a victim, and they personally believe that there's more than meets the eye. That gives me a little bit more, maybe adds a little more validity to the possibility of that there was something else going on. So all that to come, but we have some new Patreon shoutouts to give. So let's do that.

We had Brittany Dayton, Heather Leaming jumped out at our highest level, Pete Wright, Chi Wang, Adam, Karen Wilson and Faye Rao. So a lot of new support. We love it. It's much appreciated. We can't thank you enough for your Patreon support. It really means a lot and goes a long way. And if you'd like to help support criminology on Patreon,

you can do so by visiting patreon.com slash criminology. All right, Morp, let's dive right in. We're picking up this third and final part of our son of Sam coverage. as we closed out last episode, we mentioned that while David Berkowitz was rotting away in a New York prison, not everyone was convinced that he alone committed all of the son of Sam shootings. And that included Carl DeNaro, our guest from episode one. The only thing that's going to make him talk is a guilty conscience.

And I guess by finding God, he's kind of circumvented that whole, guilt thing because, you know, according to him, God has forgiven him. He didn't shoot me, so I can't forgive him for shooting me. There definitely was a satanic cult. There's no two ways about it. And Berkowitz was definitely part of it. It was definitely satanic practices going on and up to my apart. So that was a little snippet of Carl talking about his belief that David Berkowitz was not actually the man that shot him.

and that he was really part of a larger story, one that involved a conspiracy and a satanic cult. Morph, when you think about it, those are some pretty strong beliefs that Carl shared, especially, you know, like we mentioned, since this was a guy that was a victim of the son of Sam shootings. Hearing talk of a conspiracy and a satanic cult to many people, it may sound hard to believe, but there are some nagging inconsistencies in the son of Sam case that we need to address. Maybe those nagging inconsistencies lend credibility to the possibility of more people than David Berkowitz being involved. And we're going to talk about some of those things today.

Carl went from being a victim to survivor to armchair detective in the son of Sam case after teaming up with author Mori Terry, who was researching for a book he was writing about the son of Sam case. what Mori Terry found led him to believe that there was more than meets the eye in the son of Sam case. And as Carl De Niro dug with him alongside Terry, he began to agree. Terry laid out his case for conspiracy or cult involvement in the son of Sam crimes in his books. The ultimate evil, the truth about the cult murders, and son of Sam and beyond. and the ultimate evil, an investigation into America's most dangerous satanic cult. So two different books that this individual, this author, Mori Terry wrote, think about all the

research, all the time that went in to write these two books, basically centered around the same central theme, which is, this was not David Berkowitz acting alone. This was a cult. This was a satanic cult that he was involved with that led to the son of Sam murders. A couple of these books, a couple of the additions, I should say, are out of print and hard to find. And if you can find a copy, you're going to spend a pretty good chunk of change to get these books. I'm lucky that I have a copy. I used copy of one of the hard to find ones. and it's really in-depth and has a lot of interesting stuff, photographs, and whether or not Mori Terry was correct that there was something going on here. He definitely put the research in to put into those books.

Carl De Niro told us how his relationship with Mori Terry came to be, and he talked about some of the things that people have seized on that seemed to indicate that there may be something to the theory that David Berkowitz didn't act alone. It was a long, a long journey that, I guess, 13 years. The first incident happened in 1980. I was at a civil case. All the victims got together and basically hired lawyers to sue the state of David Berkowitz. And my lawyer was, you know, it was basically saying, look, he's got no money. but if anything's ever made a movie, a book, you know, you guys should share in it. So this was a hearing to basically determine the percentages that each victim would get based on the severity of their injury.

And during that hearing, Harry Lipsake, one of the lawyers, kept telling the judge, you know, Your Honor, other people are involved. and the judge was saying, Harry, this is not the time or place. So I turned to my lawyer and said, what is, you know, what's that little guy talking about? And so my lawyer explains it and says, yeah, there's some theory out there that other people are involved. I'm like, really? I had no idea. So that was it.

That was January of 1980. Mori Terry's book comes out in 87. I read this book and he lays out this. blueprint of this cult that perpetuated the son of Sam shootings. And it blew me away. The first three quarters of the book is just like, to me, rock-solid evidence that other people are involved. The last, you know, the last section of the book, not so much.

I think he, you know, kind of made a lot of assumptions and didn't really cross all the T's and dot all the eyes. like he did in the beginning of the book. But from that point on, I was like, wow, there might be something to this. This all makes perfect sense to me. And I was fascinated by 1990. I happened to meet just by perchance the New York City detective, but ballistics detective who worked on my case.

I actually worked with his daughter. And he told me that. that the ballistics report, number one, he wrote, you know, back in 76 that a 90-pound weakling or a female would likely pull the trigger. I'm like, really? That's interesting. And he goes, oh, by the way, the file is gone. It's no longer in where it should be. Okay. So two years later, 1993, Lori Terry does some jell. House interviews with David Berkowitz. On one of them, Mori asked him, did you shoot Carl De Naron?

He says no. And he said, do you know who did? And Berkowitz says yes. Because can you tell, is it a man? He said, no. Is it a woman? Yes. Could you give us her name?

And I'd rather not say. I'm sitting in my living and listen to this. I'm like, this is crazy. So now I'm sorry. and all these little milestones that I just told you about. I'm putting two and two and two and two together and it's like, there's something to this. There really is.

And then it all kind of comes together in, I believe it was 94. I got invited to do a spot on the Geraldo show. Unbeknownst to me, I was sharing the stage with Mori Terry. So I got to meet Maury that night, and we became very good friends. And not only friends, but I became an investigator, a researcher in the Center Sand shootings. Mori had no computer, no interest in doing that. He was definitely, I started doing his research form, his internet research, and he would give me, you know, he'd give me like somebody's name,

see what you could find out about this. You know, then I started getting the hang of it, and I started doing my own research, and I kind of knew, you know, knew what we're looking for. I would take, like, information or somebody's name that we thought was connected to the case, and I would do deep dives into that person's life and who his friends were. And the more I investigated, the more I was convinced that more, I'm more, his basic premise is correct. Did he make some mistakes here and there?

Did he stretch the truth here and there? I think he did. But basically, his story rigs true. And if you're a believer in coincidences, which I'm really not, one or two is like, oh, that's ironic. you know that, you know, this guy knew that guy. But when you get literally hundreds of coincidences, that's pretty strange. Carl laid out for us some of the things that he feels need to be investigated further in the son of Sam case.

I think more importantly than the cult thing is to show the listener that other people were involved. because you kind of get bogged down with the cult. From all the research I've done, there's so many layers to it, and even I get confused as to who's who and who's doing what. But if you stick to, there's more than one person responsible for the son of Sam's shootings. You can start with the NYPD, their own information. Start with the sketches. They produced nine sketches based on, I witness,

remembrance of the shooters. You can clearly see that there's different people. Two of them look exactly like Barkowitz. There's no two ways about it. And Berkowitz openly admits that he did, you know, he did two shootings in the Bronx, killed three people, but he, you know, he didn't shoot people in Brooklyn. He didn't shoot people in Queens.

Now, take a look at another one of the sketches and take a look at John Carr, a photograph of John Carr, a photograph of Michael Carr, and you'll see two sketches, two police sketches that you would swear these two guys post for the sketch. That's how close they are. these are the sketches that the NYPD put out to the public to help catch this killer. And I'm, you know, and I'm telling you that the sketches are a good place to start. So, Morve, I think we need to talk about the sketches in this case. There are several that we talked about in previous episodes.

And while some resemble each other and resemble David Berkowitz, others are drastically different. You know, some of these look nothing like the others. They look nothing like Berkowitz at all. And of course, I think you can say, well, sketches are never perfect, right? It was dark. Witnesses never remember things exactly as they saw them. Sometimes I think witnesses have a hard time relaying information to a sketch artist. I get all that.

I think that would be very difficult for me. you know, to have seen someone and then try to describe that person to a sketch artist. I don't think that's the easiest thing to do. And I'm amazed, to be honest with you, how good some of these sketch artists are in taking information from somebody sitting across a desk from them and then putting it into, you know, this unbelievable sketch that, let's face it, more. oftentimes than not, I believe, turns out to look eerily like the person that's ultimately caught. And back in the 60s and 70s, they weren't always using those composites.

Sometimes they were using those etch-a-sketch-type piece-together composite makers, that you just take a hair from one, put it on to a face of another, adjust things, and it was like a cookie cutter designed composite. And when it was finished, it didn't really look like a real person. And I think some of that was at play. But in the son of Sam case, these were actual composite sketches done by an artist. Yeah, that reminds me of some of the toys that I used to really like when I was a kid, where you might have three plates.

And using those three plates, you could interchange them, make different cars, make different designs. That kind of reminds me of what you're talking about with this cooking. cutter approach to compiling a composite. But here we have sketches of men with completely different hair styles. They have different parts in their hair. The hair lines are different, you know, completely. Some of the sketches show a man that's thin with blonde looking hair. And obviously, that's nothing like David Berkowitz.

David Berkowitz was, you know, a little on. the chubby side. He had dark curly hair, really, you know, a stark contrast between David Berkowitz and some of the sketches. I don't think there's any doubt about that. Now, what that means is up for interpretation, right? And everybody can make their own assessment of that. It's a lot of what we'll be talking about in the rest of of this episode. But in that last clip, you heard Carl mentioned Michael and John Carr. And we're going to talk a little bit about them coming up. They were the sons of Sam Carr, the neighbor who owned the dog that Berkowitz said,

you know, barked orders at him. And not just orders, right? Not get me some kibble. It was go out and kill. We also have witness Tommy Zeno. He was the witness that watched the shooter attack Stacey Moskowitz and Bobby Villanetti in his river mirror. Zano watched as the man approached from near a park entrance. After Son of Sam was arrested and Zano saw him for the first time, his first thought was,

that is not the man I saw that night. He was too heavy and too pudgy to be the shooter. So this statement by Zano is pretty self-explanatory. In fact, in an interview done for the show Unolved Mysteries back in the 1980s, Zano said, I don't think it was Berkowitz then and I don't think it's him now. And Morph, I think you have to stop and take a minute to talk about unsolved mysteries. First of all, that was a great show. And I think the importance of that show is that it probably turned a lot of us into true crime addicts. Or if it didn't turn us into that, it helped feed our fascination and propel us along this path that a lot of us are on. But I don't. And it's, of being interested and fascinated with true crime.

I mean, Robert Stack was amazing. He had that great voice. It was just one of the first shows that I remember. In the suburbs of D.C., a woman fails to show up for work and is found brutally murdered. I wonder which 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. You know, as a young person thinking, God, fascinated, man. I want to know what happened. Give me the details. Yeah, I remember growing up in the 80s and I was 16 years old at the time that that show was premiering and I really loved it.

And being a 16 year old and one, wanting to go out and hang out and do fun stuff on Friday or Saturday night, which is one Unsolved Mysteries was on, it kind of created a dilemma. So finally we got a VCR and I figured out how to record it and that was just awesome. And watching some of those episodes now, it's really nostalgic. And the segment they did on Son of Sam was very interesting. Well, and that's the other thing. I think if you look back at it now, it holds up, right? You know, obviously it's not maybe on par with some of the great true crime things that are out today, but I think it holds up well for something that is going on, what, 30 some years old?

In this next clip, you're going to hear Carl DeNaro talk about the importance of a yellow Volkswagen. Please realize that a yellow Volkswagen was seen at least four of the shootings. and they were on the hunt for the yellow Volkswagen. Who owns a yellow Volkswagen? They did all sorts of searches. It turns out there was like 2,000 yellow Volkswagens registered in the tri-state area, and it became an impossible task.

And the reason I bring this up, because when they arrested Berkowitz and he owned a galaxy, which looks nothing like the yellow Volkswagen. You never heard the NYPD mention yellow Volkswagen ever, ever, ever again, which is kind of strange, because if you're reading what the police are doing to catch the killer in April, May, June, July, up to August 10th in 1977, they're looking for the yellow Volkswagen. The arrest Berkowitz. He's got a cream-colored galaxy, $4.00.

Galaxy and they stopped talking about the Volkswagen. I can tell you that a yellow Volkswagen was sitting in the car driveway, car with double R's, Sam Carr's house. A yellow Volkswagen was sitting there sporadically during that period. And there's no doubt, more of that a yellow Volkswagen was seen on the night of the Moskowitz violante shooting pulling up to the area of the park entrance not long before the shootings occurred. And then after the shots rang out, witnesses said they saw a yellow Volkswagen leave the area. Tommy Zano saw that same yellow Volkswagen drive by his car a couple of times

leading up to the shooting. This was around 1.35 a.m. So you start to put this timeline together here and you realize it's pretty tight. At 205 a.m., a policeman ticketed Berkowitz's car, which was parked on Bay 17th Street, about two blocks from where Moskowitz and Villalanti would later be shot close to Bath Beach Park. This is a spot about two-tenths of a mile southwest of where Berkowitz got the ticket. What's important here is that eyewitness Cecilia Davis came home after a night out and saw a man who she later identified as David Berkowitz, taking the parking ticket off of a Ford Galaxy. She noted that the police that were giving out tickets were still within sight of her, and they were issuing more tickets.

After the man she identified as Berkowitz took the ticket off the Ford Galaxy, he got into the car and started to drive away. But the car that had brought Cecilia home was parked in the middle of the street, blocking Berkowitz's path, and he started to blow his horn. They moved out of the way, and Berkowitz drove by heading further at Bay 17th Street before taking a right on the Bath Street, as if he were following the police. So there's a couple of questions to me, Morf, that come out of that. Berkowitz is there allegedly with a gun in his car before the shootings actually occurred. So the question is, would he be, you know, blaring his horn at two in the morning with police

right up the street inside. Now, to me, it doesn't seem like you would want to draw attention to yourself in that situation. If you have a gun in your car, if you're out searching, let's say, for potential victims, but we are talking about David Berkowitz. I think what's important is this movement by Berkowitz in the timeline, because at this point, it's now a little bit after 2 a.m. Maybe 2.10, 2.15 somewhere in there, and he was seen driving in the complete opposite direction of where the shooting was later to occur. At around 220 a.m., Stacey Moskowitz and Bobby Villante were walking through the park towards Bobby's car when they saw a man watching them in the darkness near a park restroom. Apparently they weren't overly alarmed by what they saw. They

made it to Bobby's car. This location is about two blocks from Cecilia Davis's apartment where she had watched Berkowitz drive away at around 210-215. One thing's for sure, and that's that David Berkowitz couldn't be in two spots at once. He couldn't be driving his car down Bath Street, almost three blocks northeast of the park, and also be the mysterious man in the Park that was seen by Stacey Moskowitz, Bobby Villalanti, and Tommy Zano. And how could he be driving two different cars? A Ford Galaxy like the one Berkowitz owned is pretty big. A Volkswagen Beetle, that car is small and couldn't be mistaken for a galaxy.

No way. There's no way that anyone in the world is ever going to look at a Volkswagen Beetle and then a Ford Galaxy and say that those look similar. They don't in any way, shape, or form. You know, the galaxy's what, more of a big boat? Everybody knows what a Volkswagen Beetle looks like. It's a little compact thing. It's got the rounded edges, just completely night and day.

I think some of a younger listeners, even younger ones, will know what a Volkswagen Beetle is. I think they reissued the Beetle not too many years ago. But a Ford Galaxy, they may not be as familiar with, but that was, like you said, boat, a big tank. That's one of one of those big cars you wouldn't want a parallel park and on a city street someplace. At 2.33 a.m. Cecilia Davis went out to walk her dog in front of her Bay 17th Street apartment when she looked up. She saw the man she had seen earlier driving away after getting the parking ticket. Now he was walking down the sidewalk. She didn't talk to the man that she later identified to police as Berkowitz.

Instead, she brought her dog inside. About a minute later, she heard several gunshots. The time was roughly around 2.34 a.m. The shots that Cecilia heard were those being fired at Stacey Moskowitz and Bobby Vialante two blocks away. So some people ask, how could David Berkowitz have made it on foot? two blocks or about two-tenths of a mile in one minute. To walk that distance casually, it would take three minutes or so. To walk it briskly, maybe two minutes. It was after these shots were fired, that witnesses saw a thin man with stringy blonde hair, which was possibly a wig, run from the

park, and take off in a yellow vogue wagon, heading up 17th Avenue. Some would later wonder if this thin man was actually a woman. The driver ran a red light and nearly miscarriage. colliding with another car. So we have this yellow Volkswagen. We have different descriptions of shooters. What many people have said is the impossibility that Berkowitz could be in more than one location at once or drive two different cars. I think more, this is where a lot of the conspiracy theories come in, right?

It is difficult to reconcile some of these things, to add all of this up, I think a lot of it is based on the timeline. And again, the timeline is what people said it is, right? Is it exact? Or do people say that it was around this time? Because I think that would be me, right? If asked by police, I would say, well, it was around 215. I don't know, could have been 205, could have been 220, unless there was something going on. where I knew exactly what time it is or it was. And that happens sometimes. And one thing we don't know for certain is if police took the time to construct the timeline based on phone calls coming in about shootings, that kind of thing. So you wonder if somehow they did put a timeline together that

was official. Well, yeah, we know they put a timeline together. I think to your point, my question is always, well, how did you do it? You know, what links did you go to to really try to nail down what a person said and how it fit with what other people said? I think that's always the key, but we have to get into the Carr brothers. And the question that comes up a lot with the Carr brothers is, did they play some kind of role in the son of Sam crimes? They were the sons of of Sam Carr. And we talked about it early on, right? Sam Carr and David Berkowitz had a history.

David Berkowitz had some serious issues with Sam Carr. I don't think more that Sam Carr knew that the threatening letters and the things that he was receiving were actually from David Berkowitz. But there was a connection there. Author Mori Tiri claimed that John Carr went by the nickname Wheaties, and a line in one of the Son of Sam letters reads, John Wheaties, rapist and suffocator of young girls. We don't know more about that nickname,

although the Carr brothers had a sister whose first name is Wheat. John Carr looked pretty similar to a couple of the Son of Sam's sketches, especially the ones created following the attack on Stacey Moskowitz and Bobby Violanti. But there was one glaring issue with John Carr, being involved in the Son of Sam crimes. In the mid-1970s, he lived in Minot, North Dakota, 1,600 miles across the country. But according to reports,

he did frequently travel back to New York during the Son of Sam crime spree. John Carr was working as a mechanic at the Minot Air Force Base during that time, and it might be easy to write John Carr off as not being involved in the Son of Sam crime, since he lives so far away. But his part in the son of Sam Saga is dramatic enough to maybe hold back from doing that.

On February 17, 1978, this was about six months after David Berkowitz was arrested, John Carr was found dead in his girlfriend's Minot apartment. He had apparently shot himself with a rifle. And it seemed like a clear-cut case of. suicide. But less than 24 hours later, Carr's girlfriend came to police asking them to investigate his death as a murder. She told them that Carr had been in fear for his life prior to being found shot. Perhaps most interesting of all was that a Son of Sam symbol, like the one included in the letter to reporter Jimmy Breslin from Son of Sam, was found scrawled on Carr's phone book.

A friend of Carr's in Minot reported that he had walked into his own house, and found Carr and another man conducting some sort of ritualistic sacrifice of an animal on his kitchen floor. Needless to say, this friend wasn't too happy with John Carr. In research for his books about the son of Sam case, Mori Terry extensively looked into the Carr brothers' backgrounds and found evidence that they were both involved in a satanic cult. It was Michael Carr that allegedly introduced David Berkowitz to this satanic cult in 1975. At 4 a.m. on October 4th, 1979, two years after Berkowitz was arrested, Michael Carr was driving at a high rate of speed on a New York highway when he struck a light post and was killed instantly.

There were no witnesses to the accident. So you have to talk about this. We have two brothers alleged by some people to have some involvement in the son of of Sam attacks, and both of these brothers are found dead within 18 months of each other. I think it's those type of things, morph that lead to conspiracy theories, right? People grab onto things like that and say, wow, that can't be a coincidence, right? Two brothers killed within 18 months of each other. I think the key word you just used was killed because they weren't.

It's not like they were old and ill. They were young. And to die under those violent circumstances, it makes you wonder. Yeah, I guess that was kind of a strange word for me to use. You know, the first brother, it appeared to be suicide. The second brother, it appeared to be an accident. But to a conspiracy theorist, those two deaths could be explained as somebody taking them out because they knew too much.

We've all seen the movies that involve conspiracy theories. I think that's a pretty easy leap for somebody that believes in this type of conspiracy theory to make. And it's not like David Berkowitz didn't know the Carr brothers. It was in depositions given by David Berkowitz in 1978 and 1982 that he admitted knowing the Car Brothers. and he verified that they were part of a satanic cult. Berkowitz also stated that the brothers were killed to silence them. He also claimed that there were women involved in the son of Sam attacks. There was other people involved at a higher level that were into pedophilia, drug dealing.

I'm talking like major drug dealing, you know, human trafficking. Kids were being coerced from 42nd Street in Manhattan. And basically, you know, pimps were procuring these kids to have sex with rich and famous people. That's all true. It's documented. And these were all all part of the quote unquote son of Sam cult or, you know, Satanic cult, the 22 disciples of hell. There was a lot of rich and famous people that were involved. They weren't involved in the shooting.

Don't get me wrong. But, you know, the people that did the people. shootings were kind of like the foot soldiers for the rich and famous. You know, like any other cult, you know, you get people who are, you know, disenfranchised from, from society. You know, they don't have any friends. They, you know, they can't, they can't get a date. They join like a cult and it's like all of a sudden there's girls, there's drugs.

You're being invited to parties in the mansion in the Hampton. take any cult and you look at its members. And it's usually people who, you know, are searching for something that something's missing in their life. And that Barcovic certainly fits that mold. If I'm not mistaken, there's 18 people who have been identified as, you know, cult members, friends of the cult, cult members that have turned up dead. I'm trying to think, I want to say this 18 people, I believe in four years.

years that met an untimely death. And most of them were very strange deaths. For example, there was a couple whose bodies were found with the blood, all their blood drained from the bodies. There's another couple who supposedly was involved in making a snuff film, who was found with a bullet in the back of their heads and the apartment ransacked. Of course, You got the two Carr brothers, which Michael Carr and John Carr, who lived down the street from Berkowitz's apartment. Trust me, I don't have all the answers as to why people did what they did, but I could certainly lay out enough circumstantial evidence that would lead the, I think, most people

to say, you know, there's something here, something more has got to be investigated. There's too many coincidences. from the ballistics person to Barkowitz saying on national TV, I did not shoot Carl DeNarrell, but I know who did, and it's a woman. And I know two women who were involved in the shootings, either as a lookout or a participant. And one of them is very handy with a gun. She actually, at one point in her life,

she actually sold ammunition online. she was married to a cop she knows her way around guns and my guess is she's a pretty good shot so I have eliminated her I mean I guess there's a small percentage that it could be

she just had a bad night my guess it's the other woman who didn't have experience with guns was an avowed Satanist and she actually had you know way back way back when she actually had a public

Access TV show where she advertises itself as a Satanist and a witch. I know who she is. I know where she lives. She's about, let me say, she's about 72 now. I don't know if I'm going to name her. I'm not going to name her now. I am writing a book. If the editors let me state her name, I probably will because my goal at this stage of the game

is to rattle cages, because that's the only way this case is going to ever be reopened. Either, you know, someone on their deathbed, someone gets a guilty conscience, or you're rattling up cages where people start getting nervous. So is there any truth to any of this? Is this just a case of satanic panic or a convenient scapegoat for Berkowitz's twisted deeds? And more, if you and I are both old enough to remember the days of satanic panic, It was pretty widespread. It was on the news.

You know, it really got to the point where you couldn't escape it. From the media's point of view, it was thought to be going on all over the place. At least that's what I remember. I just remember it being so pervasive in the media. Oh my gosh, you got to watch out. Everybody's into Satan. They're looking to sacrifice people. it really got out of control.

Yeah, I remember in the 1980s that the panic that was going on and they were labeling CDs because they thought that there was satanic messages in the music. I'm too young to remember a lot of what was going on in the 70s because I was just a kid back then, but I do remember some of those movies like The Omen and The Exorcist and things like that, and you wonder if that fed into any kind of satanic panic that was going on. I think it all fed. I think the movies, some of the heavy metal rock bands and their lyrics, I just think it was an easy way for some people to explain the bad things that were going on in the world. And I'm not saying that there wasn't some of this going on.

I just, it was so widespread. It kind of became this catch-all phrase, right? For anything bad that happened, oh, it must be. satanic panic, there are just some bad people, man, that do really bad things. And not everything is related to some type of satanic worship or it's just not. But if there was any truth in this, Untermeier Park and Yonkers may hold the answers. Samuel Untermeier was a prominent attorney and socialite in New York City in the late 18th. and early 1900s. He created this place called the Untermeyer Gardens. It was basically his gift to

his neighbors. It was filled with lush green hedges, shrubs, plants. It was dotted with statues, columns and buildings. I think more if this, it was kind of a really amazing type of place, this gardens that Untermeyer built. But by the 19th, during this time that the son of Sam attacks were occurring, the park had fallen into disarray. Lack of funds to keep it maintained. It eventually turned into an eyesore. People went there, tagged it with graffiti. There were seedy characters roaming through these gardens.

It literally became the stuff of nightmares. This was the place you didn't want to go to at night. Now, this park was located a mile and a half north in Yonkers from where David Berkowitz and Sam Carr lived. It was definitely satanic practices going on and onto my apart. That, I mean, that that was actually proven in 1970 by NYPD detective Jim Rothstein. He knew all about it in 1970. It's six years before the first son of Sam shooting. So, you know, it's definitely, it's definitely.

true. In the 1970s, a series of strange occurrences involving Untermeier Park raised concern for area of residents. Workers on the overnight shift at neighboring St. John's Hospital frequently claimed to see torch flames moving deep within the woods. Strange Channing was also frequently heard, and the park's old abandoned pump house became referred to locally as Devil's Cave. And we know that we have a lot of listeners that are animal lovers. So we just want to give you a word of warning that in this next part we'll be talking about animals being harmed. A 1976 police report documents the finding of carefully mutilated German shepherd bodies in the aqueduct south of the park. And in August of 1977, the day after Berkowitz was arrested, two boys playing in the park found three dead German shepherds partially buried.

One had been shot in the head and two others strangled with chains. So if we take all of the information that we've covered in these episodes, what do we have? Do we have all the pieces of the puzzle in the son of Sam Case? That's the question. Did David Berkowitz act alone? Or was he part of a satanic cult that hatched a plan to kill people? Or again, is that just another byproduct of the time and that whole satanic panic theory? I think one thing that's very telling to me, Morf, is that after David Berkowitz was imprisoned for the son of Sam attacks, the Queens

District Attorney's Office made it note that they wanted to question the men seen in the various composite sketches. So that is telling, right? At some point, the attorney's office thought there's some other people out there possibly. and we should be looking for them. I mean, make of that what you will. Yeah, it makes you wonder if David Berkowitz acted alone. Why are they looking for these other guys? And again, I think it's another one of those things that helps feed into the conspiracy theories.

Just like you said, why would they be wanting to talk to other people if David Berkowitz acted alone and committed all these crimes. The DA's office also wanted to speak to the owner or driver of the yellow Volkswagen that was seen so many times. Although that owner or driver never came forward, a witness got a partial plate number for the car. That plate ended with 4GUR or 4GVR. I think in so many episodes, Mike, we talk about these cars that stand out and may provide

leads in a case, but they never go anywhere. here we have a yellow Volkswagen and four of the six characters of the license plate, yet that still didn't lead to it being identified. And maybe more, if that goes to the fact of probably just how many yellow Volkswagen there may have been at the time, I mean, Volkswagen bugs were an extremely popular model, right? Back in the day, they got popular again when they came out with them, kind of rebooted them. kind of rebooted them, but, you know, you think Bundy.

You know, you kind of think 70s as a time where 60s and 70s, there were a lot of Volkswagen Beatles sold in the United States, a lot. And I don't know if we have any old-time New York City police out there listening, but I'd be curious how the tracking of license plates went back then, because to me it seems if you have four of six digits of a yellow Volkswagen. You know, I don't know what the process was, but it doesn't seem like it'd be all that hard to track down based on, on that information. But for some reason, they never did find that owner.

And maybe it just goes to the technology, which you and I have talked about many times. Today, if you had those four, could you get there? I'm sure there's a computer program that could give you all the possible combinations that involved those four or the other four, right? 4G-U-R or 4G-V-R. I don't think they had that back then. And I think a lot of that stuff was done by hand, by looking through lists.

That's my assumption. I could be wrong. Despite the dead ends and the lack of any solid proof of a satanic cult or conspiracy in the son of Sam attacks, that hasn't stopped Carl from trying to uncover what he feels is the truth. I don't know how this thing is going to end up. It might, it might stay the same for forever and ever.

I'm not really sure how to break the case wide open, but I'm going to, I'm going to keep trying. One thing we asked Carl was if this satanic cult is still out there, or people that were involved in a conspiracy back in 1976 or 1977, are still around. And if so, aren't you worried about something happening to you, the way it happened to people who were possibly silenced years ago?

I've been asked that question a few times. And my answer to that is, at this stage of the game, you know, 40 some odd years later, if I publicly accuse somebody of being a shooter, my guess is they would spend their time defending themselves and saying, what, are you crazy? It's like, you know, I own this flower shop and, you know, I'm 70 years old. This guy's out of his mind as opposed to coming after me to shut me up.

Because if someone shuts me up, that's the case. You know, trust me, I don't want that case to be rattled. But if someone comes after me, you know, to, to shut me up, that's a big cage to rattles. I think that would, that would open up a lot of eyes saying, you know, maybe this guy's not full, you know, full of it. Maybe he's on to something. So my guess is these people, anyone that's still alive that was involved would go the

route of saying, I don't know what you're talking about. You know, that was 40 years ago. I don't even, you know, I didn't even live there or whatever excuse they want to use. I think that would be the easiest route for them to take. So in that respect, I'm not really nervous. But again, I haven't released any name, so it's easy for me not to be nervous. That might change. It's one thing for people to speculate about David Berkowitz being part of a cult or conspiracy.

But in the 1990s, David Berkowitz sat down with Mori Terry face-to-face and talked about his alleged cold activities and co-conspirators. Berkowitz accepted responsibility for the murders of Don Alouria in the first son of Sam attack and for Alexander Esau and Valentina Suriani in the 6th attack. But he denied pulling the trigger in all of the other son of Sam attacks. He even claimed that some of the others involved in the conspiracy were women. Was that shooting done by one? I was there at all of them in the area and scouting.

I had a part. I'm responsible for my involvement of those things. And, you know, definitely yield. Some people had other ideas. I guess that's what was decided upon with just kind of like a madman on the loose type of thing. I didn't have any real friends. I didn't have any real hope or future or gold in mind at the time, just going from day to day. And I felt alienated.

Berkowitz claimed that he met the Carr brothers, and that was the introduction that set him on an evil and irreversible course. I met him at that party, and we just kind of got acquainted. He was basically an outgoing guy with a lot of zip, you know, a lot of wild crazy ideas. We began to talk about the occult that just came up. I was kind of like a misfit at the party. I didn't know anybody. So I was just hanging out over there. and he you know he started the rap and one thing led to another

wanted to take me to this park you know and meet some people rolling deeper into the Westchester group was a mixture of more hardcore individuals and they were known as the process in general terms of they didn't really use that name a lot I mean this is not just something they were doing for any type of necessary pleasure but that was just a part of of an agenda, a very deep, covert and hidden agenda, you know, they were about making war. And they believed that the end of the world would come around the year 2000. And they believed that Jehovah and Lucifer and Satan were working together to bring about

terrible cataclysmic events. And these people were, based on that belief, they were working with Satan, got involved in this. I never knew that I was going to become a murderer. I never knew that I was going to hurt anybody. I just joined for a thrill, looking for some friends, looking for some companionship, looking for some fun or whatever.

You know, I was bored. I was lonely. Now, you heard Berkowitz in that clip mention the process church. The process was a religious group established in the mid-60s, and they had a reputation as being a cult, that was investigated for crimes including murder. In fact, there were some ties between members of the Manson family and the process church. It's also important to note that other people backed up claims made by David Berkowitz.

One of them was a man who wanted to have his identity disguised. He later identified for police, the owner of the home, where, he said the Son of Sam crimes were initially planned. And as we talked about earlier, many of the people that were alleged to have been involved in the planning of the Son of Sam murders met with untimely and violent deaths. The question that jumps out to me is what reason would Berkwoods have the lie to Mori Tiri about being involved in a satanic cult? He was already in prison for life and in his own words, to Mori Terry, he said as much. I'm doing life without parole, and that's the real deal.

I'm doing consecutive life sentences totaling more than 300 years. There is a parole hearing in the year 2002, but that's not a parole hearing to go out into the street. That's just a parole hearing to sign me over to begin to do my next life sentence. So according to the way the law is, I have to do one life sentence after another, which means in all reality, I'm never getting out. And for me, this is the crux of it. Statements that David Berkowitz has made, you know, after being in prison, what's the truth? And to your point, Morf, what does he have to lie about it? Now, I think a lot of

people might make the argument that he wants to stay relevant, right? What else does he? have. He's in prison. He's lost his freedom. But the one thing that he can do is get someone to listen to him, say some things that maybe nobody's heard before. And that brings him back into the spotlight. Well, what's a better way to do that than to talk about the fact that these son of Sam murders that were committed were all part of a big satanic cult. I think you see that a lot with some of these infamous killers. I go back to Bundy. Bundy did a number of interviews as his time in prison progressed and he made a lot of claims. I think specifically more if I remember the one where, you know, he was talking about pornography and how, you know, that was really the root of all of his issues. Again, I don't know. I don't know.

what's true and what's not true a lot of times when it comes to what these guys talk about. But what I do believe deep down is that they crave the spotlight because they don't have anything else. People at some point start to forget about them a little bit, right? Nobody really ever forgets about Ted Bundy. Nobody ever really forgets about David Berkowitz. But the media dies down, the circus leaves town, and you just wonder how much of this has to do with them wanting to get back into the public eye. The issue for me personally, and maybe for listeners, is that David Berkowitz has changed his story multiple times in the last three decades, so it's hard to know what's true and what's not. And when he's conning people or

if he's telling something that's truthful. And I think that's one of the biggest issues with a lot of these killers. They flip-flop. They change. Are they looking for the next outrageous thing? And whatever that is, maybe contradicts what they've said before, but they don't care because they know this is going to get air time. It's going to put them back in the national spotlight. As we mentioned in part two of our son of Sam coverage, David Berkowitz today is at peace and claims to have found and been saved by Jesus. If he was ever truly involved in anything satanic, it appears as if he has left that behind. And I think appears as the key word there. Morf, a lot of these guys and women, for that matter, seem to find religion after they're incarcerated. And again, it's like with everything with these

people. I don't know what's real. I don't know what's not real. It may be absolutely true that David Berkowitz is a changed person. He's found religion in prison. But if you were to let David Berkowitz go right now and he hit the streets, does that found religion follow him? Or is he looking to do something, commit some type of crime immediately. I have a hard time believing what most of these killers say. One interesting thing that I noticed, you can find lots of videos about David Berkowitz and some of these interviews that he's done over the years from 1977 until now. And if you look at the early videos, he has that crazy-eyed look and he sounds pretty irrational. But when you look at him in his later years, he seems controlled, calm,

rational. So I wonder if that is a sign of true change, or could that be some kind of act? I think it's a great point. You know, maybe he really has changed. You know, one of the cases that I kind of go back to when it comes to this issue is actually a woman. And Gibby and I covered it on true crime all the time. It's a case of Carla Faye Tucker. You know, when she was a young girl or a young adult, she was wild. She was on drugs. She killed people with a pickax and was sentenced to death. Later in life, after she was incarcerated, she claimed to have found religion. And it was pretty well documented. I mean, from everything you read. If she was putting on an act, it was an Oscar worthy performance.

That was a case where I truly felt like she was repentant. She felt bad. She had changed her ways. Now, at the same time, I don't, I don't believe she ever should have been let go. And she wasn't. The question in that case was, should she have been put to death, right? She was sentenced to death. And if she had not changed her ways, I don't know if anybody would have,

have really cared all that much. But because she was so outspoken in her faith, there was a lot of people. Morphan, I know you remember that case that came to her side and rallied against the death penalty for Carla Faye Tucker. Now, I don't think anybody is saying that David Berkowitz should go free. I don't think anybody's saying that. So, Morph, I think as we go into wrapping up this episode, just, you know, kind of let's give our final thoughts on, on this case for me. And I said it right up front. David Berkowitz has always been a guy that has truly fascinated me from the crimes that he committed, which I think are scary in the in the fact that they were random, supposedly. I mean, as far as we know,

right, there's never been any connection as far as I know between David. Berkowitz and any of his victims. And I think those are scary types of crimes. You know, you're sitting in a car with someone. Maybe you're doing a little kissy face. And out of nowhere, somebody walks up and starts shooting. I mean, you can say the same about the Zodiac. A lot of these Lovers Lane type cases, those are scary because of the randomness of it all. And then what's probably even more fascinating is when you find out what kind of fueled David Berkowitz, right? The, the letter writing and the son of Sam, Harvey, all of that. It's an interesting study. And I think it has been studied extensively by, you know, mental health professionals,

by criminologists, by a lot of people. This is a case that people have spent a lot of time combing through. Yeah, I agree with everything you've said. And to me, just the added layer of terror because I felt like the son of Sam attacks were an act of terror. When you can scare the residents of New York City and panic an entire city like that with that many people in it, it shows the power that the randomness of it all and the scary letters that he wrote, it shows what kind of impact that had on that city. And luckily,

he was caught because if he wasn't, we'd be here over four decades later talking about who was he, how did he get away with his crimes. I think when you see a capture of the person and you get to see what made them tick, you get a better understanding of why they did what they did. And it's very fascinating. And I also think it's important that this case has been studied so much, right? Law enforcement, mental health professionals, I think have learned from this case and other cases like it. And hopefully that has helped in the years since the son of Sam Killings to better identify people to better help people. I don't know what all it's done. But hopefully if there's any good that has come out of it, it's something like that. But you mentioned New York City,

Morph. And I think we talked about it. New York City is almost like a character in this story. The fact that one man, if it was one man, right, depending on what you believe in, could paralyze a city the size of New York City. That's unbelievable. And you just touched on something, the question of whether it was one man. I don't know that I'm in a camp where I think there's a conspiracy in the case, but there are some questions which I think I agree with Carl on that need to be looked into a little bit more because some things don't seem to fit quite well into the entire Son

of Sam puzzle. And I think that's what you need to start a... conspiracy theory, right? You need questions that either haven't been answered or are uneasily answered. Special thanks to Carl De Naro for joining us in our son of Sam coverage. We spent a couple hours talking in depth with him about this case and how it affected his life. If you're a Patreon supporter, keep an eye on Patreon because that interview in its entirety will be out soon. It's a fascinating conversation. And Carl really goes in depth about some of the alleged satanic cult involvement.

Obviously, we could only put so much of it into the episodes. The interview was very long and in depth. You can also check out Carl's Facebook group he helps run called the official Mori Terry, the Ultimate Evil, Son of Sam, and Beyond group. Thanks also goes out 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 yet and you love the show, go out, give us a five-star rating. We love all the interaction on social media.

We love the fact that people continue to tell their friends about the show. Word of mouth really plays a big part in helping criminology grow. And if you're active on social media, we'd love to hear from you. You can find us on Twitter with the handle at Criminology Pod. We're also on Facebook. Just search Facebook for Criminology Podcasting. You'll find us. You can also join our Facebook discussion group, which is called Criminology Podcast, Discussion and Fans.

All right, Morph, so that is it for our three-part coverage on David Berkowitz, son of Sam. I think 40 plus years later, right, people are still fascinated by this guy, what drove him to do, what he did, it just shows you the impact that he had on not just New York City, because that impact was huge, but really the impact that he had on a much bigger scale. But that's it for another episode of criminology. We'll be back with you next Saturday night with a brand new episode. So for Mike and Morph. We'll talk to you next week.

Take care, everyone. Thank you.