Latest / When Killers Get Caught with Brittany Ransom / Son of Sam: The David Berkowitz Case | How a Serial Killer Terrorized New York City

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Son of Sam: The David Berkowitz Case | How a Serial Killer Terrorized New York City · When Killers Get Caught with Brittany Ransom

• 0:01
  New York City, summer 1976. The city is heavy with heat.
• 0:07
  Sirens echo in the distance. Laughter spills out of bars.
• 0:11
  Young couples sit and park cars. Music plays softly.
• 0:14
  Windows cracked, and somewhere in the dark, a man is watching.
• 0:20
  He isn't rushing. He hasn't panicked.
• 0:23
  He's patient. Six people would be murdered,
• 0:26
  seven more wounded. Random young women targeted the
• 0:30
  weapon, a 44 caliber bulldog revolver.
• 0:34
  The killer didn't just pull the trigger.
• 0:36
  He wrote taunting letters to police and the press, mocking
• 0:40
  investigators, feeding the panic.
• 0:42
  And he signed them all with a name meant to echo through
• 0:45
  history. Son of Sam.
• 0:48
  The city responded with fear. Women began dyeing their hair
• 0:52
  different colors. Couples avoided quiet streets.
• 0:55
  New Yorkers glanced over their shoulders.
• 0:56
  Walking home, a metropolis that never slept suddenly could not
• 1:00
  rest. His name was David Berkowitz,
• 1:03
  but he wanted to be called Son of Sam.
• 1:06
  I'm Brittany Ransom, and This is When Killers Get Caught, the
• 1:09
  podcast where we examine the lives, behaviors, and psychology
• 1:13
  behind the most extreme acts of violence and what happens when
• 1:15
  the truth finally catches up. Tonight, we trace how one man
• 1:19
  held the largest city in America hostage, the psychology behind
• 1:23
  his letters, the escalation of violence, the investigation that
• 1:27
  ended it all, and what happens when a killer who thrives on
• 1:29
  attention finally gets caught. Because monsters don't just
• 1:33
  appear, they build themselves and eventually they get caught.
• 1:38
  The Bronx, just after 1:00 AM, a quiet residential St. parked
• 1:43
  car, windows down in the summer heat.
• 1:45
  Inside, two teenagers are just talking, laughing.
• 1:48
  Their night was winding down. Don Lori, 18 years old, and Jodi
• 1:52
  Valenti, 19. They were very ordinary plans,
• 1:55
  ordinary lives, nothing remarkable about this moment.
• 1:58
  But a man approached them casually.
• 2:00
  He wasn't wearing a mask. He wasn't shouting.
• 2:02
  He didn't demand any money. There was no arguing.
• 2:05
  He just stepped up to the passenger side window and
• 2:08
  without warning, shot five times from his revolver, tearing
• 2:13
  through the stillness. The sound was explosive,
• 2:15
  disorienting, is struck and killed almost instantly.
• 2:18
  Valenti is wounded but survives by playing dead as the shooter
• 2:22
  turns and walks away calmly. Psychologically, this mattered
• 2:27
  because there was no interaction, no escalation, and
• 2:30
  no personal motive. This rage wasn't directed in
• 2:33
  anyone in particular. It was displacement, a stranger
• 2:37
  absorbing violence that had nothing to do with her, A random
• 2:41
  target chosen simply because she was there, young, female,
• 2:45
  visible. The attack wasn't about Donna
• 2:47
  Lori, it was about the ACT itself, and New York had no idea
• 2:52
  what had just started. Just over a month later, on
• 2:55
  August 10th, 1976, Carl De Niro, 22, and his girlfriend Rosemary
• 3:00
  Keenan, 21, sit in their car in Queens.
• 3:03
  Without warning, the man approaches.
• 3:05
  Same as last time. No words, no confrontation, he
• 3:08
  just opens fire. De Niro was killed, Keenan
• 3:11
  survives and the pattern has started.
• 3:14
  On August 29th, 1976, Alexander Esau, 20, and his girlfriend
• 3:19
  Valerie Bethune, 18, are in Brooklyn in their parked car.
• 3:23
  Once again, sudden gunfire. Esau dies, but Bethune survives.
• 3:28
  The first shooting share a critical and very chilling
• 3:30
  consistency. Young couples in parked cars.
• 3:33
  No robberies, no interaction and no escalation.
• 3:36
  There's no personal motive. The violence is displaced,
• 3:40
  random and mechanical. This predator is targeting
• 3:44
  opportunity rather than a particular person.
• 3:47
  Then, almost as suddenly as it began, it just stops.
• 3:51
  For nearly eleven months, the murders pause.
• 3:55
  Psychologically, this lull was significant.
• 3:58
  Experts suggest that Berkowitz might have been planning,
• 4:00
  observing, or just suppressing his impulses.
• 4:03
  It could also reflect A deeper need to escalate and perfect his
• 4:06
  pattern. The brick had another effect,
• 4:09
  though. It lulled the city into a false
• 4:11
  sense of security. New Yorkers many thought the
• 4:14
  night wear was over, only for it to return with sharper precision
• 4:18
  when the killings resumed. They are just as deliberate,
• 4:21
  methodical and predictable as they were the summer of 76.
• 4:26
  And while some were convinced that this was over, others in
• 4:30
  New York were still on edge. Every parked car with a young
• 4:32
  woman inside of it was a target. The victims from the year before
• 4:36
  shared similarities. They were all young women, often
• 4:38
  with long brown hair, sitting in cars on very quiet streets,
• 4:42
  alone or with a friend. The randomness, however, made
• 4:46
  every night feel dangerous. On July 31st, 1977, it started
• 4:51
  again. Christine, Front 19.
• 4:53
  She sat in a parked car, unaware that this man was watching her.
• 4:57
  He approached silently and opened fire.
• 4:59
  Christine died instantly. Her companion was unharmed.
• 5:03
  A cruel echo of chance that underscores the arbitrary nature
• 5:06
  of this violence. Just a few days later, on August
• 5:09
  6th, 1977, on Deal was sitting with a friend.
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  He gets shot. He survives, but he was
• 5:16
  permanently blinded in one eye. Then on August 29th, 1977,
• 5:21
  another attack. Stacey Moskowitz, 20, is killed
• 5:24
  and Robert Violante survived after being shot, left
• 5:28
  permanently wounded. These attacks follow the
• 5:32
  frighteningly consistent method execution style shootings.
• 5:37
  The city trembles not just at the ACT itself, but at its
• 5:40
  predictability. A pattern emerged.
• 5:43
  A predator is learning, refining his method, and New Yorkers
• 5:46
  realize that safety is no longer guaranteed.
• 5:48
  And it's going to get a lot worse.
• 5:50
  New York NYPD decided to create a task force, and by the summer
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  of 1977, David Berkowitz had become this terror stalking New
• 6:02
  York City streets. But the fear wasn't enough for
• 6:05
  him. He would take another step, not
• 6:07
  just killing, but performing, crafting an identity that would
• 6:10
  grip the public imagination and haunt the city for years.
• 6:13
  It began with letters. Berkowitz began sending messages
• 6:16
  to the NYPD and to journalist Jimmy Breslin, inserting himself
• 6:20
  directly into the story. Suddenly, he was no longer an
• 6:23
  unseen shadow. He was a character, a presence
• 6:26
  in the headlines, a name that's the city whispered in fear.
• 6:30
  In the letters, he declared I am the son of Sam.
• 6:33
  He claimed that demons had commanded him to kill.
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  He referenced a neighbor's dog named Sam, a seemingly mundane
• 6:39
  detail twisted into mythic significance.
• 6:41
  But this was not just illusion. This was very calculated.
• 6:44
  Psychological experts point to a complex mix of narcissism and
• 6:48
  identity construction. In these letters, Berkowitz
• 6:51
  wasn't just reporting on his own acts of violence.
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  He was mythologizing himself, transforming from an anonymous
• 6:58
  killer into a figure that was larger than life.
• 7:01
  The letters are very telling in how he frames himself.
• 7:04
  He actually distances himself from ordinary humanity,
• 7:07
  portraying his violence as both inevitable and divine.
• 7:11
  By attributing his murders to supernatural compulsion, he
• 7:14
  implies this mystique. He becomes the Son of Sam, a
• 7:18
  character that had a narrative arc, a persona with motives,
• 7:22
  rituals and symbolism. The killings themselves are now
• 7:25
  part of the performance. The letters are the script.
• 7:28
  This is a defining moment in the psychology of the case.
• 7:32
  Berkowitz is not merely killing. He is branding himself, taking
• 7:36
  control of the story in the public eye.
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  Every note is designed to provoke, terrify and dominate
• 7:41
  attention. Every word is carefully chosen
• 7:44
  to ensure that the press, police and the city at large cannot
• 7:47
  ignore him. In doing so, he blurs the line
• 7:50
  between criminal and celebrity, perpetrator and protagonist.
• 7:55
  From a product perspective, the Son of Sam letters mark one of
• 7:58
  the earliest examples of what would become the modern media
• 8:03
  serial killer symbiosis. See the press, hungry for
• 8:06
  sensational stories, publish his letters in full, and in return,
• 8:10
  Berkowitz fed them the narrative that they craved.
• 8:13
  The city became part of his stage.
• 8:15
  Each article, each headline, amplified his notoriety,
• 8:19
  intensifying the fear in the community and fascinating
• 8:22
  people. Psychologically, this
• 8:24
  performance reflects a deep need for recognition and control.
• 8:28
  Berkowitz killings alone would have scared New Yorkers, but by
• 8:31
  inserting himself into the story, to the story, he elevates
• 8:34
  fear into legend. He constructs A persona that
• 8:37
  survives beyond individual crimes, a Mystic, monstrous
• 8:41
  identity that dominates imagination.
• 8:44
  In The Sum of Sam letters, we see the intersection of
• 8:47
  violence, media, and ego. Berkowitz murders are no longer
• 8:50
  just private acts of rage or displacement.
• 8:53
  They are now part of his performance, designed to ensure
• 8:56
  that he is being remembered and the city, the press and history
• 9:00
  are unwilling participants in this stage.
• 9:04
  He's no longer just a guy with a gun.
• 9:06
  He is the son of Sam, the character, the myth, a warning
• 9:09
  that terror can be crafted as carefully as any story.
• 9:13
  Now, as you understand the Son of Sam killings, we need to look
• 9:16
  behind the headlines though the letters, the body count, and we
• 9:19
  got to look at the guy holding the gun and the psychological
• 9:21
  forces that shaped him. David Berkowitz was born Richard
• 9:25
  David Falco on June 1st, 1953 in Brooklyn, NY.
• 9:30
  He was adopted shortly after his birth.
• 9:32
  His biological mother gave him up because his bio dad left.
• 9:36
  The early abandonment planted the first seeds of rejection and
• 9:38
  insecurity that would follow David throughout his life.
• 9:41
  Even as a young boy, he reportedly felt unwanted, and he
• 9:44
  struggled to reconcile the absence of his birth parents
• 9:48
  with the affection from his adoptive parents.
• 9:51
  It was almost like he didn't feel like he deserved to be
• 9:54
  loved by his adopted parents. Now, compounding this early
• 9:58
  sense of inadequacy, he would suffer repeated head injuries as
• 10:03
  a child. And though those details are
• 10:05
  very sparse, some psychologists suggest that repeated
• 10:08
  concussions may affect impulse control, emotional regulation
• 10:13
  and aggression, vulnerabilities that could later magnify into
• 10:18
  psychological issues. His adolescence was very
• 10:21
  troubled as well. He was socially isolated.
• 10:24
  He struggled to form any meaningful attachments to other
• 10:26
  children. He experienced repeated failures
• 10:29
  in early romantic relationships, leaving him frustrated and very
• 10:33
  resentful towards young women. During this period, he also
• 10:36
  engaged in arson incidents, setting fire to abandon
• 10:39
  buildings. These acts were early
• 10:42
  expressions of anger and control, impulses channeled into
• 10:45
  destruction, but not directed at anyone individually yet.
• 10:49
  A nod to the MacDonald triad. Criminologist often group serial
• 10:53
  killers into types to understand why they kill.
• 10:56
  This includes the visionary killer driven by delusions, the
• 10:59
  hedonistic killer seeking thrills or pleasure, the power
• 11:03
  control killer obsessed with domination, and the mission
• 11:06
  oriented killer who targets a specific group they see as
• 11:10
  undesirable. And Berkowitz fits into mission
• 11:14
  oriented type. For him, women were his
• 11:18
  undesirables. They were symbolic victims and
• 11:23
  that self mythology he used justified the crime against
• 11:27
  them. Similar to Bundy, Berkowitz was
• 11:30
  harming women that he found attractive.
• 11:33
  The difference though was the reason behind these killings.
• 11:36
  Berkowitz formative experiences with women created several
• 11:39
  critical psychological themes that would define his later
• 11:42
  behavior. The first was rejection
• 11:44
  sensitivity. Many mission oriented killers
• 11:47
  share a heightened sensitivity to perceived humiliation, and
• 11:50
  Berkowitz was no exception. He was socially and sexually
• 11:54
  inadequate, acutely aware of his inability to connect with women
• 11:59
  in any meaningful way. Chronic loneliness in the sting
• 12:02
  of rejection created a fertile psychological environment for a
• 12:06
  resentment to take root. And in his mind, the pain of
• 12:10
  being unwanted was externalized. Someone else had to be
• 12:16
  responsible. Two, he externalized the blame.
• 12:21
  Rather than rather than confront the painful reality that I am
• 12:24
  unwanted, or maybe do some self reflection and work on himself,
• 12:29
  Berkowitz transformed this internal pain into an outward
• 12:33
  narrative. Women became targets of his
• 12:35
  hatred. Society itself became a corrupt,
• 12:38
  immoral force. And when he later invoked demons
• 12:40
  in his letters, claiming that supernatural forces commanded
• 12:44
  him to kill, it was just another mechanism to shift
• 12:46
  responsibility away from himself.
• 12:48
  Framing his violence, not framing his violence as not just
• 12:52
  acceptable but unnecessary thing.
• 12:55
  The third thing was his mission oriented typology, also called
• 12:59
  the pseudo commandos. Berkowitz fits very squarely
• 13:03
  within that mission oriented killer profile.
• 13:06
  These killers believe they are enacting justice, eliminating a
• 13:09
  group of people they see as symbolically or morally corrupt.
• 13:12
  And for Berkowitz, women were his focal point.
• 13:14
  But he also viewed himself as participating in a larger moral
• 13:18
  or cosmic battle, a theme that he reinforced throughout all of
• 13:22
  the Son of Sam letters. He referenced demons and his
• 13:25
  adoption of the Son of Sam persona.
• 13:27
  The murders were ritualized, framed as purposeful acts rather
• 13:30
  than just random violence. And it's crucial to understand
• 13:33
  that Berkowitz's actions were not pure psychosis.
• 13:37
  He was very aware of his surroundings.
• 13:39
  He was capable of planning, able to manipulate the media and law
• 13:42
  enforcement. What drove him was this toxic
• 13:45
  combination of grievance, narcissism, ego, and fantasy
• 13:49
  enforcement. Every killing reinforced his
• 13:52
  sense of power and identity. Every letter, every headline
• 13:56
  said the myth of the Son of Sam and in essence Berkowitz
• 14:00
  psychology was a collision of personal trauma and delusional
• 14:03
  narrative construction. That early rejection and social
• 14:07
  isolation created deep seated resentment.
• 14:10
  Chronic failure with women, and mounting loneliness amplified
• 14:13
  his externalization of blame, and his adoption of that mission
• 14:17
  oriented framework allowed him to justify, ritualize, and
• 14:21
  continually perform his violence, turning fear into a
• 14:24
  stage and himself into one of the characters.
• 14:27
  By the time the killings ended, the city had not only suffered
• 14:29
  unimaginable fear, but Berkowitz has succeeded in creating a
• 14:33
  persona that would endure in public consciousness long after
• 14:36
  the bullet stopped. The Son of Sam was not simply a
• 14:39
  man with a gun, he was a carefully constructed identity,
• 14:42
  a psychological performance rooted in trauma, grievance, and
• 14:46
  meticulously cultivated mythology.
• 14:49
  Now, after more than a year of terror, the city's nightmare
• 14:51
  would finally end on August 10th, 1977.
• 14:54
  But the way that David Berkowitz was caught is just as telling as
• 14:58
  the crime spree itself. It was almost anti climatic.
• 15:02
  The break in the case came in an unlikely form, a parking ticket.
• 15:06
  A woman named Cecilia Davis was out walking her dog when a
• 15:09
  police officer ticketed a yellow 1973 Ford Galaxy.
• 15:13
  The car had been parked haphazardly near a fire hydrant
• 15:16
  and after the ticket, a man walked by.
• 15:19
  Cecilia said he looked at her, he studied her and it scared
• 15:24
  her. Spooked, Cecilia ran back inside
• 15:26
  of her house and just a few minutes later, she heard
• 15:30
  gunshots. Now, Cecilia thought that the
• 15:33
  man she saw was the shooter, but frankly, she was pretty scared
• 15:37
  and for four days she said absolutely nothing.
• 15:40
  And then finally, she called the police and told them that she
• 15:43
  saw a yellow car get ticketed minutes before the shooting
• 15:47
  started on August 6th. The NYPD rushed to check every
• 15:52
  ticket that had been written that night in the area, and they
• 15:55
  met their first bureaucratic nightmare.
• 15:58
  Now, they knew that that car was owned by David Berkowitz, but
• 16:02
  David lived in Yonkers. So the NYPD Detective James
• 16:06
  Justice had to schedule an interview with the Yonkers PD to
• 16:11
  talk to David Berkowitz. And during the scheduling call,
• 16:14
  an NYPD dispatcher named Weak Carr heard the name David David
• 16:19
  Berkowitz and started venting immediately.
• 16:23
  Going let me tell you about him. I know him.
• 16:25
  He lives right behind me. And Wheat went on to give
• 16:28
  critical information to the NYPD, citing how Berkowitz had
• 16:32
  shot her father's dog, a Labrador named Sam.
• 16:37
  We'd also informed Detective Justice that her brothers John
• 16:40
  and Michael Carr were friends with him and that all three of
• 16:44
  them were into some dark occult things.
• 16:47
  All in all, she said David Berkowitz is bad news.
• 16:49
  Y'all should be careful. He might actually be the killer.
• 16:52
  Now, Yonkers PD were already suspicious of David Berkowitz
• 16:55
  because there had been a series of weird break insurance within
• 16:59
  Yonkers and those break insurance had been referenced in
• 17:03
  earlier Son of Sam letters. So they were already looking for
• 17:06
  the connection between the Son of Sam and the robberies
• 17:09
  happening in Yonkers. When Yonkers investigators
• 17:13
  shared their notes with Detective Justice, everyone felt
• 17:16
  pretty sure they had the right guy.
• 17:18
  The police decided to go old school though, knocking on
• 17:21
  doors, asking people about their experiences with David.
• 17:24
  And while they were canvassing the neighborhood, there was the
• 17:27
  car outside of 35 Pine St. in front of an apartment building.
• 17:32
  And when they looked inside the windows, there was a gun sitting
• 17:34
  openly in the back seat. Now, it's not illegal to own a
• 17:38
  gun, but you're really not supposed to have it sitting on
• 17:43
  your back seat on a New York City sidewalk.
• 17:46
  And so they were allowed to open up his car, check his trunk, and
• 17:50
  they found a duffel bag with ammunition.
• 17:52
  Maps of New York City boroughs. A new and unreleased letter to
• 17:55
  Timothy Dowd, the head of the Son of Sam Task Force.
• 17:59
  Rather than try and storm his apartment, though, they decided
• 18:02
  they simply were going to wait for him to leave.
• 18:04
  Police were worried that if they cornered him in New York City's
• 18:08
  notoriously narrow apartment hallways, he'd shoot and he'd
• 18:11
  start killing civilians. They requested a warrant just to
• 18:15
  cover their bases, And also, they didn't want anybody to get
• 18:17
  any crazy ideas. They wanted to have a warrant
• 18:19
  before they walked into his apartment.
• 18:22
  But around 10:00 PM, the warrant still wasn't there.
• 18:26
  But David Berkowitz walked outside and got into his car.
• 18:30
  Detective John Fallotico stood on the driver's side and
• 18:33
  Detective Sergeant William Gardello on the passenger side.
• 18:36
  Both drew their guns, and both were a little stunned when
• 18:40
  Berkowitz broke into a big grin and said, well, you got me.
• 18:44
  Now that I've got you, Detective Fallotico said.
• 18:47
  Who have I got? You know?
• 18:50
  Detective Falco would later tell Lawrence Costner, who wrote the
• 18:54
  book on the Son of Sam, that Berkowitz had a soft, almost
• 18:58
  sweet voice that didn't match what they were expecting when
• 19:02
  they caught him. But he decided to play along,
• 19:05
  and he responded, I don't know, you tell me.
• 19:09
  So the man turned his head and said, I'm Sam Falco.
• 19:13
  Faltico said, you're Sam. Sam who?
• 19:16
  And he said, Sam David Berkowitz.
• 19:18
  There were no theatrics, no attempt to flee, no resistance,
• 19:21
  just the quiet acknowledgement that he had been captured.
• 19:25
  From a psychological standpoint, this moment is as revealing as
• 19:28
  the killings themselves. For months he had performed for
• 19:31
  the public, in the press, these letters, the moniker the Son of
• 19:34
  Sam, the careful mythology, all of it had been part of this very
• 19:38
  specifically constructed performance.
• 19:41
  He cultivated fear, manipulated the media, commanded the
• 19:44
  attention of one of the largest cities in the world.
• 19:47
  But in that instance, the performance ended.
• 19:51
  The person, the myth, the Son of Sam act, it stopped mattering.
• 19:55
  The real man, a small nervous guy, was suddenly exposed.
• 19:59
  There was no audience, no more stage, no cameras to validate
• 20:03
  his identity. The psychological need to
• 20:05
  perform vanished with the knowledge that law enforcement
• 20:08
  now held control. Interviews and statements
• 20:11
  following his arrest revealed this very abrupt shift in
• 20:14
  behavior without an audience. To impress or terrorize.
• 20:19
  Berkowitz became more introspective.
• 20:21
  It was almost mundane. The letters, of course, stopped.
• 20:26
  The headlines would continue to print his name.
• 20:28
  But the carefully curated narrative that he built around
• 20:32
  himself was way over. The fear he had wielded so
• 20:35
  efficiently in the streets of New York no longer required him.
• 20:40
  The city had survived, and the hunter was now the prey.
• 20:43
  The arrest also underscores the role of chance and careful
• 20:47
  police work. A parking ticket, somebody just
• 20:51
  calling the police and reporting some suspicious.
• 20:54
  A neighborhood canvas, a few persistent officers, all
• 20:59
  seemingly small details that brought a reign of terror to its
• 21:02
  end. There was no cinematic showdown,
• 21:05
  only normal police investigation meeting a killer who had, in a
• 21:10
  way, kind of grown complacent in that quiet moment outside his
• 21:14
  Yonkers apartment, the city's nightmare ended and the killings
• 21:18
  on stage were unmasked. The myth of the Son of Sam would
• 21:21
  endure in headlines and lore. But the real David Berkowitz,
• 21:25
  the man shaped by trauma, delusion, and resentment, he was
• 21:29
  now in custody. Now when that arrest happened on
• 21:32
  August 10th, 1977, that manhunt that had gripped New York City
• 21:35
  for over a year was finally over.
• 21:37
  But the story was very far from finished.
• 21:39
  As prosecutors begin to prepare their case, Berkowitz own words
• 21:42
  started to complicate things. In the early days, he told
• 21:46
  investigators bizarre and chilling tales.
• 21:49
  He claimed his neighbor's black Labrador retriever, a dog named
• 21:53
  Harvey that was possessed by a demon named Sam.
• 21:57
  This wasn't just a minor like a side though, because he went
• 22:01
  into so much detail when he talked to the police and
• 22:04
  suggested that demons were speaking directly to him.
• 22:08
  This dog as messenger thing meant that they had to evaluate
• 22:12
  him for these delusions, but very quickly as they looked into
• 22:15
  having conversations with him and having him speak to
• 22:18
  psychological professionals, it was very clear it was a
• 22:20
  strategic thing. He was only suggesting
• 22:23
  supernatural motivation because he was testing the legal waters
• 22:27
  to see if he could do an insanity plea.
• 22:30
  Essentially, he was trying to not get killed.
• 22:34
  And he said, maybe I can just get, you know, a lifetime behind
• 22:37
  bars. In the months following the
• 22:40
  arrests, he underwent a lot of psychological evaluations.
• 22:44
  And the experts did note he had signs of paranoid ideation.
• 22:47
  He had very strange beliefs, But they said he's competent.
• 22:51
  This is an act. He understands his charges and
• 22:55
  he can participate in his own defense.
• 22:57
  And that's one thing that I think people don't understand
• 22:59
  what the justice system, the psychological evaluation is not.
• 23:04
  Is this person crazy? Because frankly, the justice
• 23:06
  system doesn't care if you commit a crime while you're
• 23:08
  crazy. They care if you understood you
• 23:11
  were create doing a crime when you did it.
• 23:14
  If you can say to the court, well, yes, I know that it's
• 23:18
  wrong to kill people, but I did it because the dog told me so.
• 23:23
  You still knew it was wrong. So essentially, you understand
• 23:27
  right from wrong. All right, let's go to trial.
• 23:30
  It was after all of this, this wasted amount of energy and
• 23:35
  money. May of 1978, Berkowitz makes a
• 23:39
  surprising legal strategy. He withdraws the insanity
• 23:43
  defense and instead just pleads guilty to all six counts of
• 23:48
  murder and the related 7 attempts for attempted murder.
• 23:53
  He did it very calmly, almost matter of factly.
• 23:56
  He knew that this would lead directly to prison and there
• 23:59
  would be no uncertainty of a jury trial.
• 24:02
  That decision mattered a lot. By pleading guilty, he forfeited
• 24:06
  any chance of being sent to a psychiatric institution.
• 24:09
  And that's a big deal. That's another thing that people
• 24:11
  think sometimes just because a person is labeled not guilty by
• 24:16
  reason of insanity, it doesn't mean that they avoid jail time.
• 24:19
  It actually means they end up going into a psychological
• 24:23
  prison, which is worse than a regular prison.
• 24:27
  And a lot of people who have been in psychiatric institutions
• 24:30
  that also double as jails say that it's pretty awful to be
• 24:34
  there. So this was a logical decision
• 24:37
  for for Berkowitz. Essentially, if I admit that I
• 24:41
  did this, I will go to a regular prison.
• 24:43
  I will not be locked in a cell. I will not be, you know, put in
• 24:47
  a straitjacket. And this also coincided with
• 24:51
  everything that the psychologist said.
• 24:54
  He is a rational, logical man legally responsible for his
• 24:59
  choices regardless of what he claimed during the
• 25:02
  interrogations from the last year.
• 25:04
  And on June 12th, 1978, he was sentenced to six consecutive
• 25:09
  life sentences. Now in New York State, a life
• 25:12
  sentence is considered 25 years. So essentially, he gave him 150
• 25:18
  years in prison, effectively ensuring he will never get out
• 25:21
  of prison. The demon dog story didn't
• 25:24
  survive the courtroom. And in 1979, there was a press
• 25:27
  conference and later private correspondence with David's
• 25:31
  psychiatrist. And he just straight up
• 25:34
  admitted, yeah, no, I lied. It was a hoax.
• 25:37
  I was hoping I could convince people that I was insane.
• 25:40
  He actually referred to it in the press as a silly hoax meant
• 25:45
  to influence how he might be treated, not an honesty
• 25:49
  recounting of any voices or visions.
• 25:51
  So the question is, what was real then?
• 25:54
  Berkowitz behavior reflects schizotypal traits, paranoid
• 25:58
  ideation, unusual patterns of thought and belief that can
• 26:01
  distort how someone interprets the world.
• 26:04
  But the fact that he was found to be competent at trial
• 26:07
  repeatedly suggests that he was not overtaken by uncontrollable
• 26:11
  hallucinations. What emerges is a man with a
• 26:15
  severe personality disorder intertwined with his narcissism,
• 26:20
  his grievance against women, and a deeply rooted desire for
• 26:25
  attention and to feel significant.
• 26:28
  Throughout all these interviews in prison and later media
• 26:31
  appearances, Berkowitz would alternate between claiming he
• 26:35
  felt psychologically A compulsion and acknowledging
• 26:40
  that he just wanted to kill. At times he described the
• 26:43
  shooting as a break from reality, and other times he said
• 26:46
  he needed a justification, any justification, so he could tell
• 26:50
  himself he wasn't just a cold blooded killer.
• 26:53
  Eva Berkowitz is still alive. He is serving a life sentence at
• 26:57
  the Shawagong Correctional Facility in New York State.
• 26:59
  Over the decades, he has been denied parole repeatedly, most
• 27:02
  recently in May of 2024. That was his 12th attempt and
• 27:07
  technically he is allowed to apply for parole every two years
• 27:11
  from now on, so his next one would be coming sometime in
• 27:15
  2026. David has spoken publicly about
• 27:20
  the fact that he has transformed himself while he was in prison.
• 27:23
  He has adopted a born again Christian identity and calls
• 27:27
  himself the Son of Hope. Now the trial of David Berkowitz
• 27:30
  remains significant not just for its outcome.
• 27:33
  Before what it revealed about the intersection of myth and
• 27:35
  responsibility, Berkowitz tried to cloak himself in supernatural
• 27:39
  excuses. He externalized the blame
• 27:42
  through an invented narrative of demons and possessed animals.
• 27:45
  But the legal system treated him as a man who made choices, and
• 27:48
  he accepted that reality when he stood in court.
• 27:50
  In the end, the myth of the Son of Sam, the voice of demons, the
• 27:53
  talking dog, the grand narrative of compulsion was just part of a
• 27:57
  performance. The true story lies in a man's
• 28:00
  choices, his calculated manipulation, the consequence of
• 28:04
  those decisions, and how they landed him in prison for life.
• 28:07
  The Son of Sam case didn't just terrorize New York City streets.
• 28:10
  It left an enduring mark on American culture.
• 28:14
  Couples avoided parked cars and quiet streets.
• 28:16
  Every shadow and siren was a reminder that a predator could
• 28:18
  strike anywhere. The panic was pervasive.
• 28:21
  It shaped daily life and waste. Few crimes ever do, and the
• 28:25
  media played a central role in amplifying that fear.
• 28:28
  Berkowitz letters his chosen moniker, the myth of the demon
• 28:31
  possessed dog, created a storm for a sensational headline.
• 28:36
  Newspapers competed for every detail.
• 28:39
  They were running stories that turned a real terror into a
• 28:42
  public spectacle. And this case marked that media
• 28:46
  driven fascination with serial killers, the same kind of
• 28:49
  fascination that has me making this podcast right now.
• 28:53
  The Son of Sam became the Son of Sam began at the double edged
• 28:57
  sword that allowed these men to be both creators of fear and
• 29:04
  also creators of notoriety. There is a danger when you tell
• 29:10
  the world that the more carnage you create, the more people will
• 29:15
  admire you, and there has definitely been discussion over
• 29:19
  the last several decades about whether the coverage of these
• 29:22
  kinds of cases has made the killers more prolific.
• 29:29
  The legal aftermath of the Son of Sam case was also very
• 29:33
  influential. The Son of Sam laws were enacted
• 29:37
  because of just how popular David Berkowitz was, and
• 29:42
  essentially, people said it's not fair that someone is allowed
• 29:47
  to make money off of murdering other people.
• 29:50
  And so criminals were prevented from profiting from their
• 29:53
  crimes, particularly through book deals or movie rights.
• 29:56
  And these laws change the way the justice system interacted
• 29:59
  with the media and intellectual property, aiming to ensure that
• 30:03
  murderers could never capitalize on their infamy.
• 30:07
  This case also inspired enduring cultural portrayals.
• 30:10
  Spike Lee's 1999 film The Summer of Sam dramatized the chaos and
• 30:14
  paranoia of New York City during these murders.
• 30:17
  It heightened both the social climate and the media frenzy
• 30:19
  surrounding David Berkowitz. Books, documentaries, and yes,
• 30:23
  podcasts continue to revisit this story, showing that it's
• 30:27
  had a lasting impact on American imagination.
• 30:31
  The Son of Sam murders reshaped perceptions of safety, media
• 30:33
  responsibility, criminal notoriety.
• 30:35
  They illustrated how a single killer could not only wreck
• 30:38
  physical havoc but infiltrate public consciousness, altering
• 30:43
  daily behavior, legal standards, and cultural narratives for
• 30:46
  generations. The fear that David Berkowitz
• 30:49
  released was not just confined to the streets.
• 30:52
  It reverberated through law media, and it left a legacy.
• 30:57
  David Berkowitz, the Son of Sam, Yes, he terrorized New York City
• 31:01
  with bullets, letters, and myths for a little over a year.
• 31:05
  He transformed fear into a performance.
• 31:07
  He turned ordinary streets into stages and headlines.
• 31:10
  Young women cut and dyed their hair, couples avoided parked
• 31:14
  cars, the city trembled, and the media amplified every moment.
• 31:18
  But the story is not just about fear.
• 31:20
  It's also about inevitable accountability.
• 31:23
  From a parking ticket to careful police canvassing the trail that
• 31:26
  David Berkowitz left. Physical, digital, psychological
• 31:30
  it all led to his arrest. There was no chase, just calm,
• 31:35
  quiet policing. Well, you got me proof that no
• 31:40
  matter how meticulous the performance, the truth always
• 31:42
  leaves a trail. And Berkowitz tried to cloak
• 31:45
  himself in delusions, demons, letters, But the law,
• 31:47
  investigation, reality, it all caught up with him.
• 31:52
  The mythos around him remains in popular culture, books, films,
• 31:58
  discussions of serial killers. But the man himself is
• 32:01
  constrained, a living reminder of choices, consequences, and
• 32:05
  the limits of manipulation. The story of David Berkowitz
• 32:09
  shows us that even the most terrifying acts cannot erase the
• 32:12
  inevitability of truth. Every step, every letter, every
• 32:16
  miscalculation leaves a trail, and that trail led to justice.
• 32:20
  I'm Brittany Ransom, and this has been when killers get
• 32:22
  caught. If you want more deep dives into
• 32:24
  the minds behind the most extreme crimes and the
• 32:26
  investigations that caught them, you can subscribe to our
• 32:28
  Patreon. Join me for our next story.
• 32:30
  You are always welcome to send me your own ideas for stories
• 32:34
  because I do read my emails. Send that to
• 32:36
  caseclosersubmissions@gmail.com. And if it's something
• 32:40
  interesting and I can find enough sources about it, I will
• 32:42
  absolutely talk about it. One of the future podcasts.
• 32:45
  Thanks for listening.