True Crime All The Time - David Berkowitz "Son of Sam"

Episode Date: September 25, 2017

David Berkowitz would terrorize New York City in 1976 and 1977, murder 6 people, injure even more, and would become known as "The .44 Caliber Killer" and "The Son of Sam". Berkowitz would target women with long dark hair prompting women all over New York City to cut their hair, dye their hair, or wear wigs to stay off the killer's radar.Join Mike and Gibby as they discuss this infamous serial killer from NYC. Berkowitz blamed his killings on demonic possession and say that he took orders to kill from a neighbor's dog. The reasons he gave for the murders and the media hype surrounding the panic in New York City would propel his infamy. You can help support the show by going to patreon.com/truecrimeallthetimeVisit the show's website at truecrimeallthetime.com for contact and merchandise information.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

and welcome to episode 46 of the True Crime All the Time podcast. I'm Mike Ferguson and with me as always is my partner in true crime, Mike Gibson, Gibby. What's going on? Hey, man, how you doing? I'm doing good. Good. I'm doing good.

Me too. We still got to work on that, man. There's got to be something. I still like it when you say, man. Man. Hey. I'm doing good. I'm rested.

Just got back from Pittsburgh. Yeah, you were in Pittsburgh this week on a little business. They're on a little business and us. That was good. Good trip. So let's start with our Patreon shoutouts. This week we have Karen Spence, Lori Johnson jumped out at our highest contributor level. We have Jorgian Valin.

Jorgian. Yorgian. Taylor Honea. Hugo Santiago. Froggy Bar, which has caused some speculation between you and I. I wonder if they know Toadpole. What the hell is Toadpole? You know.

froggy, toad, bar, pole. I don't know how your mind works. It probably worked better with you if I said toad pub. Toad pub? Oh, okay, pub as in bar. Yeah. You said pole. Well, pull.

You got a pole, you know, like a long pole or you have a long bar. Oh, yeah. Okay. Yeah. So my mind works many different directions at one time. Yeah, those things weren't correlating in any way, shape, or form. Yeah. But froggy bar.

Froggy bar is either a completely made up name. Yeah, frog demon slash K bar combined. A combination of gibbianized words. Yeah. Which is probably most likely what it is. Could be. Or a real bar. I don't know.

Or a real bar out there, which would be cool. Froggy. Maybe it is a real person. Maybe somebody's like, dude, you're messing with my name. It's Froggy Bar. I've been Froggy Bar since I was born. Long story.

Don't ask. It's been uncomfortable all my life. In the beginning, I was tadpole bar. Yeah, I've just worked my way. And now I'm Froggy Bar. Yeah. So we have Kristen Smith, Nicole Patterson, Emma Lamont jumped out at our highest contributor level as well. Karen Clyde, Samantha S jumped out at our highest level plus a dollar because she just wanted to do a mic drop and walk off.

Yeah. And she did. And she did. She did it. That's how she did it. She's been very active on social media. Got a lot of good case suggestions from her. So appreciate that.

And then last but not least, we have. Nancy Brooks. So I want to give just a huge shout out to all of our new Patreon supporters. Thank you. As well as all the people that have continued to support us on Patreon. And speaking of that, Gibbs, let's go back in the vault. So this week we picked Jordan Solier. Easy for you to say. And I don't know if that's correct or not because, you know, back in the day when Jordan first became a Patreon supporter, I don't think we were saying last names at that point. I don't know. I can't remember when we started that. Yeah, I probably wasn't, you know, giving you the pronunciation of those.

I know. Back then. I know. You weren't helping me to get them all right. Right. But appreciate Jordan. Been with us a long time. You know, it really means a lot.

And then I've got to give a big shout out to Maggie Gibbs. She did a lot of great work on this episode. And so huge ups. Thanks to her. I think she hangs out at Froggy's Bar. She might hang out at Froggy's Bar. Yeah. All right.

So Gibbs, we've got the new stickers are in with the new logo. Sharp. They look good. By the time this episode drops, they should be out on the merchandise website, still waiting on the t-shirts, mugs, mouse pads, stuff like that with our logo on it. But we'll make an announcement. And those will go out as well. When you're done listening to this episode, make sure you jump over.

Check out true crime all the time unsolved. this week's episode is on Patty Rebholtz. This is a case that's pretty close to home, not a hometown case, but down in Cincinnati. Yeah, it's a little south of us. 30, 40 minutes away, not too far. Yeah. And Patty was a 15-year-old high school cheerleader back in the 60s when she disappeared. And then the case kind of unfolds from there and, you know, suspects and kind of all,

all the things that we normally do with an unsolved case. rolls kind of forward to more current events to today. Yeah. Which a lot of them that we've been doing have. You know, they've had activity that is current. You know, these are not, I mean, they're cold cases. Don't get me wrong, but they're not cold as in nothing has happened since. Active cold cases.

Yeah. Nothing has happened since the 60s or the 50s or whatever. All right, Gibbs, you ready to get into this episode of True Crime all the time. Let's do it. Let's do it. It's David. Berkowitz, son of Sam. Son of Sam. Some of Sam. We've had a lot of requests for this one. And I like it. I think it's a fascinating

case. You know, David Berkowitz is going to get a whole bunch of different nicknames. We talk about nicknames a lot when it comes to, you know, these type of killers. You know, he's going to be called the 44 caliber killer. Eventually he's going to be known as the son of Sam. That's the one that's going a stick for the rest of his days. Well, they probably ran out of 44 calibers and had to go with Son of Sam. Yeah. That makes total sense. I'm sure that's why they did it.

That's probably what happened. But Berkowitz would ultimately murder six people in the New York City area during the 1976-77 time frame. So we're talking about bicentennial here, Gibbs. Yeah, we are. But what Berkowitz would do is, you know, he would fill the city. with a tremendous amount of fear. Because we're talking about New York City,

a big city with a killer on the loose, with the M.O. that we're going to talk about that Berkowitz had. It was frightening to people. And the media would help fuel this fear. And they would really play a big part in David Berkowitz becoming the infamous serial killer that he becomes.

Because if you think about it, and I'm not diminishing the six murders at all, but number wise, you know, that doesn't put him in the category of some of the big timers. But you're talking New York City, you're talking an incredible media hype. And he, he does become kind of in that echelon of infamous serial killers. Yeah, he picks up his own momentum. Yeah, he definitely does. There's no doubt about it. And you know, because we're talking about New York, there's going to be some Seinfeld references. Of course. There always is when you're talking about New York killers. Right. They seem to have played off of that in a lot of episodes. You know, we talked about that with

Joel Rifkin and, and there's some other killers as well. It's one man and, you know, could be anybody in the street, you know? Everybody looks suspicious. Walk in the street and everybody looks suspicious. You're so scared. You say maybe it's him, you know. I wouldn't even let the car warm up anymore. I'd take right off. Did you used to sit in Plenty of times. Me and her used to have our best conversations in a car. Not anymore. I won't stay in a car. I'm too worried. How about you? How do you feel about it? Well, now, you know, very frightened, especially that I have brown hair. You know, I'm afraid to walk out at night. Che used to, you know, walk out, and I wasn't afraid, but now that that guy is loose. I thought about the 44-caller killer every day since it happened. I go to beauty school up the block, and most of the girls are.

wearing the hair record because they're afraid of a 44-caliber killer. They wear it up. One thing that I really don't do anymore is since podcast. So I like those series of clips, Gibbs, because it really gives you some great insight as to how the general public was feeling as this was going on. So I wanted to kind of start out with that as a primer for this case. But we first have to talk about David Berkowitz. You know, he was born June 1st, 1953.

in Brooklyn, New York, and he was born under the name Richard David Falco. His birth mother was a woman named Elizabeth Broder, and she grew up in a poor Jewish family, and she married an Italian-American man named Tony Falco in 1936. They were married for less than four years when he left Elizabeth for another woman. So you fast forward about 10 years, and Elizabeth Broder is dating America. married man by the name of Joseph Kleinman. And she actually dated this guy for about three years, I believe. But she became pregnant. And she had the child and gave the child the name of her previous husband that she hadn't been married to for 12, 13 years. So this is how David Berkowitz was born

Richard David Falco. Now, I think there's a lot of reasons why she would have wanted to give him this name, none of them probably having to do with the fact that she had any type of strong feelings for this Falco guy, right? She hadn't been with him for a very long time. It's probably more to the fact that she was dating a married man and she couldn't give him this guy's last name. But either way, no matter what the reason behind the name, she gives the child up for adoption just a few days after he was born. And again, that's probably due to the fact that the baby was born out of this affair with a married man. So David Berkowitz is adopted by a couple, Nathan and Pearl Berkowitz, who lived in the Bronx. They had been unable to have children of their own. They own some

hardware shops in town. And after the adoption, they changed his name from Richard David, Falco to David Richard Berkowitz, essentially flopping the first two names and then giving him their last name. He was their only child. And when you talk about the childhood of David Berkowitz, it was tumultuous. Now, it was said that he had above average intelligence, but he started committing crimes at an early age. You know, he was into petty larceny. He was a pyromaniac. He liked to start fires. And, And we know Gibbs what that means in a lot of cases. That's usually a precursor for bad things to come.

And a good deaf leopard song. It is a good deaf leopard song. You know somebody out there as soon as you said that, Pyromania, in their head, they... That's the first thing they thought of, probably. He's singing those lyrics, banging those drums. Now, they have to be of a certain age, though. Yeah. That's the thing.

We have a lot of young listeners who just said, who the hell is deaf leopard? They just Googled it and found that. Now they're rocking out. Yeah, with that one-armed drummer. Putting on their headband and their spandex. What's wrong with that? Nothing, dude. I wish you wouldn't wear it in the studio, but other than that, I have nothing against it.

Makes me feel good. And that's all that matters. So getting back to his childhood, he's a loner. And that's never good. We talk about that from time to time. Not that it means you're going to go on to kill anybody. But a lot of times when we're talking about the background of these killers, it's a lot of the same thing.

You know, they're loners. He like to bully people. That's not a good sign. He liked to start fires. So you've got some things kind of ticking off against him. Now, Nathan and Pearl, they spoiled David. And it's pretty hard to blame them. This is a couple who could not have children of their own.

They're blessed with this adopted baby. They're going to spoil him. Right. I mean, I think that's pretty natural. I don't know what that was. would have played into what he's going to become, but he doesn't do well in school. He gets in trouble in school a lot. And as a teenager, his adopted mother, Pearl, dies from cancer. And it was said that this greatly affected him. You know, apparently he was very close to Pearl, not quite as

close to his dad, although he would say in later interviews that his adoptive father was a good dad. It's just that he worked a lot. He was working at these hardware stores. He wasn't around as much as Pearl was. So David was very close to Pearl. And when she died, I think that was a big tragedy in his life. His adoptive father, Nathan, would remarry. And it was said that David didn't get along at all with this stepmother. You know, they moved to a better part of town. But later on, Gibbs, David Berkowitz is going to talk about his early childhood and say that from a pretty early age, he believed that he was possessed by Satan. I was born in 1953 in Brooklyn, New York, and taken right home to the Bronx. I was adopted right at birth by Nathan and Pearl Berkowitz, and I lived in the Soundview section of the Bronx.

We lived in a small apartment in a six-story tenement building. Around the age of five, I began to experience a lot of emotional problems and inner struggles. I began to have various emotional and psychological problems I was not behaving and not growing up as a normal child. There was this dark, evil, satanic pull in my life, even since I was a child. As I got older, I began to run the streets, hanging out with some of the older teenagers. I felt these urges to jump in front of cars or to jump off a walk bridge. Now, what normal child would have these kind of desires, these self-destructive things?

And now I learned that this was demonic, that I was demon-possessed. And I believe that with all my heart. So at an early age, he had thoughts about jumping off of buildings, jumping in front of cars. I mean, he's basically saying he had some thoughts that were not normal, Gibbs.

Not by anybody standards. No, they're really not. Now, he's saying that as he looks back on it, he now knows that this was demonic possession. Yeah, so he can say it's that. Or, you know, I mean, it can be multiple things, right? It could be demonic thing that he said. Or it could be something non-demonic, just people depressed. You know, you can be depressed and want to throw yourself in front of a car, jump off a building.

Work good with what he feels right now. So in 1971, Berkowitz is 18 years old and he joins the army. Now, he doesn't go over to Vietnam, but he does serve in the United States and eventually in South Korea. And one thing, probably the only important thing about his time in the military, was that it was later said that he was a very proficient marksman. So he was a good with his weapon. He was a good shot. Yeah. And that's going to come back into play.

We taught him. The U.S. Army taught him how to shoot. Right. He was honorably discharged in 1974. And, you know, again, Gibbs, you and I talk about in a lot of cases, these people being in the military. But I didn't see in any of the research where Berkowitz had a lot of issues in the military. I actually think he served well. I think he did well there.

You know, and after getting out of the army, he goes back home to New York. And one of the things that he does is he finds his birth mother, Elizabeth. He meets with her a couple of times and he learns some things about himself. He learns that he was born out of wedlock. And we're talking 1974. I think that happens a little bit more today, maybe than it did back then. I don't know the statistics. I think the stigma Gibbs, at least from my perception, is a little different today than it was back then.

Yeah, I'm not sure if it happens more or not, but I think you're exactly right. There was a stigma back then. I think. Oh, sure. Yeah. In a negative way. Yeah. Like, it had a negative connotation for somebody to say that you were born out of wedlock. Bastard child. Or you're a bastard child. That's where I, yeah. But today, I think it happened. And again, I don't know the statistics. I don't know if it happens more often. But I will definitely say, I don't think the stigma is there in the same way. Now you're just a bastard. There's a whole bunch of people out there saying, Gibby just called me a bastard. You bastards. John Snow, man. But the one thing that this did is, you just a bastard. You bastards. John Snow, man. But the one thing that this did is. is Berkowitz finding this out, it upsetting because he felt like it was a mark of shame upon him. Now, he knew he was adopted, but finding out that he was born out of wedlock prior to the adoption, I guess kind of made him feel a certain way. Well, and I'm sure it made him feel a certain way about his mom as well.

Well, it did because, you know, he kind of ends up not talking to her anymore after finding this out. But he did keep in contact with one of his half sisters named Roslin. But it's around this same time that Berkowitz starts meeting people that were involved in the occult. And he would develop a fascination with this. You heard him talk about the fact that he believed he was having some strange feelings as a very young child. But now as an adult, he's actually willingly getting into some of this occult type stuff. And what he would later say was that this helped him fill.

some type of void that he felt and that he would actually surrender his soul to the devil. I mean, those were his words. Yikes. To fill this void. Never, ever, ever, ever, ever do that. Don't, yeah, don't do that. Don't make a deal with the devil. Never.

It's never going to work out in your favor. I can tell you that right now. Well, I mean, it worked out for the guy from, you know, old brother, we're out, you're out now. What was the movie called? Old brother. No. Just brother, where art thou? Oh, brother, where art thou?

Remember we met him at the intersection there, the country roads. Kind of like crossroads. Yeah. Play that guitar, man. Oh, I was just waiting for our first movie reference, and it was a good one. You know, there you go. Gibby, you're a man of constant sorrow. Yeah, there you go.

But getting back to Berkowitz, so he's getting into the occult. But at the same time, he gets a job at the U.S. Postal, service. Those two things don't seem to go hand in hand, at least I'll say it that way. Yeah. Interesting. And we talked about Seinfeld. So this is just a perfect place to talk about it. Because there was this episode where Newman, who, you know, obviously was a postal worker, he talks about taking over the route that Berkowitz had in the episode. And I think he even said something Gibbs about having his mailbag or it was. was something like that. Yeah, he had his rookie mailbag. Is that what it was? His rookie mailbag.

Yeah, if I remember right, because I think, uh, you know, Kramer was betting on what time flights would get in and out of an airport once and he brought that up as collateral. Man, I missed Seinfeld. It's still out there. No, you can still watch it, I know, but you can't see it for the first time. I was thinking about that the other day. What if you had the power to unsee or unlisten to episodes? So if I could go back and watch Dexter again from the beginning, having never seen it, wiped it from my memory, how cool would that be? You know, breaking bad. Your favorite podcasts. T-Cat.

T-Cat. Start fresh all over again. It would just be really cool. I don't have that power, though. So we got to get into David Berkowitz's crime spree. And his official crime spree, like we said, was 76, 77. He's going to leave New York in terror. and he's going to hit the boroughs of the Bronx, Queens, and Brooklyn.

Now, you heard it in that first clip about women talking about their hair. And the reason for that is because he had a preference for women with long, dark, wavy hair. And that's why you hear some of the women on the clip talking to the reporter about either cutting their hair or a lot of them were putting them up in buns. so that they just, it didn't appear that they had long hair. This is how the hair bun began. I don't think so, but. Oh, okay.

Maybe it was made more popular. I don't know. Most of his crime scenes are going to involve two victims, and some of these are going to be women sitting in their cars with their boyfriends. So in this respect, you've got a little Zodiac action going. Yeah, sounds like it. And he's also going to taunt the police, which is very Zodiac-esque as well.

And maybe it's one of the reasons why, this case does fascinate me because it has some parallels to Zodiac, which you know I'm fascinated by. Right. But David Berkowitz would later state in his own words that his crime spree actually started in December of 75. And he stabbed two women with a hunting knife, one who was never identified, and the other victim was named Michelle Foreman. And after he stabbed these women, he switched to using a handgun. And this is probably one of the reasons why this crime was not connected to what he's going to later do. Right.

Because we said he's known as the 44 caliber killer. Yeah. He wasn't known as the hunting knife stabber killer. Must have been too personal for him. You know, if it was his very first kill, which by his own words, it was. It's going to be more personal, right? I mean, there's no doubt about it. You're pushing pressure to cut through something versus just pulling a trigger.

You're basically almost touching the victim. Oh, you are. By the time you thrushed through, yeah. He didn't like how personal it was. And I'm speculating. We're speculating. Of course we are. But he does switch to using a handgun.

So there's a reason for it. Yeah. So like we said, he's not connected at all to these crimes, but soon after he committed these two murders, he moves to an apartment in Yonkers, which is just a little bit north of the New York City border. Yonkers. Just fun to say. Yonkers. It is a fun word to say, yonkers. So the first 44 caliber killer shooting happened in the Pelham Bay area of the Bronx on July 29th, 1976 at about 1.10 a.m. This is where I thought Gibbs you might talk about the taking of Pelham 1, 2, 3. Yeah, I was going to let that just ride. Oh, you just going to let it slide? Yeah. All right. So we have 18-year-old Donna Loria and her friend, 19-year-old. Jody Valenti, and they're sitting inside an Osmobile that belongs to Jody. They're sitting in the car.

They're talking about the night, because remember, this is 110 in the morning. They're talking about the night that they just had. They'd been out dancing at a local disco called Peach Trees. And as Donna opens the door to exit the vehicle, she sees a man coming towards the car very quickly. And she's shocked to see that this man's trying to sneak up on him. two women alone sitting in a car, she says something along the lines of, you know, what's this? What's going on? What do you want? And very quickly, the man pulls out a pistol from a paper bag,

crouch down. He braced one elbow on his knee, got in like a shooting stance. You know, if you can picture that where you, like in the old days where you crouch down and. Yeah, like a marksman's stance. Yeah. Yeah. So he does that and he fires. Don has hit with a bullet, killing her instantly. He then turns his attention to Jody, shoots her in the thigh. He fires a third bullet, which doesn't hit anything. And just like that, Berkowitz walks away from the scene quickly without ever having said a word. Now, luckily, Jody would survive this shooting. And this is where, you know, some of the information obviously comes from about what Donna said, about what they were talking about, all that stuff. She would go on to say that she did get a look at the killer, didn't know,

who it was, had never seen him before. The description that she would give was of a white male in his 30s, about 5-9, 160 pounds. He had short, dark, curly hair. And there were a couple of other people that would give this same description of a man that they witnessed near the scene. Donna's father, looking out the window, would actually see this man sitting in a yellow car, be able to give this very, very... same description. And there were some neighbors that also said that they saw a small yellow car

kind of driving around or trolling around the neighborhood Gibbs, I guess is what you'd have to call it, hours before the shooting happened. The next shooting would occur on October 23rd, 1976 in Brown Park, which is in Flushing Queens. And this would be another shooting in a secluded residential area, 20-year-old Carl De Niro and 18-year-old Rosemary Keenan were parked in Carl's car when all of a sudden the window shattered. You have to picture this scene, Gibbs. I mean, you'd be shitting yourself if all of a sudden a shot just rang out and tore through your window. I'm going to say, yeah, most people probably would. I know, not you because you would be calm and collected. Well, I do have that skill set. Yeah. You have a very specific skill.

set like Liam Neeson and Taken. I do. For anybody out there that wants to picture what Gibby's like in real life, just picture Liam Neeson in Taken, and that's all you need to know. But Carl, I mean, he does something kind of amazing. You know, he gets his wits about him very quickly and he starts the car and he takes off. Because he doesn't know what's going on. All he knows is that the window has exploded.

He's the, he's out. Yeah, he's gone. starts the car peels out I bet and gets the heck out of Dodge probably could peel out back then had some horsepower back then yeah back back back with the cars you know in those days couldn't pill out today taking the fun out of everything man I am well you could if you had a big time car but not most cars that we have so like I said Carl takes off I'm not even sure at that point that he knew that it was a gunshot that it had caused it all he knew was that the window had shattered But what Carl's going to figure out is that he's bleeding profusely from a head wound.

But I think shock, panic, whatever you want to call it, Gibbs, he's on autopilot. Like, he's just in shock and he doesn't really realize what's going on. He just knows he's got to get out. Rosemary was only hurt by the shattered glass. She wasn't actually shot. But Carl ends up with a metal plate in his head. This is how serious the gunshot wound is. is because they had to replace a chunk of his skull.

That's pretty serious there. Now, what we haven't talked about is 44 caliber is no joke. I mean, you get shot with a 44 caliber. It does a tremendous amount of damage. Hence, the hole in the skull. Yeah. I mean, that's how you get that. Now, neither one of them had seen who had shot at them.

Like I said, they didn't even really know it was a gunshot right at first. But they both survived. Police are able to pull some bullets. from the car, but they were pretty deformed. And they're not able to do a lot with them ballistically. But what they are able to tell is that these are 44 caliber bullets. And we know that's going to be a huge factor later because we're talking about the 44 caliber killer.

Yeah. Now, one thing we haven't talked about is Carl. Carl had long hair for a guy. And police would actually theorize in the beginning that the 44 caliber killer may have mistaken Carl for a woman because of the long hair. Should have wore it on a bun. Then he could have set the man bun trend early. Man bun.

Yeah, man bun. I wish I had enough hair to do a man bun. You wouldn't want a man bun. I'd wear it if I had enough hair. I don't give a shit. Now, Rosemary's father was a police detective with the NYPD. So just based on that, you know that they looked into this big time. Oh, yeah.

A police officer or detective's daughter is shot at. That's going to ratchet it up a little bit. It's going to get some extra attention on. Yeah. But there's really not much to work with. They don't come up with any motive. There's nobody that has a beef with Carl or Rosemary that they can think of. I mean, after all, this is random.

We know it's random. The police don't know that. So there's not a lot that they're going to have to work with. Now, there are some similarities between the two shootings, but not enough to where the police are able to make a connection. at this point. And one of the reasons for that is because each of the first two shootings happened in a different borough. And we're talking about New York City here. You know, we're not talking about small town USA where you would put something together very quickly. Yeah, I mean, heavy populated areas

for sure. Well, and how many shootings happened in the 1970s? Probably a lot, especially in different boroughs around the city. Yeah. It would be difficult to time together. Yeah. It really would. And even back then, I mean, the boroughs didn't really like each other. So a lot of the detectives from one borough, they didn't feel too compelled to help detect us from another borough. I didn't know you were such an expert on boroughs. NYPD politics and boroughs. Yeah, I've seen some TV my day. Brickland 9-9. So now we jump up to November 27, 1976, 16-year-old Donna Damasey and 18-year-old Joanne Lomino were walking home late at night. They had just come back from seeing a movie.

And they were sitting on Joanne's porch in Queens when a strange man walked up to them and asked for directions. He was wearing military fatigues. And it was said that he was using a very strange, very high-pitched voice and says, can you tell me how to get to? And when he got to that point, Gibbs, he whipped out a gun. shot each of the teens once and they fell to the ground. As they were on the ground, he stood over them and shot some more.

Now, we're talking about again, a residential area. There's neighbors all around. A neighbor hears the gunshots, goes outside to see what's going on, and the neighbor would report that they saw a blonde man rush by with a gun in his left hand. So emergency personnel get on scene. Donna is shot in the next. but she would survive this. Joanne was hit in the back and she would survive the shooting as well,

but she would end up as a paraplegic. So unbelievably fortunate that these two girls are shot the way they were and both of them survived. Very lucky. A few months go by with no new shootings until January 30th of 1977. So we're into the new year, 26 year old Christine Froon, and her fiance 30-year-old John Deal, they're sitting in John's car in Queens.

They're getting ready to go to a dance, but they had just come from watching Rocky. So this really kind of puts the time frame in perspective, right? Late 70s, Rocky had just come out. You, Adrian. It kind of tells you how old this case is, above and beyond just giving you the years, right? This was the year that Rocky had come out.

It was also the same year that Star Wars. came out, I believe. Really? 77? I'm pretty sure. Somebody will correct me if I'm wrong. I think you're right. I know it was somewhere right around there.

Yeah. Luke. So you said, yo, Adrian and Luke. Luke. The shooting happened around 12.40 a.m. And as the shots were fired inside of John's car, he does something very similar to what Carl did. He drives away, which is very smart, right?

You got to get the hell away. But he drives away in a panic to try to get some help. Now, he was able to do this because he suffered only minor injuries. But Christine was not that lucky. She was hit twice and she died a few hours later in the hospital. This is going to be the first case as police are investigating where they're putting together the similarities of these other shootings. You've got 44 caliber bullets at the scene. One of the victims is a young woman with long dark hair. And so at this point, they create a special task force to hunt down what they're calling the 44 caliber killer. So two months later on March 8th, 1977, around 7.30 p.m.,

college student Virginia Voscarichian, she's 19 years old, she's a student at Columbia University, is walking home when she was attacked by a man armed with a gun. And Voscarichian, only lived about a block away from where John and Christine had been shot. She tried to defend herself in any way that she could. At Gibbs, it was said that she even lifted her textbooks to try to stop the bullets. Well, you know, I don't know. I mean, textbooks were pretty thick. They are. I mean, but you have to give her credit. She was trying everything. I mean, if anything, I would thought that it would slow them down at least. Slow down and change the velocity. But it it didn't. I mean, it ripped through these textbooks. Again, I don't know how many she had. I don't

know how thick they were. But the bullet ripped through the textbook, struck her in the head and killed her. This tells you how powerful that 44 is. Yeah. No, it really would. If we're talking about a 22, maybe. Maybe it stops it. Maybe it redirects it. Maybe it slows it down enough. I don't know. Not long after the shooting, there's a man that lives in the neighborhood is walking down the street where Virginia lived and he would later say that he ran into a person that he described as a teen boy short husky wearing a sweater a cap and jogging away from the scene of the crime. He would also say that as this teen boy got close to him, he pulled this cap down over his face and said, oh Jesus, as he kind of ran by bumped into this guy. And this wasn't the only one. And this wasn't the

only witness to have claimed to see this teen boy. There was a few other people that claimed to have seen this very same teen boy as well. But then you had other witnesses that would come forward and give a description that was much more like David Berkowitz and said that they saw this man hanging out in a different area about an hour before the shooting happened. So you got some conflicting, you know, information at first about this one. And what the media would run with was the info that the police had, which was that a husky teen boy was the suspect in this murder. Husky. Husky. That was a husky boy in elementary school. I was a little husky myself. I actually wore huskies. You know what huskies are? Yeah. I bet you wore some Dr. Dentons, too.

Oh, what those are. I wore husky jeans from Sears back to. in the day. Yeah, a little fun fact. Well, it was the 50s, so. It was not the 50s. What's wrong with you, man? This was back when they didn't even have like a Sears store, you had to get all the shit out of the catalog. We'll wait for the postman on the horse to bring it. Oh, I like giving you a hard time, man. So the mayor of New York City, Abraham Bean, along with the New York Police Department, they would hold a press conference in March of 77 to announce that it was a 44 caliber gun. that killed the first victim in 76 and had also killed this latest victim as well. It was at this press conference Gibbs that they were basically establishing a connection between some of these crimes. And of course, the media is going nuts with the information on these crimes.

The New York Post, the New York Daily News. I mean, they're selling record copies of newspapers. And it was also said that they're reporting these crimes in very graphic detail. And it wasn't just New York. I mean, these stories started to get picked up, you know, across the country and across the world. Because it's happening in New York, it's a big deal. And it's just a month after this press conference, April 17th, 1977, 3 a.m., 20-year-old Alexander Esau, and 18-year-old Valentina Suriani, they're sitting in her car.

outside of her home in the Bronx. And this would be just a few blocks from where the very first shooting occurred. Alexander and Valentina were shot twice apiece. She died immediately. And Alexander would die a few hours later in the hospital. So the gun matches up to previous shootings. Yeah, police are able to match the gun. You know, it's a 44 caliber.

At this point, they know, right? I mean, they don't know, but they're pretty sure. that it's the same person carrying out all these killings and all these shootings. But it gets better now because now they're actually finding a handwritten note from him. Well, from the killer. Yeah. And this is where I mentioned Gibbs. This gets into the area of Zodiac type stuff. They find this letter near the bodies.

It's a handwritten letter, mostly in block capital letters with a few lowercase letters. It's addressed very specifically to NYPDs. captain Joseph Borrelli. And it's in this letter that Berkowitz for the very first time uses the name son of Sam. So it's a big deal. It's a huge deal. Because up until now, all of the papers, the police, everyone's been calling this killer the 44 caliber killer. But from this point forward, everybody's going to know the killer as the son of Sam. Now, the entire letter was not let out. But some of it was shared with the press. And it read, I am deeply hurt by you calling me a woman hater.

I am not. But I am a monster. I'm the son of Sam. I'm a little brat. When Father Sam gets drunk, he gets mean. He beats our family. Sometimes he ties me up to the back of the house. Other times he locks me in the garage.

Sam loves to drink blood. Go out and kills commands Father Sam. behind our house some rest. Mostly young, raped and slaughtered, their blood drained, just bones now. Pap Sam keeps me locked in the attic too. I can't get out, but I look out the attic window and watch the world go by. I feel like an outsider. I'm on a different wavelength than everybody else, programmed to kill. However, to stop me, you must kill me. Attention all police. Shoot me first, shoot to kill, or else keep out of my way or you will die. Papa Sam is old now. He needs some blood to preserve his youth. He has too many heart attacks.

Ugg, me hoot. It hurts, Sonny Boy. I miss my pretty princess most of all. She's resting in our lady's house, but I'll see her soon. I am the monster, Beelzebub, the chubby behemoth. I love to hunt, prowling the streets looking for fair game. tasty meat. The women of Queens are prettiest of all. I must be the water they drink. I live for the hunt, my life. Blood for Papa. Mr. Borrelli, sir, I don't want to kill any more. No sir. No more, but I must honor thy father. I want to make love to the world. I love people. I don't belong on earth. Return me to Yahus. To the people of Queens, I love you. And I want to wish all of you a happy Easter. May God bless you in this life and in the next. And for now, I say goodbye and good night.

Police, let me haunt you with these words. I'll be back. I'll be back. Yours and murder, Mr. Monster. All right. So that was kind of a mouthful there, Gibbs. I sure was. I thought it was important to read the whole thing because now, first of all, there's a whole bunch of misspellings going on. I had to, you know, I tried to read it as close to how it was written as possible. But there's so many misspellings, I had to just correct them and read them as I think he meant the word to say. But you got to break this thing down. I mean, it's all over the map. I mean, at first glance, you would read this and say, this is not a sane person. This is not a person with good mental health. So the very first communication by the killer to police, and this is what they're reading.

I mean, they had to have been floored, trying to make sense of this. And so, you know, they had to have been floored. trying to make sense of this. And, you know, they do have professionals look at this, psychiatrists, psychologists, all kinds of different people. And they do release a profile on the suspect, you know, based on the crimes that have occurred, based on this letter. And they describe the killer as neurotic, possibly suffering from paranoid schizophrenia and someone who thought he was the victim of demonic possession. Well, spot on. Yeah, pretty, yeah, they kind of nailed it pretty accurately, I think. But you can imagine the part of this that went out in the media, in the paper, what it did to the public.

Oh, my gosh, it had to freak everybody out. Because the killings were bad enough. Now, you hear any of this, any part of this, and you say, this is a madman. We got a madman on the loose. We just don't have a killer. We have somebody that's unhinged. They've come unhinged. from reality. But the son of Sam doesn't stop with the communication. On May 30th, 1977,

Jimmy Breslin of the Daily News gets a letter from someone who claims to be the 44 caliber killer. It's postmarked from New Jersey. On the back of the envelope in four neat lines was written blood and family, darkness and death, absolute depravity, and 44 caliber. It was actually just dot 44, but the letter was signed, son of Sam. And this too was a very strange letter. I mean, it had sketches. It had a lot of strange symbols. It talked about the one year anniversary of the first shooting. But this letter was a little more intelligent sounding than the letter that we just talked about, the first letter. So much so that police thought it was probably created by somebody completely different. And actually somebody that had a background in either

communications or art or, you know, actually, Jimmy Breslin would say that the letter was written so well that this guy could have been a newspaper columnist. So the newspaper does publish the letter about a week after they got it. Now, they withhold some parts. And when they publish it, they tell the killer, hey, turn yourself in. There were tips pouring into the police, but nothing really helpful in allowing them to identify the 44 caliber killer, the son of Sam. But like we talked about, you've got women all over New York in pure panic. Sure. I mean, cutting their hair, dyeing their hair, wearing wigs, wearing it up in buns.

I mean, they're doing anything they can to not look like they have long, dark hair. They don't want to be a victim, man. The killer has taunted authorities by writing two letters. Police are convinced the letters are real. Both were signed, son of Sam. One was left for police. The other was sent to Jimmy Breslin, a widely read columnist for the New York Daily News.

Here the killer says, Mr. Breslin, sir, don't think that because you haven't heard from me for a while that I went to sleep. No, rather I am still here, like a spirit roaming the night, thirsty, hungry, seldom stopping to rest, anxious to please Sam. I love my work. Now the void has been filled.

At the end of the letter, the killer wrote, Not knowing what the future holds, I shall say farewell, and I will see you at the next job, or should I say you will see my handiwork at the next job? Remember, Ms. Loria, a reference to the first victim, thank you. Then, before adding some footnotes, he signed, In Their Blood and From the Gutter, Sam's Creation 44. That's some scary shit now.

Yeah. But I think the one thing that you can take away from what he read versus the letter that I read sounds much different, right? That second letter sounds well put together, whereas the first one that I read was, it was hard to read. It was all over the place. There was so many misspellings.

The way that it was composed was almost like it was somebody of a very low intelligence. Another shooting would occur on June 26, 1977, 20-year-old Sal Lupo, and 17-year-old Judy Placito had left the disco in Bayside Queens, and they were sitting in a parked car when all of a sudden gunshots rang out. Sal was shot in the arm. Judy was shot in the temple, but both of them survived. Wow.

She's really lucky. She is really lucky. I mean, you get shot in the temple and survived that. And what's very eerie is that it would come out later that they had been sitting in car talking about the son of Sam case right before the shooting happened. That's spooky, freaky. Neither of them saw the attacker, but there were some witnesses here again. And they said they saw a dark-haired man in a leisure suit.

What's a leisure suit? I think sopranos, maybe, track suit. Oh, track suit. You know, like sopranos, like mobster. But like velour? Yeah. Yeah. That's what I'm thinking.

Kind of pretty comfortable. I know. You got a bunch. I know. So they saw this guy in a leisure suit running away from the area. They even saw the car that he got into. And on top of that, they were able to give a partial license plate number. That's good.

So you got some good stuff, but not enough to nail it down. And he leads a good lead. Well, I would agree. That's what we always used to say. When you were on the force? When you were on the special task force? With my special set of skills. So it's just a little bit over.

a month later, and this is going to be the last shooting by the son of Sam. It's July 31st, 1977. Stacey Moskowitz and Robert Villante, they're sitting in their car, they're doing what kids do sitting in their car. You know, they're kissing, they're being affectionate. When all a sudden a man shows up just feed away and opens fire into the car. Both Stacy and Robert were shot in the head. Stacey died at the hospital. Robert survived. He ended up losing vision in one of his eyes and had limited vision in the other, but he survived this shot to the head. That's amazing. You know what I mean? I hate the fact that he's got the issues that he has because of it. But I mean, like you said, at least he survived. Well, I think it's amazing that as many people survived

direct shots to their head as did. Yeah, especially since he was using a large caliber weapon. Yeah. I mean, it's amazing. It is. I mean, you know, it's horrible that Stacey died, but it is amazing how many people survived direct fire to their head. But this crime would be the one that had more witnesses than any of the others.

There was a witness who saw the shooting happen in his rearview mirror. He got a good look at the suspect. and he said that what he saw was a man with a blonde wig. So he was able to see this guy good enough to say that he's wearing a wig. Another woman was sitting with her boyfriend and she also said that she saw a man wearing a cheap wig get into a car and drive away. She was able to give a partial plate as well. There was a couple of other people that saw the man get into the car and drive away and they all said it was a, a yellow car.

We are distributing today the new composite drawing of the 44 killer provided, based on descriptions provided by witnesses to the shooting on July 31st. The description is as follows. Male, white, 25 to 32 years old, 5-8 to 5-9, 165 to 175 pounds, good athletic-type build, clean-shaven, dark almond-shaped eyes, dark wavy hair, sensuous mouth, high cheekbones. His clothing consisted of a blue denim jacket, a matching blue denim pants slightly flared. A shirt was bluish-gray Keanu with small kidney-shaped designs based three inches apart, and his shoes were blue-denum. deck shoes with narrow white band. The composite was provided by one witness. The description was a

was supplied by a number of witnesses. I think I've heard your friends, your buddies talk about you about, you know, with your sensuous mouth. I was going to say we can't let that go. I mean, this guy says almond eyes, first of all. Yeah. That cracked me up. And then he says he has a sensuous mouth. What kind of description have you ever seen where it said the perpetrator has a sensuous mouth? Now, in the south, it would say has a purdy mouth. A purdy mouth. That's what it would have said. Yeah.

If we'd have been in the south. But we're in New York. So they said sensuous. Sensuous. So they distribute this description. And it's sometime later that a resident of the neighborhood where the shooting occurred comes forward to police. I believe Gibbs that she was scared because it took her a while.

maybe as long as a week to come forward. And she would tell police that she saw a man remove a parking ticket from a yellow car before he got in and sped off. There was another man that says that he saw a yellow car speed through the intersection without its lights on. He followed the car for a little bit and eventually lost it. So because of all these eyewitnesses, you know, talking about the yellow car and then specifically this woman mentioning the fact that she saw,

saw the guy remove a speeding ticket, this led police to start focusing on owners of yellow cars and then also focusing on any police tickets that were given that night. And one name that came out on that list was David Berkowitz. Berkowitz had a yellow car that matched to the description, but at first, police were seeing him as a witness possibly to the crime more so than a suspect. And it's on August 10th, 1977 that police catch up with Berkowitz's car. And they decide to search his car. They find a rifle. They find a bag full of ammo, maps related to the crime scenes and an unsent son of Sam letter. So a bunch of incriminating stuff. It's a good find. Yeah. I mean, they know they got this guy. And they're waiting for him to leave his apartment because at this point,

point, they don't have a warrant. And essentially, they've searched his car without a warrant. So that's why they're waiting for him to come out. They never actually do get the warrant, but they surround Berkowitz as he leaves his apartment. And they find that he has a 44 caliber gun inside of a bag on his person. And it was said Gibbs that when they caught up with him on the street, when they surrounded him, Berkowitz said, hey, what took you so long? It was almost like he could not believe that he hadn't been caught yet. Can you imagine being those police officers hearing him say that? No, because, I mean, first of all, you're arresting the most wanted man in the whole city at this point. Yeah. And then he acts like,

it's probably nothing. Yeah. Saying, hey, what took you so long? Yeah. Where are you guys been? The past year, the people of this city had seen many faces of the 44 caliber killer in a series of police composite sketches. Not one of his victims saw the son of Sam smile. But as David Berkowitz was led into police headquarters early this morning, he broke into a macabre grin. For everyone else in police headquarters, there was good reason for good cheer. The police were convinced they had finally bagged the son of Sam. The infamous 44-calibre bulldog revolver found in his car was rushed to ballistics.

Within hours, the experts were sure it was the same weapon used to kill Stacey Moskowitz. So Berkowitz is arrested. They're doing ballistics on his gun pretty quickly. they're fairly sure it's the same gun that that killed Stacey Moskowitz. You can hear the reporter say that. They're interrogating Berkowitz at the station for about 30 minutes, Gibbs, when he confesses. So it's not like they had to break him. They basically barely started the talk.

And he confessed to all the murders, adding that he wanted to plead guilty for these crimes. But this is where some of the strange things start to come out. because he tells police that one of the main reasons he killed these people was because the neighbor's dog demanded the blood of pretty young girls. So this is where we get into the whole origination of the son of Sam because the Sam mentioned in the letter was an old neighbor of Berkowitz by the name of Sam Carr. And what David would say was that it was Sam Carr's dog Harvey that was possessed by a demon and was telling him to kill these people. You talk about what it would be like to have arrested Berkowitz. Imagine what it's like sitting in this interrogation room hearing him say that he's taking his orders from a dog named Harvey. It's bizarre stuff, man.

It really is. Seriously. We've talked about a lot of killers on this podcast. There have been killers that I think were imbalanced. There are killers that I think have tried to make the police think they were crazy, for lack of a better word. But then there are some that I truly believe have serious,

serious mental health issues. And I believe David Berkowitz is one of those. Herbert Mullins, the other one that comes to mind. I don't think there's any doubt that, at least in my mind, gives David Berkowitz had a number. a litany of mental health issues. So this is where he got the inspiration for the nickname Son of Sam. And because of all of these outrageous things that he's talking about,

he ends up getting evaluated by a whole plethora of mental health professionals. But he's ultimately determined to be fit to stand trial. But there is more to talk about as it relates to Sam Carr and Harvey the dog. that apparently inspired Berkowitz to kill. And some of this information that would come out later would actually show that police had the name David Berkowitz long before he committed his last murder. Because the cars had complained to police a number of times.

At one point, in the middle of the murder spree, they had called the police about a letter that they received in which the writer was complaining about their dog, making too much noise. The dog was barking way too much. Now, it wasn't signed. They didn't know it was from David Berkowitz at this point. Then they got a second letter that read, I have asked you kindly to stop that dog from howling all day long. Yet he continues to do so. I pleaded with you. I told you how this is destroying my family. We have no peace, no rest. Now I know what kind of person you are and what kind of family you are. You are cruel and inconsiderate. You have no love for any other

human beings. You're selfish, Mr. Carr. My life is destroyed now. I have nothing to lose anymore. I can see that there shall be no peace in my life or my family's life until I end yours. Can you imagine getting that letter? No. Wow. I mean, I'd be drinking jolt cola and sitting in a chair with every gun I owned. Don't you kind of do that now? Sometimes. Yeah. Sometimes.

Ten days after Sam Carr got this letter, he heard a gunshot and he goes out into his backyard to find his dog Harvey shot bleeding. Now, luckily, they got Harvey to the vet and they were able to save his life. But after this incident, the cars called police again. And at this point, the police paid a little more attention, taking the level. letters and starting an investigation. And then you had a neighbor to Berkowitz who lived in the same apartment complex as him named Craig Glassman. And Glassman called the police to report a suspicious fire at that apartment complex where they both lived. At one point, he even handed over

some letters to police that Berkowitz had written to him in which David claimed to be a killer. And this is why I say, Gives, I think there was some. evidence that maybe the police could have had some information on Berkowitz earlier. But again, like we talked about, how easy was it for them to put it all together? You know, this guy saying he's a killer. Can they really match it up with the fact that he could have been the 44 caliber killer? Maybe a little tougher. But eventually, later on, police would match the handwriting of these letters that Glassman received

to the letters that the cars received as well as all the letters written by son of Sam. So, I mean, you know, it's conclusive in the end, but they don't put it together prior to or in time to stop any of the murders. Right. And I'm not sure they could have. Well, I shouldn't say that. They probably could have. I don't know how logical it would be to assume that they, that this is something that they should have done. Let's put it that way.

So not long after David Berkowitz is arrested, you can imagine the media coverage that went out, knowing that police had found and captured Son of San. But there was this fear that he was going to be able to sell his story to a writer, a filmmaker, or somebody, and make a ton of money. And this is when the state legislature of New York passed a statute that said, that he could not profit from his story, from his crimes. Which is good. And this is the, you know, some of the laws that are still used today. And they're called the son of Sam laws. You know, and they're good laws, right?

This is what keeps people from committing these unbelievable acts and then writing a book about it and making millions of dollars. Listen to one of David's co-workers' reaction when asked by a reporter about the fact that Berkowitz has been identified as Son of Sam. We worked together for about two or three months, and we sat and had coffee together. And he did a lot of, you know, talking mostly about, he liked to go fishing.

And he did a lot of reading, like to read, I think mostly novels, you know. And the only thing he ever said about the son of Sam was that he advised one girl to put her hair up in a bun that she shouldn't wear long hair because that's what Son of Sam was after. the girls with long hair, you know, brown, long brown hair. And that's about it. He actually advised one of the girls he was working with that she should wear her hair up. Right. He told her to wear her hair up that Sam is going after girls with long hair, long brown hair. So he was just being a good citizen at that

point, Gibbs. Yeah. Trying to give some good advice. Helping people out. Imagine what it would be like if you were co-workers with this type of individual. I mean, that would be like me finding out that you were a closeted serial killer. Like a K-bar knife that traveled the country in the past. Imagine all the stories that I would be able to tell when interviewed by reporters. Hell, I'd be on Good Morning America. I'd make the whole circuit. They'd be like, remember what he was on the podcast and he would talk about where he went with

his weapon and we just laughed about it. Oh, I should make fun of that, man. Makes people excited about seeing me at Christ. I'm calm. Unless I find you first. So David Berkowitz would plead guilty to all six murders, but he also pled guilty to a whole bunch of fires that he had set around the New York City area. Apparently, I mean, and I saw numbers, like very high numbers. Apparently he was this arsonist, too. Now, we knew he was as a kid. He was like you said, a pyromaniac. He liked to set fires. But I guess that extended into adulthood as well because he was set in fires all over the city.

Berkowitz was brought to court in an armored van for his own safety. Inside, in a unique proceeding, three judges from three different boroughs of New York City shuttleed through a single courtroom to hear Berkowitz plead guilty to six son of Sam murders. Berkowitz spoke without emotion. At one point he said quietly, I'm an excellent shot. Relatives of the victim were there, the mother of the last victim, Stacey Moskowitz, her father and young sister, Donna Damasey, who survived an attack, still wearing a neck brace where the bullet hit, and the parents of the killer's first victim, Donna Loria.

As Berkowitz answered questions about the shooting, Jerry Moskowitz sagged, leaning his head against the courtroom wall. His surviving daughter, Ricky, wept. And there was one surprise, an accusation that Berkowitz was also an arsonist. A prosecutor said Berkowitz kept a diary, logging 2,000 fires he claimed to have set in the years before his capture. I told you it was a big number. That is.

That's a huge number of fires. And it's funny, you know, 2,000 arsons. But that's not what he's known for, you know? No, he'd be a hell of an arsonist if that's all he ever did. Yeah. So Berkowitz was sentenced to 25 years in prison for each of the six murders

to be served in Attica. At a go. Yeah. You knew that was coming. But during the sentencing, things got a little dramatic when he tried to jump out of a seven-story, a seven-story window. I wonder if it was like he was running at it. It was one of those anti-breakable. So like he hit it and he bounced back.

Yeah, I don't have the full details on it. But suffice to say he didn't make it. Right. He didn't make it out the window. I'm sure they got to him. or like you said, he bounced back in a, uh, that would have been great. And a comedic.

Yeah. Like a Jim Carrey kind of a way. Yeah. Yeah. I, that seems fair. David Berkowitz, Jim Carrey. It seems like a good, you know, correlation. In 1979,

Berkowitz held a press conference where he announced to the world that all of these claims he'd made of demonic possession were all made up. He ended up meeting with a court appointed psychiatrist, whom he told that he had long thought about murder as a way of revenge on a world that he felt had hurt him. So we're not talking demonic possession now. We're talking about him being upset about, you know, the world kicking him, keeping him down, him being upset about not doing well with women. That came out. So this is where, you know, he's seeking out pretty young women as his victims. It's all about getting even, getting back at all the women of the world that had either

turned him down, spurned his advances, whatever you want to say. Right. Which to me makes a lot more sense than demonic possession. I got to be honest with you. Now, he was attacked in Attica in 1979 and somebody slashed his neck. And I mean slashed it. If you ever see interviews of him, he has a huge scar that runs, you know, down one. One side of his neck. It needed 50 stitches to close it up. Wow. But he never ratted on the person that did this to him, which is probably a good thing because the minute you rat, something worse is going to happen to you in prison. Then they're actually finished the job. Yeah, that probably just finish you off then. But he would actually go on to say that he was glad that this happened to him

because he saw it as the punishment that he deserved. Again, I don't know what's right, what's true, bullshit coming out of this guy's mouth, I don't think anybody does. Because he's made all kinds of different statements. He's done a number of 180s. And in 1987, he would do another one and announce that he was now an evangelical Christian. Oh, he's been saved. He's been saved. He's seen the light Gibbs. And he says that he wants to be called now the son of hope instead of the son of Sam. He would go on to write his memoirs and he released a video in 98. He released a book in 2006. Now, he can't make any money from these books, but if he's putting on some kind of act, it's a heck of an act. Because he's full bore now into this, you know, Christian lifestyle and has been for 30 years.

I mean, there's a number of videos out there every time that he gets interviewed now. So, it seems pretty genuine to me. You know, I'm always leery about it because you and I have talked about it before. Everybody seems to find God in prison after they've done horrible things. But I will say with this guy, it does seem like more than an act, more than trying to get paroled. Because we're going to talk about it. He's not actually trying to get parole.

And that's one of the reasons why I say it seems to me to be more than just an act. you know, in prison, he's part of some type of ministry, helping troubled inmates as a counselor. Now, the son of Sam case was actually reopened for a short time when people started talking about the idea of not believing in the theory of a single shooter, which seems strange to me. All the evidence and everything seems to point directly at David Berkowitz and nobody else. But there were some people that thought he had not acted alone. they thought that he was connected to some of these satanic cults and that they had been involved in some of the shootings. Well, I definitely think it just could have been a single shooter.

Oh, I totally believe it was. Yeah. But I think it was back in like 90, late 90s. They reopened it for a little while and took a look at it. But there was no new charges that ever came to life. And you would have heard about it from some of the folks that were witnesses. Yeah, nobody could have ever. you would have heard about it from people involved.

You and I both know, nobody can keep their mouth shut. Right. And if there was two shooters, I think they wouldn't have, you know, seven injured people. You'd had more dead. Yeah. Is that what you're saying? Absolutely. Yeah.

I think you're right. So we talked about parole. And Berkowitz came up for parole in 2002 and he actually asked that the hearing be canceled. He thought that he should not get out. He should stay in prison, deal with his punishment. Now, he would have got rejected. it anyway and he did. So, you know, you take that with a grain of salt. They were not going to parole David Berkowitz in 2002. But he gets a parole hearing every two years, just like everybody

else. But it's said that he usually skips the hearings. He doesn't even go. And that's why I said it's it's not like he's actively trying or campaigning to get out. Now, he probably knows he's not, he has a snowball's chance in hell of getting out anyway. Now, in 2016, just last year, he actually did go to his parole hearing and he told the parole board that he had improved himself while he was in prison. He said he, you know, he was no longer any type of risk at all. And apparently he has been kind of a model prisoner. His attorney, at least that's what attorney, his attorney said to the parole board, but they still denied his parole. You know, he got rejected. And again, I don't know if this guy will ever get out. I don't know if he should get out.

I will say it does seem like whether it's an act, whether it's real, I kind of lean towards the side of it being real. I do think he has turned his life around somewhat, but it doesn't change the fact that, you know, he killed six people, injured a bunch more. It doesn't help him. I mean, he's tied into such pop culture. And I mean, he's like him and Manson. I can't see either one ever getting out. And I think that's a good point that you bring up. take his crimes and then take all the notoriety away, does he have a better chance of getting out? Maybe. Maybe.

All right, Gibbs. So that's the case of David Berkowitz. Son of Sam. Son of Sam. You know, one of those cases that, like you said, kind of fits into pulp culture. I mean, they've made movies about, I think it was called Summer of Sam. I think it was. Yeah.

It was a movie that they made about him. There's been a lot written about him. And he's always, like you said, he's always injected. it, you know, and to different... Yeah, whether it's Seinfeld or other shows, books, it's just kind of a pop phenomenon more so than somebody that just goes out and kills six people. Yeah, I'm sure there was worse. And I'm saying just, obviously I'm not making light of it.

But I'm sure there was somebody, you know, that killed seven, eight people. We've profiled many people that were... Yeah. Did much worse things. But they're so less well-known. than David Berkowitz. Right. You know, again, New York City, the media,

the way everything went down, that's just kind of how it happens. Yeah, it was definitely a panic. Yeah, the panic it caused. So that's another episode of true crime all the time. So for Mike and Gibby, stay safe and keep your own time ticking.