Um Um Um Um Um Um I'm getting all the ums out now
Seriously one is so bad
Hello!
Welcome back to another episode of Diagnosing a Killer, I am Koelle
And I'm Kenna
I am super excited.
Ooh.
Literally just finished this last little bit of typing before we came in here.
Oh yeah, I was just like on TikTok just waiting for you to come be like, hey, are you ready
to record?
I'm like, yes, let's go.
Your feet fall asleep.
Ooh.
Yeah.
So before we do get started, I just wanted to do something a little bit different today.
We really appreciate all of you guys, you know, of course, keeping up with our content
and listening to us.
We definitely want to hear from you guys more.
So I'm going to go ahead and plug our social media now, but rather than doing it at the
end of the episode, just something a little crazy, a little different, just a little different.
But you can follow us on Instagram at Diagnosing a Killer.
We also have Twitter at Killer Diagnosis.
We do have a TikTok.
It's TikTok.com slash Diagnosing a Killer.
And then we also have a Patreon set up.
If you'd like to donate to the Patreon, you can donate as little as like a dollar a month
and it goes up as much as you'd like.
So please, if you'd like our content and you want us to keep having the time to put
out content, then that will definitely help us as well.
And then our patrons or our patrons do get stickers and then we are working on getting
maybe pins or patches as well in the work.
So we're excited about that.
Through Remed Traders.
They are awesome.
Saxon and Jordan are some of my new favorite people now and they are huge fans of ours
now.
And yeah, they're going to try to work on getting some pins or some patches potentially, maybe
with a QR code so that you guys can also spread the word as well.
Yeah.
But we'll definitely keep you updated on that.
And lastly, of course, we do have a Gmail.
So if you want to reach out to us via email, it's diagnosingakilleratgmail.com.
We're also looking for sponsors.
If anyone is interested in sharing, if you are not eligible to sponsor, that's where
the Patreon comes in.
So just wanted to give everyone that info again before we get started, but we're going
to go ahead and jump into it.
Richard David Falco was born June 1st, 1953 in Brooklyn, New York.
His mother was Betty Broder.
Richard was the product of an affair.
His father was actually a married man named Joseph Kleinman.
Betty herself was also married with one daughter at the time of Richard's birth.
However, she was separated from her estranged husband, Tony Falco.
Betty and Tony were happily married at one point and even owned a small business together.
The finances had become tight and Tony left the family, like in the area entirely.
He was like, hey, take care of this baby and goodbye, like the daughter, right?
Bye.
So when Betty found out that she was pregnant, she knew it was Kleinman's not Tony's.
Because Tony had already left, but she was still legally married.
When Betty suggested that they can finally be together now and that she wished for Richard
to have Joseph Kleinman's last name, he threatened to never speak to her again, nor help her
and her daughter out financially if she kept the baby.
Well, she just knows how to pick him.
Right?
Yeah.
It's off to a great start for Richard here.
Two amazing guys.
Betty then decided to name the baby after her then still husband, Tony Falco.
Furthermore, Betty decided to give up the baby for adoption when Richard was just a
week old.
Oh no.
A baby baby.
Richard's adoptive parents were a couple by the name of Pearl and Nathan Berkowitz.
Oh, sorry.
I didn't mean to shriek into the microphone.
Are you sure?
It's not who I thought you were doing.
Okay, good.
But I do not know as much about this case as you probably think I do.
Okay, good.
I'm excited too.
Oh, I've even really wanted to do this one.
I think he's on my list and I need to delete him now.
Delete him.
So the baby's name was David Richard Berkowitz.
So they kind of just made it their own by switching David and Richard, which was his
middle name and yeah.
So Richard David Berkowitz.
The couple lived in the South View section of the Bronx and were local hardware shop
owners.
Pearl and Nathan were unable to have children of their own and for them having children
was kind of now or never just due to their age, they were getting much older.
God, I bet they felt so fucking bad later in life.
I mean, maybe I always wonder about that, you know, like who's Manson's parents?
You know.
Well, his mom sold him for a loaf of bread.
That's true.
Yeah, she was a sex worker.
Oh, not a loaf of bread.
I think she sold him for a case of beer.
Something.
Yeah.
That's really sad.
It's yeast.
Never mind.
Fuck her.
And the Berkowitz didn't acquire any more children after David.
David was their only one.
David's at home life was pretty normal.
However, apparently there was an instance or two that Nathan, his adoptive father, actually
showered with David when he was younger.
And I didn't specify what age.
I think it was maybe on David's account that he had some of that or something.
But other than that.
The age is like it kind of matters.
I think so.
Because it's a little sketch.
Reason why you should shower with your, I mean, unless it's like a baby baby.
Yeah.
You know what I mean?
Because like the skin to skin contact can be very beneficial for like a newborn, like
a little baby.
That's weird.
I think it's weird.
What?
You know, everyone's family is different.
Everybody's family is different.
There's like some people that, you know, talk about like their mom walking around naked
until they were like eight or something.
Yeah.
That's weird.
But I think that's weird.
No one needs to see your bush, Barbara.
Barbara bush.
I didn't even remember that.
No one needs to see that bush, Barbara.
Barbara bush.
I had to say it before you said it because you were thinking the same thing.
True.
You gave me this look like, why does that sound so familiar?
I'm gonna make a joke.
Oh God.
David was pretty bright as you see, right?
He did well enough in school and would oftentimes get bored of school because he was pretty
intelligent.
Yeah.
David also seemed to be unusually hyperactive around this time and he was also made fun of
for being kind of like a bigger kid.
Like he just like his stature was just all around like.
Cause that's his fault.
He was like a shit brick house.
Like he was, you know, he was, he was thick.
He had broad shoulders and stuff.
He's a brick.
He probably looked like he could play football at age like six, you know?
Jesus.
Wow.
Pearl, his mother would often take him to the local YMCA where they would play and like
have fun just swimming and playground stuff or whatever.
She probably thought nothing of it at the time because David was so young, but she would
actually take David into the women's locker rooms to shower.
And a lot of the time the women in their would be nude.
I'm sorry.
How, and how old is he at this point?
I mean he's elementary school age, probably like five, six, seven.
Okay.
Yeah.
Five, six, seven.
That is a way old, too old for that.
It's way too old.
That is, see I don't know if it was like, I mean some of the women would probably be walking
around like nude or like with a towel on, but I think it was just like maybe the overall
theme of sexuality.
Yeah.
You know what I mean?
No, that's inappropriate.
Yeah.
There's like adult women.
Sure.
In front of you that are naked.
That's not inappropriate.
Well, I mean, is he going to shower with the naked women or is he going to shower with
his dad?
I mean, come on.
I mean, yeah.
I mean, much later in life, David would recall this.
So clearly it had some type of an effect.
Yeah.
Like he remembered that.
David would later recall when he was about five or six that when he was at the local
YMCA, he actually witnessed a man walk into the women's locker room and David said that
he kind of reveled in the noises of disgust that the women made at like this man walking
into the locker room.
Ew.
Yeah.
Like a noise like that.
Ew.
Oh my God.
David also recalls an instance where his mother slapped him for allowing a young schoolgirl
to dump sand over his head, saying that he shouldn't allow girls to treat him that way.
Okay.
You got to stand up to women and make yourself known as Mike.
It's dying this Michaelis moment of irony.
Oh my God.
The mom telling him that too.
And slapping him and saying like, don't allow women to treat you that way.
What?
As she's treating him that way.
What the fuck?
As a woman is actively treating him.
Okay.
Pearl.
Also, when David was about five, it was revealed to him that he was adopted but that his mother
had actually died during childbirth, which was untrue.
Clearly false.
You know, like a lie.
It's a liar.
It's like a liar.
Like a liar.
So essentially Pearl and Nathan, I guess like to say that, it's essentially they kind of
ensured that he wouldn't go looking for his biological mom, which I've heard of adopted
parents doing that, which is horrific.
He's like Dexter.
So of course, you know, that was Betty Falco.
When David was six, he was actually hit by a car and received a pretty severe concussion
from the incident.
Oh, he's six.
Like who the fuck isn't watching him?
Like he just fell off a roof.
It's like it's like Angel or something.
He just fell off a roof.
Just fell off a roof.
He was freaking born.
Like as soon as he was born.
Just a few months after this, he actually slammed into a brick wall, like ran into a
brick wall causing another concussion.
And when he was eight, he was actually hit over the head with a pipe receiving a four
inch gash to his head.
Oh my god.
Yeah.
Okay.
First of all, this is really sad.
Like I'm not trying to make a funny out of this, but it reminds me of your scene, not
another teen movie.
Yeah.
When the football player, like it's like a number of concussions he has.
Yeah.
It's like how many times can you get hit over the head and like, I mean clearly it has some
sort of a effect.
Yeah.
Like clearly that's fucking terrible.
And over the span of four years, like your head never gets a chance to recover.
Yeah.
It is like Angel Resonades.
It is.
Or we saw that too in Raymond Fernandez.
Yeah.
When it happened to Raymond Fernandez too on the ship.
Oh yeah.
We see that a lot in these.
Well, severe head trauma damages the, you know, the frontal lobe and that's like exactly
where all of that shit happens, like it comes from.
So eventually David would turn to more rebellious behavior, who could have seen it, to cure his
boredom, right?
Because he's also very bored in school as well.
By the time he was in middle school, David began to commit small robberies and set small
fires.
Did he went to bed?
It didn't specify.
He probably did.
I'm sure he did.
Probably did.
He probably got slapped for it too.
True.
David would often play in neighborhood baseball with the other local kids, but many people
in the neighborhood considered David to be spoiled and at times bully younger, smaller
kids.
Because of his stature.
Yeah.
Right?
And it's like that whole thing is like you get made fun of for being big.
Well then you use your size to like intimidate people.
His parents, concerned about his behavior, contacted a psychotherapist.
Okay.
Good for them.
David was to go once a week for two years, but it didn't yield any long term results.
Interesting.
Which is interesting, right?
Either way, David's parents reasoned with themselves that David had yet to be arrested
for any crimes.
Oh, so he must be fine.
Noor had any sort of concerning behavior documented in school and they thought that maybe he
would just grow out of it.
It's a phase.
David said about this time that he started isolating himself, enjoying hiding under his
bed for hours during these long depressive times and recollecting that he realized he
didn't want to be around people.
Okay.
So he's just like becoming a recluse.
He's just like hermit.
Yeah.
And this is like middle school.
Middle school, early high school.
It is sad.
He would actually sneak out at night because he said that he would rather be surrounded
by darkness instead of like being out during the day.
And he didn't like being around people.
So he thought that like being in the, you know, being out at night when there's not
so many people that appealed to him.
He said he would often scale buildings or bridges and then imagine that he would jump
off of them.
Oh, that's sad.
And he was so young.
He was like 12 or 13 at this point.
Geez.
So David actually began to abuse animals at this point as well.
It first started by stomping on like bugs or burning them with magnifying glasses, which
can seem pretty normal for a kid, a young boy at that age when they're learning about,
you know, death and whatever.
However, David would actually collect dead bugs, worms, beetles and so on and so forth,
make them home and then dip them in glue to encase them and essentially preserving them
in that moment of death, which is like not normal.
Four-shadowing.
Which is like not normal.
Oh my God.
I just never heard of that.
I had heard like some people that take pictures of stuff to preserve the moment of death,
but to dip it in things like that.
Yeah, that's interesting.
By the time that David turned 14, Pearl, his adoptive mother, would break some very alarming
news to David.
Pearl had been suffering from breast cancer since before his adoption.
And now the prognosis was not good.
Pearl ended up passing away late in the year of 1967.
Oh my gosh.
David felt very cheated by this because he never knew.
Like if he had known, he might have had more time to come to terms with it.
David credited his mother for his ability to be compassionate towards people and now
after her passing, it was like, nope.
Fuck you, bitch.
Well, now he feels like, okay, my biological mother is dead.
Now my adopted mother is dead.
His father worked long hours and was rarely home, so David didn't really have a connection
to Nathan at that time.
And at this point, he felt like the world had just kind of collapsed around him.
And especially since he didn't get the opportunity to spend the time that he wanted to with his
mother not knowing that she was sick.
After his mother's passing, David's father began to date another woman within a year
of her passing.
So David was not happy about that at all.
This began to create a big rift between David and Nathan's new girlfriend and further harming
the relationship between David and his father, which was already strained at this point.
Nathan would remarry in 1971 and David, again, not happy.
As soon as he graduated high school with a 3.3 GPA, he enlisted into the Army.
David underwent competency tests to determine where he would best be suited and passed both
of his psychological and physical assessments.
David did do well in a routine in the Army that the Army provided, and he was described
as an excellent marksman.
Later in the year 1971, David would be stationed in South Korea.
David found this as an opportunity to experiment with drugs while he walked the streets of
South Korea.
Cute, right?
He would actually lose his virginity to a Korean sex worker and would contract an unspecified
venereal disease.
It was probably Chlamydia.
David would say during this time in the military that he began to question his Jewish faith
and he began to attend Baptist Church and even get baptized.
So again, yeah, I think it's really interesting.
So dead biomem, dead adopted mom, first experience with a woman disease.
You know what I mean?
He definitely hates women.
Yeah, it's getting there.
We can see where this is going.
He also around this time began to escalate his fire starting.
He kept a diary of every fire he had ever set up until this point as well.
So like even from when he did it when he was younger.
That seems tedious.
That does seem like a lot of work, right?
So he's now showing two of the three McDonald's triad things that say that he's going to
be a serial offender later in life with the exception of bedwetting, but we don't know
that he didn't do that.
We just don't know if he did.
It's true.
Interesting.
Yeah, I did find that really interesting that he preserved the bugs and then now he's preserving
the fires by writing about him.
He wants to keep those memories.
David began to be tardy and defiant towards his superiors in the army and he was even
declared AWOL once when he was late to catch a bus back to base one evening.
But I feel like you have to be gone for quite a while to be declared AWOL.
It's not like five minutes late.
AWOL!
I don't think it's five minutes late.
I think it might have been like, well, it didn't catch the bus and made no effort to
try to get back on the base.
That's probably what it was.
Plus, at this point, clearly he's known to be doing drugs and sleeping with sex workers
and being late and being in subordinate or whatever.
Even with all of these infractions, David was honorably discharged in 1974.
Now back home, David enrolled in Bronx Community College and began working as a security guard.
David continued to set fires at this time, again and again, keeping note of every single
one.
It was revealed to David at some point in this year, 1974, by his father Nathan that
his biological mother was in fact not dead and that her name was Betty Falco and that
his original birth name was Richard Falco.
Oh my god.
Imagine finding that at home to see like what, 20?
He would have been about 20 or 21.
Yeah.
That's, imagine that.
That's like when you can really like understand those feelings and emotions and stuff like
that's why.
Okay, not only did you rob me of like getting to spend more time with my adoptive mother
before she died, you robbed me of my entire life not knowing who my biological mother
was.
Yeah, that she was alive this whole time.
How do you not feel pissed off?
I would be so fucking livid.
I would be too.
Almost as soon as David heard this, he began to try to find his biological mother, right?
Next logical step.
He was successful in 1975 when he found Betty's address, first reaching out with a Mother's
Day card, which I thought was really nice.
Oh, that's sweet.
Betty invited David to come out and visit and even stay with her and David's half-sister,
Rosalind.
While staying with Betty, David did pretty well.
He was working as a taxi driver and he was pretty happy, finally feeling like a part
of a really core group of like family members.
While staying with Betty, however, David would find out the true nature of his conception
and furthermore to come to find out that Joseph Kleinman, his biological father, had already
died as well.
Oh my gosh, he's just being let down, like after let down.
Right?
This threw David into a tailspin, of course.
This would actually become the height of his fire setting career.
So when David's new found knowledge and his spiraling, David began to slowly drift away
from Betty and Rosalind and eventually they would lose all contact with each other.
David moved back into the New Rochelle area, which is kind of north from where he grew
up in the Bronx.
David started writing to his father, who is now living in Florida, and he had begun to
become very depressed and he had said that to his father, that he had become increasingly
depressed after the fallout with Betty and that he started to hear voices and become
increasingly paranoid.
And guess what, he's at the exact age where schizophrenia presents itself in men.
Age 20.
Age 22.
This is a quote from a letter that he wrote to Nathan.
It's cold and gloomy here in New York, but that's okay because the weather fits my mood.
Gloomy.
Dad, the world is getting so dark now.
I can feel it more and more.
The people, they are developing hatred for me.
You wouldn't believe how much some people hate me.
Many of them want to kill me.
I don't even know these people, but they still hate me.
Most of them are young.
I can walk down the street and they spit and kick at me.
The girls call me ugly and they bother me the most.
The guys just laugh.
Anyhow, things will soon change for the better.
End quote.
Eryus fuck.
Honestly, like a huge cry for help.
Yeah.
Do you think that like the girls spitting and kicking at him and the guys laughing, do
you think that was really happening or do you think that was a hallucination that he
just thought was happening?
I don't know if he thought it was a hallucination, but I think it's more like metaphorical.
Yeah, I think that the everyone hates me and they want to kill me.
I think that was a hallucination or that was like a false narrative in his mind.
Yeah.
And it clearly like he isolates enough that I know the way that my mind is when I'm by
myself for a long time.
So I'm wondering if it's not like he's gone to a bar or a restaurant or like tried to
strike up a conversation with a woman or something and then her just being like, ugh.
You know, and that's like one person rejects him and he just this whole cloud of.
Yeah, maybe.
Yeah.
After living in New Rochelle for just a few months, David moved back to the Bronx area
determined to leave the voices that he accused of haunting him behind.
This move, however, did not relieve David of any paranoia or voices.
Because it wasn't the place he was in.
Right.
It was his brain.
It's his brain.
He wrote on his walls during a manic episode once quote, in this whole lives the wicked
king end quote, quote, kill for my master end quote, and quote, I turn children into
killers end quote.
Oh my God.
That's so scary.
It's really, really creepy.
I just got like the heaves and the jeeps.
You're not getting your deposit back, David.
David would set his last fire around this time ending his arsonist career.
He had set close to 1400 fires.
1400 fires.
1400.
He never got like 1488 fires to be exact.
No, he was never caught.
Jesus Christ.
But according to his parents, that's all you need, right?
Yeah.
He's not been arrested.
Yeah, but he's not been arrested and he's never been written up.
He's fine.
He's good.
He's a good boy.
This was not enough to keep David's voices and demons at bay, however.
David then stayed confined inside of his apartment after this last fire for nearly a month, only
leaving to get food from down the street and then come back.
That's going to be bad for like anybody's mental health, especially someone that's clearly
struggling with undiagnosed schizophrenia.
Eventually the noise in his head became too much for him to bear.
And on Christmas Eve, 1975, David got into his car with a large hunting knife and began
to patrol the streets of the Bronx in his car.
David had allowed the demons to take control of his body and mind and said that the demon
would tell him when his first victim, when he'd happened upon his first victim.
An unknown and still to this day, an identified Hispanic woman was to be David's first
attack.
Jumping out of his car, he tried to stab the woman, however the woman immediately screamed
and began to fight, breaking free almost instantly.
She was not seriously hurt and she never filed a complaint about it.
Why not?
I don't know.
She's never dead.
Oh my gosh.
David hopped back into his car after being shooken because he was like, oh shit.
But again, the demons did not stop.
He was driving around the co-op area, which is northeast of the Bronx.
There he saw 15 year old Michelle Foreman walking down Drizor Loop.
It's like this, it's just a little, it's almost like a half cul-de-sac.
Wait, this is the same night?
This is like right after the first attack.
David pulled over his car and attacked the young girl, first stabbing her in the head,
and then five more times about her body, only stopping after Michelle pushed away from him
and began to run and scream to the nearest apartment complex.
She did survive the attack, but after being in the hospital for a week.
15?
15 years old.
And she just like walking, like just trying to get home or something.
Michelle was unable to provide police with any real description of her attacker.
After the attack, David decided that if he were to ever want to attack or kill someone,
he would actually need a different kind of a weapon because stabbing clearly didn't work.
Just like not my thing.
It's just not my thing.
Like I tried it and I just kind of wasn't into it.
I don't know if it's for me.
I don't know.
It's terrible.
It was around this time that he purchased a 44 caliber bulldog handgun.
Oh no.
David almost immediately moved away from where he was living at at the time just because
he got freaked out.
And he moved to Yonkers.
Yonkers.
There he found a two bedroom house for rent under owners Jack and Nan Kassara.
He began renting from the couple who had also lived on the property and had a German shepherd.
Which becomes a thing.
David could not stay on this dog as it would howl at all hours of the night and day.
David became increasingly convinced that the howling was no coincidence.
He believed that the howling was directly correlated to the voices and demons in his
mind.
He believed that the demons were using the howling to communicate with him, consistently
seeking a blood sacrifice.
Oh my god.
This is like the most common knowledge thing about David Berkowitz is that he talked to
the neighbor's dog, told him to kill.
He's Dr. Dolittle.
It's like next level shit.
Like that's how scary, how scared do you think he was in that moment?
Like I can't get this out of my head.
They're telling me they're controlling me.
Like he truly believes that.
You can tell he truly believes that.
That's so sad.
And if like, if his first of all, did his dad ever fucking say anything about that letter
that he wrote him because.
No bitch.
He's living in California or Florida with his new wife.
Fuck apparently like that's so terrible.
It is awful.
He just needed someone to fucking be there for him like it has been the early life and
he needed someone to fucking make sure he didn't get hit by a fucking moving vehicle and then
run into a brick wall.
Jump off a vehicle.
God.
That's.
He just didn't have a fucking chance from the start.
That's so awful.
David said about this time quote, I'd come home to Collegne Avenue at like 6 30 in the
morning.
This is verbatim.
It would begin then the howling on my days off.
I heard it all night too.
It made me scream.
I used to scream out begging for the noise to stop and it never did.
The demons never stopped.
I couldn't sleep.
I had no strength to fight.
I could barely drive.
Coming home from work one night.
I almost killed myself in the car.
I needed to sleep and the demons wouldn't give me any peace.
End quote.
That is so fucking sad.
You can hear how manic it sounds like, like, you know, like he can't guarantee that dog
was not howling at all hours of the night.
I'm sure it wasn't.
Maybe every once in a while, but he just heard it.
Yeah.
All the time.
It was just more prevalent when the dog would, right?
Yeah.
And then you just hear it echoing for forever.
It reminds me of that H.H. Holmes, the episode where we did where he said that his buddy
committed suicide like later on and he left note that said I couldn't sleep.
I just couldn't sleep.
That's so sad.
It is.
It is really sad.
Like all you want is fucking peace and quiet.
After seemingly being tortured by the neighborhood dogs and the relationship with his landlords
dwindling due to David's strange behavior, David decided to move yet again.
He said then quote, when I moved to the caseras, they seemed very nice and quiet, but they
tricked me.
They lied.
I thought that they were members of the human race, but they weren't.
Suddenly the caseras began to show up with demons.
They began to howl and cry out blood and death.
They called out names of the masters, the blood monster, John Wheaties, General Jack
Cosmo, end quote.
So David around this time, he began to believe that Jack Cicera, who was the owner of the
house, was in cahoots with dog demons and that he became their chief and believed that
Jack was purposely wrangling up stray dogs in the neighborhoods just to torment him.
Oh my gosh, what a concept.
What a thought pattern.
Right?
I mean, it's almost like it almost sounds like it would be like a Stephen King novel.
You know what I mean?
Yeah.
It's like it's so far-fetched, mind the pun.
But it's also so linear that it's kind of believable.
Like, that somebody would believe that.
You know what I mean?
God, that's so sad.
I can't even imagine that.
I don't even think that...
The brain is so crazy that the fact that it has the capability to make someone believe
something like that is just insane.
Yeah, it convents you.
It's just intense.
Yeah.
Needless to say, of course, you know, he moved out.
So he moved to a one-bedroom apartment.
I think it was kind of like a duplex-y type thing.
But of course, this area also had dogs.
And of course, most notably, David's neighbor was one Sam Carr.
Sam had a dog named Harvey and David felt especially targeted by this dog specifically.
He also believed that Sam, the owner, was a demon in human skin and the most powerful
demon that worked for General Jack Cosmo, his previous neighbor or owner.
On one occasion, David attempted to throw a Maltov cocktail in Sam Carr's yard in an
effort to kill the dog, but was unsuccessful.
It got snuffed out.
Well, his fire-setting career was not over, then.
Well, he didn't set the fire because it went out.
Okay, well, he tried.
But he did like fire, I guess, though.
That's so awful.
In late July, 1976, Donna Laria and her girlfriend, Judy Valenti, decided to go out for a night
of dancing at a local dance club.
Leaving the club around 1 a.m., Jodi parked her car outside of Donna's house while the
two chatted and laughed about the night that they had just had.
After the conversation ended and Donna and Jodi said their goodnight, Donna opened up
the car door.
As she opened up the door, she noticed a man walking directly towards her in a rushed manner
with rage on his face.
As soon as the words, now what is this, left Donna's mouth, the man crouched down, getting
down on one knee, bracing his elbow on his knee and fired one shot, striking Donna and
killing her instantly.
Oh my gosh.
Jodi was not totally sure of what was going on and was shocked when the man walked up to
the passenger door and, without taking aim, shot once into the car, striking the 19-year-old
in the hip.
Turning to leave, the man shot once more towards the young women but didn't hit either of them.
Donna was pronounced dead at the scene and she was just 18.
Oh my god.
Jodi was rushed to the hospital.
She was able to tell detectives that she didn't recognize the man as someone that she might
know.
Police do feel like this was a targeted attack by someone that they knew, though.
Jodi was able to give a description of the attacker.
She said that the man stood at about 5'8", about 200 pounds, 30 years of age, dark curly
hair cut in a mod-style cut.
She also described seeing a yellow car leaving the scene after the shooting.
This was also corroborated by Donna's own father, who had earlier in the day witnessed
a man matching the description, sitting in a yellow car on their street.
Even neighbors said that they did see the car patrolling the streets the last day or
two.
David felt like he had done well and that he had made Sam proud.
Sam had told David that he would find David a wife.
He told him that the woman he was to kill would be risen again and married to David when she
would eventually rise from the dead.
This is obviously Sam did not say this.
No, this is in his brain.
That Sam had told him, kind of like when the demons were telling him, I'll let you know
when you find your victim kind of a thing.
It's the same thing, but it was like the woman that you're about to kill will be your wife.
So he's trying to find an attractive woman to kill.
Sure, yeah.
So that's what David thinks.
On October 23rd, 1976, Carl DiNaro, aged 20, and a group of friends got together to
throw him a going away party at a local bar.
Carl was actually due to leave for the military in just a few short days.
Rosemary Keenan, who was 18 at the time, was a friend of Carl's and who was at attendance
at this party.
And after the bar began to close down around 2.30, Rosemary offered to drive Carl home.
The two stopped along the way and fleshing Queens near Brown Park.
They chatted for a bit or whatever 21 year olds do in a car at night outside of a park
at 2.30 in the morning.
Smokes a little bit of weed.
Kissing would have you.
All of a sudden, the glass of the windows shattered around them.
Startled in not knowing what was transpiring, Rosemary started the car and sped off.
When they were able to assess themselves, they both realized that Carl had actually
been shot in the head, but was conscious at the time.
Until learning that fact, essentially.
I mean, once you realize that.
Yeah, shock.
Yeah.
He woke up just a few hours later in the hospital.
Carl had undergone emergency surgery, including these of metal plates for the extensive damage
done to his skull.
Rosemary was unharmed by the would be killer, just minor scrapes and scratches from the
shattered glass.
Neither Rosemary nor Kyle could give a good description of the suspect.
However, investigators would not leave so empty handed from this scene.
They were actually able to obtain a near perfect bullet from the shell of the car and were
able to determine that the bullet was a.44 caliber.
Although it was not determined at the time what kind of gun was used because it still
suffered some damage.
Carl's father was actually a 20 year New York City police veteran at the time of the
shooting.
So of course, the department took this very seriously.
The shooting had yet to be linked to Donna and Jodi's shooting since they were being
investigated by two different boroughs because this happened in two different boroughs.
It would be revealed later that due to Carl's long hair at the time, the killer likely believed
that there were two women in the car.
About a month later, 16 year old Donna DeMassie and 18 year old Joanne Lomino decided to go
see a late night movie.
They took the bus to get back to Joanne's family home where the two were supposed to
be staying the night.
Once they reached the porch of the home, they noticed that they had been followed by a man
and military fatigues.
The man began to speak in a high pitched voice, as if to ask the girls for directions while
attempting to manipulate his voice at the same time.
When all of a sudden the man pulled a gun from his coat pocket and began firing at them.
He struck each of the girls once in capacitating them and then he turned to run away and when
he did he fired several more shots in their direction but they weren't hit a second time.
He's like really chaotic with this gun.
It's weird.
Okay but remember when they had said that he was a really good Mark Smith?
Yeah.
Mark Smith, Mark Smith.
When he was in the army.
So why is he missing all the time?
Exactly.
He was actually hitting each of them once and then turning to run and going, can't catch
me.
Yeah, that is weird.
It's weird.
As the suspect ran away, a neighbor who had heard the shots ran to the sidewalk to see
what the noise was.
At that moment the suspect ran right past the neighbor who noticed the man had a revolver
in his hand.
This neighbor was able to provide a description of the man, although the neighbor swore that
the suspect had blonde hair, not deep brown or black like Berkowitz did.
So I witnessed testimony is not very reliable.
Donna DeMassie would be struck in the neck by gunfire but she would ultimately survive
the attack.
Joanne Lomino who also survived the attack, she actually would never walk again.
The bullet pierced her or did enough damage to her spinal cord.
She would never walk again.
And she was like 20 years old.
Fucking dickhead.
Or 18.
I think she might have been 18.
Yeah.
18.
So sad.
At this point these three shootings have yet to be connected as only one bullet was
not completely destroyed and that was the scene from Carl and Rosemary's shooting.
On January 30th, 1977, Christine Fruend and her fiance John Dial decided to go see the
hottest new movie.
It was just released a couple of months prior.
Guess it.
1977.
The biggest movie.
Greece?
Well it was technically 1976 because it had come out like November.
No.
I don't know.
Adrian.
Rain Man?
Rocky.
Oh, Rocky.
That's not the first letter I read.
Rain Man.
Oh no.
Hey guys, while we're on the topic of movies, we definitely want to shout out one of our
new favorite podcasts, Movication.
Brady, Cole, Joe and Tyler dive into some of the best and worst movies and TV shows of
all time.
Whether it's Blockbuster Hips or B-List Flicks, these guys have all the information and spoilers
you could ever want.
Check out Movication wherever you listen to podcasts.
Did you know, okay, so just a little tidbit about Rocky, you know, like everybody thinks
I have the tiger when they think Rocky.
That's actually Rocky III.
It's not even Rocky, like the first Rocky.
Right?
It's the Amadougan.
So while the couple sat in the car of the theater parking lot, they were considering
which dance hall that they wanted to attend for that night.
Shops began to ring out.
The car was struck several times by gunfire.
John only suffered minor entries from the glass shattering, however, Christine was struck
twice in the head.
After John tried to drive from the scene and wave down passing motorists for help, neighbors
called police.
Christine would eventually succumb to her injuries in the hospital.
It's so sad.
It's really sad.
Can you imagine like you're fucking fiancee and you're just trying to have a date night?
I was actually going to go to the drive-in movies tonight.
I'm glad we're not now.
Listening to John, like, because there's like an actual interview and he was like, when
she went to like tuck her head, she was like leaning into his chest and then she was shot.
I think she was like leaning towards John for like cover and he was trying to hold her
and she was shot like while.
So it was like after she was shot and she was already gone, he was like he lifted her
back up and notice like that she wasn't responding.
Oh my God, I can't imagine that shit.
It's so sad.
It's a really sad interview.
Neither one would be able to give a description of the assailant, of course.
Bullets that were recovered from the scene matched a.44 caliber gun.
Police at this time looking at certain circumstances of each crime determined that these four shootings
were all linked somehow, specifically that most of the targets seemed to be long, dark-haired
women and young.
After this finding, the.44 caliber killer case would be taken over by Captain Borelli.
Under Borelli's watch, it was proven that the specific.44 caliber gun they would be
looking for was a Bulldog revolver, which is a very unusual gun.
Police would compare the composites that Jodi Valenti provided and the one from the Joanne
Lomino and Donna DeMassie case and determine that there must be more than one suspect,
because these sketches didn't make any sense.
On March 8, 1977, Virginia Vosketsian was walking home from a Columbia University campus when
she noticed a man walking up directly towards her.
As the man raised his gun, Virginia tried to shield herself with her own textbooks, but
was ultimately shot and killed at this point.
Oh my God.
It's so sad.
Just at fucking school.
Yep.
She was at night, but still.
But she's walking home.
Probably from studying or something.
Bullets that were recovered from the scene were that of a.44 caliber Bulldog.
At this time, police released the information to the public that the killer was using a
.44 caliber weapon.
Fucking dumbasses.
And to call in with any information of anyone knowing anyone in possession of one.
Yeah, they're gonna fucking just let you know.
Hey, I have one of those.
In the height of New York.
Yeah, what the hell?
Also during around this time, like New York's crime rate was just insane.
So it was like anybody could have a fucking.44.
So the killer was of course dubbed the.44 caliber killer.
Panic gripped the surrounding area of the crimes, keeping in mind that although New York
was really, really rough at this time, the neighborhoods where Berkowitz was striking
were actually known to be very quiet areas.
Yeah.
April 10th, Sam Carr receives an anonymous letter from the neighbor, complaining that
his dog Harley was a menace and was too loud.
This person threatened to get the city involved if he couldn't shut the dog up.
This poor fucking guy named Sam, because of what happens later.
This poor guy probably feels so bad and he didn't even do anything wrong.
On April 17th, 1977, Valentia Siriani, who was an aspiring actress and her boyfriend,
college student Alexander Estelle, borrowed Alex's brother's car to go out together for
that night.
After returning home around 3 a.m., the couple began to kiss and such inside the car, parked
a block away from Valentina's home.
A neighbor heard four shots ring out and then immediately called police.
When the police arrived, they found Valentina, who was just 18, and had died from a single
bullet wound.
Alexander was taken to the hospital with two gunshot wounds to the head and would pass away
several hours later.
Oh my gosh.
He was only 20.
And like, no one can fucking identify him because they either don't survive or they
can't see him and they don't even know what's happening until they get shot.
Alex had been unconscious since the moment he had been shot, therefore, was unable to
communicate with officers who may have done the shooting.
Bullets that were recovered from the scene were consistent with other bullets left at
other crime scenes.
This was not all investigators would find, however.
Near the car, police would find a letter addressed to Captain Varelli.
No.
The note stated this.
Quote, Mr. Joe Barelli, Queen's Homicide, I am deeply hurt by you calling me a weemon
hater.
W-E-M-O-N, a weemon hater.
What is that?
A wife?
Woman?
Yes.
Oh no.
It's like BTK all over again.
A weyomin.
I am not, but I am a monster.
I am the son of Sam.
I am a little brat.
When father Sam gets drunk, he gets mean.
He beats his family.
Sometimes he ties me up to the back of the house.
Other times he locks me in the garage.
Sam loves to drink blood.
Go out and kill, commands father Sam.
Behind our house, some rest.
Mostly young, raped and slaughtered.
Their blood drained, just bones now.
Papa 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 am 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 had too many heart attacks.
Too many heart attacks.
Ugh, me art, it hurts, sunny boy.
I miss my pretty princess most of all.
She is resting in our lady's house, but I will see her soon.
I am the monster, Beelzebub, the chubby behemoth.
I love to hunt, prowling the streets looking for game, tasty meat.
The weemon of Queens are a zeepardiest of all.
I must be the water they drink.
I live for the hunt, my life.
Blood for Papa, Mr. Barely, sir.
I don't want to kill anyone, 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 YAHOOS, to the people of Queens.
I love you.
And I want to wish all of you a happy Easter.
May God bless you in his 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.
To be interpreted as bang, bang, bang, bang, bang.
Ugh, yours and murder.
Mr. Monster.
End quote.
OK, ugh, I'm sweating.
First of all, he contradicted himself like 30 fucking times
in that whole letter.
He's like, I love the women, but I'm going to kill them all.
You must kill me, but stay away from me or I'll suck at you.
OK, and all of that is a farce, clearly, except for the part
that he's going to keep killing.
Imagine getting that letter.
Like, does this guy really think that someone
is locked in an attic and is being forced to kill?
Or does he think that he is suffering from some sort
of disorder?
So I don't know.
OK, so it can be interpreted like a few different ways,
right?
That's so much.
Like, we know that the dogs are talking to him, right?
So I'm wondering if Sam, like when he says Sam is getting old,
he's like this demon that needs to feast on blood
to remain young.
But is it trapped in a bait, trapped in the attic?
Is it like he feels like he's trapped in the attic
until Sam the demon uses him?
You know what I mean?
He's watching the world kind of pass by while he's not
being used by Sam.
You know what I mean?
But he's also like very intelligent.
So maybe he's just trying to throw them off
and make it seem like he is being held captive
and being forced to do this.
And he's not just like, because as far as I'm concerned,
him and Sam don't even know each other.
Like, Sam has no idea who this guy is, pretty much.
And so it's not like he's actually
having conversations with Sam and misinterpreting them
or just interpreting them differently.
He's just pretending.
We're not pretending.
But he's being told by his hallucinations
that this is what's happening.
Or he's like pushing the narrative just to be unnerving.
You know what I mean?
Like, he's saying things that don't make sense
because it sounds like it's out of the mind of a crazy person.
Yeah.
You know what I mean?
But so detectives have some theories
as to what the letter meant.
One theory is that the writer struggled
with the death of a parent.
That's why he calls himself son.
And that maybe his father, his real father,
had suffered a heart attack because he made that notion
of like he's had so many heart attacks.
He's had so many heart attacks.
Yeah, but his adoptive dad is alive and well.
And his bio dad, how did he die?
Right, but this is just the detectives theory
of like who they might be looking for.
I see.
Donna and Jodi, which were the first two shooting victims,
they were also nursing students.
So they were like, oh, maybe he's attacking young,
like Florence Nightingale type people.
You know what I mean?
Son of Sam could also be in reference to the military,
meaning the son of Uncle Sam.
So they were like, maybe he's a military man.
And again, at one point in the letter,
there's kind of references to this Scott English accent.
Like when I was like, oh, meow, it's sunny boy.
You know, it's sunny boy.
So detectives thought that maybe the writer might be close
to heritage or something like that.
Okay.
And again, this is all just speculation.
They don't fucking know.
Either way, the letter was addressed specifically
to a police officer, especially to the head
of the investigation, and it was really unnerving.
And when did he leave that letter?
Because neighbors called police immediately
after the shots were fired.
So how did he like run by like tossing?
Unless he left it there and then did the shooting.
You know what I mean?
He walked by them first and left it there.
I don't think he walked by.
I think he just put it there and then he shot, you know?
But if neighbors heard the shots,
wouldn't they have seen him like when they called police?
Like they looked at the scene.
Not three in the morning.
No, that's three in the morning.
It's not like it's noon.
Most killers enjoy playing cat and mouse.
Everybody knows that.
But the letters seemed to just be a little different.
It really didn't, it wasn't like, come find me.
You know, it was just, it was just taunting, you know?
It was like, shoot me if you must, but stay away.
Well, if you do that.
Yes, stay away or else.
So the investigators were absolutely convinced
that this individual was suffering
from some type of schizophrenia
and that they were sure that this person did believe
that they were possessed by it even.
Okay.
On May 19th, Sam Carr received another letter
regarding his dog Harley.
The letter stated, quote,
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 could destroy my family.
We have no peace, no rest.
Now I know what kind of a person you are
and what kind of a 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
and 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.
Immediately know I would move so fucking fast.
I would be like, I'm the fuck out of here.
You give that dog away.
Damn it, you give that dog away.
Or I will end your life.
You woke up to sleep.
That's why I put you to sleep.
You're terrifying.
That is, imagine getting that letter.
I think it's worse.
Oh no.
On May 29th, Sam Carr's dog, Harley,
was shot in the middle of the night.
Harley would be rushed to a vet
and ultimately would survive.
Oh my gosh.
Could you imagine?
Like getting that letter
and then someone following through
on what they said they were gonna do.
Right?
He probably was like, oh, these damn kids.
Like imagine what it's like for Berkowitz
and be like thinking that that dog is like a god
or something because you shot it.
Like you've already killed people with the same gun
and you've like shot this dog with a 44 and it survives.
When the dog is, you know what I mean?
For the schizophrenia spectrum, can't be good.
Can't be good.
It's probably like, oh my god.
It's a god.
It's protected.
Oh no.
Did you hear that demon come out of my voice?
Just now it's like.
Eww.
On May 30th, 1977, so the next day,
the Daily News received a letter addressed to Jimmy Breslin.
Jimmy by this time was a well-known figure
in American journalism.
Jimmy had recently put out an article detailing
some of the crimes that the son of Sam had committed
and almost taunted him,
told the killer to turn himself in
since it was the only clear civil outcome
for this whole thing.
The son of Sam did not like this.
Yeah.
The envelope containing the letter
said nothing on the front, but the back read, quote,
blood and family, darkness and death, absolute depravity, 44.
End quote.
The letter stated this, quote,
hello from the gutters of NYC,
which are filled with dog manure, vomit,
stale wine, urine and blood.
Hello from the sewers of NYC,
which swallow up these delicacies
as they are washed away by the sweeper trucks.
Hello from the cracks of the sidewalks
of NYC and from the ants that dwell in these cracks
and feed on the dried blood of the dead
that has settled into these cracks.
JB, I'm just dropping you a line to let you know
that I appreciate your interest
in those recent and horrendous 44 killings.
I also wanna tell you that I read your column daily
and I find it quite informative.
Tell me, Jim, what will you have for July 29th?
You can forget about me if you'd like
because I don't care for publicity.
However, you must not forget Donaloria.
You cannot let the people forget about her either.
She was a very, very sweet girl,
but Sam's a thirsty lad and he won't let me stop killing
until he gets his fill of blood.
Mr. Breslin, sir, don't think that because you haven't heard
from me in 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.
Perhaps we shall meet face to face some day
or perhaps I will be blown away by cops with smoking 38s.
Whatever, if I shall be fortunate enough to meet you,
I will tell you all about Sam if you'd like
and I will introduce you to him.
His name is Sam the Terrible.
Not knowing what the future holds, I shall say farewell
and I will see you at my next job.
Or should I say you will see my handy work at the next job.
Remember Miss Loria, thank you,
in their blood from the gutters.
Sam's creation, 44.
Here are some names to help you along.
Forward them to the inspector for use by NCIC,
the Duke of Death.
No, shut up.
The Wicked King Wicker.
No, he did not.
The 22 Disciples of Hell.
What?
That's not even a name.
John Wheaties.
John.
Rapist and suffocator of young girls.
That's not, that's like too much, that's a mouthful.
PS, JB, please inform all the detectives working the case
that I wish them the best of luck.
Keep them digging, drive on, think positive,
get off your butts, knock on coffins, et cetera.
Upon my capture, I promised to buy all the guys
working the case a new pair of shoes
if I can come up with the money.
Signed as a son of Sam.
Okay, that is so all over the place.
Isn't it?
All over the place.
Like it sounds really creepy and ominous at the beginning.
It sounds like Rorschach, like Watchman.
It's like the gooders of NYC.
You know, it's so, I don't know.
Also with the English terms, he says inspector
and then he says detectives.
That's like contradicting itself already.
It's interesting.
So what did Jimmy do with this letter?
No.
Why he printed it in the newspaper, of course.
No, he did not.
Yes, he did.
Oh, hell no.
He's like, help me come up with one of the names
for this guy.
That's the best one.
We're taking a poll.
I like the Wicked Wicker Man or whatever.
What was the first one?
It was the Duke of Death.
The Duke of Death.
Why is there the Derby Kid?
The Wicked King, the Derby Kid.
The Derby Kid.
The Wicked King Wicker, the 22 disciples of hell.
That doesn't even make sense.
John Wheaties, the suffocator.
The Duke of Death.
Damn, that's crazy.
So to this day, the Daily News, that article
was the top selling newspaper of all time,
like of the Daily News history.
Oh my God.
Of course it was.
It sold over 1.1 million copies.
To this day, it is the most anybody's bought
a Daily News article or edition, I guess.
To this point, people know that there's a serial murderer
on the loose.
But with this came complications from the public.
Thousands and thousands of false leads
were fed to the investigation.
Not only that, but fear became rampant.
Women began to dye their hair, cut their hair,
or wear their hair under bandanas or head wraps
to cover the color of their hair.
At night, the streets were all barren.
Girlfriends and boyfriends opted to stay inside
or to kiss goodnight on the porch instead.
Within the letter, the date July 29th,
references the one year anniversary of the shooting
that Donna Laurier was killed in.
The text on the page was also very different
than the first letter that was written to Borelli.
The text almost looked like comic book text,
you know what I mean?
Where it's like all caps.
So much so that the investigators actually interviewed
several writers for DC Comics.
Really?
Yeah, you know like the Batman people.
Yeah.
If somebody doesn't know.
It was very super neat to read.
Like it was placed, the spacing was very nice.
The original letter, if you look at the first one,
it's all over the place.
It's like really choppy, doesn't make any sense.
This one's like very...
You can trick it.
Well, it's just very specific looking.
So the text also thought that they were dealing
with someone who had done calligraphy before or something.
Not only that, but this letter was the first time
that the son of Sam had drawn a picture
towards the bottom and it had like,
it was like a circle with like,
I don't wanna say, not like the Zodiac one
because it also had like triangles on it or something.
It's really interesting if anybody wants to look at it,
if you go to Murderpedia,
they have pictures of all the letters.
So this is the first time that they've like,
detectives were like, oh, there's like a riddle
in picture form.
Detectives also thought that some of the references
to the Wicked King Wicker was actually in reference
to the Wicker Man, the movie.
So they actually arranged a screening of the movie
for detectives to like sit in the theater
and like watch the whole movie
to see if there was any clues.
Interesting. Isn't that interesting?
I love that movies were brought up like twice.
Yeah. We talked about Rocky and then Wicker Man.
Wicker Man was like four years old
at this point though, I think.
So does this guy, Sam, like the real Sam,
not make the correlation of like,
now there's this new killer that says he's son of Sam
and I'm getting these odd letters in the mail?
I would be like, I'm Sam.
Wouldn't you? And there's like these odd letters
coming to my house.
I don't know.
You're not the only Sam in Brooklyn or Bronx.
But I'm sure not the other Sam's
are probably not getting these weird letters
or their dog getting shot with the same type of gun
that the...
So there was another kind of letter
and I didn't get to see the ones
that were addressed to Sam Carr
but there was another player in all of this.
And I think he was a sheriff, not a sheriff
or like a chief, not a chief.
What am I trying to say?
He was just like a police officer
and I think he was like one of his neighbors or something.
But when he addressed the letters to this other guy,
he was writing in like this really beautiful cursive.
And so if you see these letters
that are being run in the newspaper now at this point,
they don't look the same at all.
But still, I mean, I don't know.
That's just very odd that his dog got killed
by like the same type of gun.
But he also, but son of Sam,
not killed but shot, I mean.
He hasn't referenced dogs at all
in his letters that are publicly known.
And you know what I'm saying?
And that the letters that Sam was getting,
Sam Carr was getting, were just like,
could you shut that fucking dog up?
You know what I mean?
Like it didn't have anything to do with demons
or being in an attic or any of that stuff.
You're my father.
Or you're my father.
My long lost daddy.
On June 26, 1977, Salvatore Lupo and Judy Placido
were sitting in Sal's car after a night
of dancing at a club.
The two laughed about how they shouldn't be sitting alone
together in a parked car at night,
given the recent strings of attacks on couples and cars.
With the timeframe, like being the way that it is,
like it's what the 70s, like late 70s,
like that was very common, of course, for teenagers
to do that because then they couldn't spend time together
after they went home, right?
In their houses.
And so I get like the want to continue to do that.
But also with the news, like, I'm not victim blaming at all.
But, you know, it's just unfortunate that he was
targeting people that were just being innocent, you know?
Just kids having fun.
Yeah.
But it's everything that he hated.
He hated it because he never got that.
Yeah, exactly.
Moments later, shots ripped through the car,
striking Judy three times in the neck, back, and head.
Oh my gosh.
Sal or receive a bullet to the arm.
Both would survive the attack,
although neither would be able to describe the assailant.
Oh my God.
Witnesses believed that they saw a man with dark hair
running from the scene, hopping into a car,
and were able to obtain a partial plate from that car.
Oh.
This attack reminded everyone that the ominous letter
that Son of Sam had written mentioned July 29th,
the anniversary of Donna Lauria's murder.
This was not, this was in June, but still.
It's like gaining like momentum.
The city felt a lot of very real fear
building up as the date got closer.
Police were canvassing streets the week
leading up to that date.
And they even posed as couples in cars late at night
in like neighborhood parks.
Bro, I would be like, I'm sorry, give this assignment
to someone else.
Something else, right?
Oh my gosh.
That's crazy.
But I mean, they're literally putting themselves
in harm's way.
They are.
Unless they have bulletproof glass on their doors,
like you could literally get shot
and not even realize what was happening.
It's really scary.
Well, yeah, I mean, that's what happened to Carl.
He didn't even realize he was shot.
Yeah, exactly.
He just thought that like a rock had been thrown
through the window or something.
But the date came and went and no new murders
from the 44 caliber killer.
What?
However, on July 31st, the son of Sam
would claim another victim in Brooklyn.
So southeast of like Queens Bronx area,
Stacey Moskowitz and Robert Violante
went out on their very first date together.
Oh no.
Robert before leaving for the night
told his parents that he intended to stay
in the Brooklyn area for the date
to ensure that the two were safe.
After a night of dancing and enjoying the night together,
they parked their car outside of a park
and began to kiss and such.
When the couple pulled away from each other for a moment,
Robert noticed that there was a man standing
three feet away from Stacey's window.
Oh, hell no.
The man raised his hand and began firing into the car.
Robert would be struck in the head twice.
He would lose an eye and almost all of his vision
in his right eye.
Stacey was struck twice in the head
and would be rushed to the hospital,
but ultimately would not survive.
She was just 20.
And she would also be Son of Sam's only
blonde hair to victim as well.
That's interesting.
Right?
Witnesses would say that a man with light colored hair
ran from the scene once the shots had ceased.
Another witness said that they saw
a yellow car fleeing the area.
Given the fact that Stacey was blonde
and that her and Robert were shot in Brooklyn
and not the usual Son of Sam,
it's not the usual Son of Sam area,
police were relieved when they actually found
that the bullets from the scene were that
of the 44 caliber killer and not that of a copycat.
Oh yeah, for sure.
One officer was quoted in saying, quote,
it's hard enough to catch one of them.
Could you imagine if there were two?
I mean, that sounds kind of bad, but it's true.
Four days later, Cecilia Davis contacted police
regarding the night that Stacey Moskowitz was murdered.
She said that she was out walking her dog
when she saw a patrol officer ticketing park cars
around the park.
On her way back to her apartment,
she noticed that a man who was visibly upset
was by his car because he had been ticketed
for being too close to a fire hydrant.
The car was described as a 1970 yellow Ford Galaxy.
He drives like the most obvious car too.
It's so yellow.
Yeah.
Well, I think he bought it because remember earlier,
like it said that he was a taxi driver for a little bit.
And I wonder if he just didn't buy it
because it was yellow.
It looks like a taxi, yeah.
She said she watched the man become frustrated
saying something to himself under his breath
as he walked away from the vehicle
with something dark colored in his hand.
I don't know.
When Cecilia turned to walk back to her apartment,
she heard shots ring out.
She did not give a reason as to why she waited
on that information, because this was like four days later.
Yeah.
But maybe she was just scared.
Either way, police took this information
and retrieved the ticket log for that night.
The yellow Ford Galaxy was registered to David Berkowitz.
And it had the same partial plate as the recent victim
or the recent witness said.
On August 9th, Detective James Justice
put his efforts into locating David Berkowitz.
When Justice called the Yonkers precinct
to schedule a few officers to go look for David Berkowitz,
a young woman by the name of Wheat Carr answered the phone.
When Justice brought up the name David Berkowitz,
Wheat was shocked as David was her family's neighbor.
This is pretty unusual, because it's a pretty unusual name,
right?
Yeah.
She had two brothers who were also lived in the home,
John and Michael.
It clicked in the officer's head that in both of the Son-O-Sam
letters, one to Burrelly and one to Daily News,
he references a John Wheaties.
Interesting.
I just got that as soon as you were about to say it.
Wheat told Justice that she and her family
were convinced that David was responsible for the shooting
of their dog and just described him as a disturbed person
who all the neighbors were really kind of weirded out about.
He lived in kind of a nice area.
So through this conversation, Justice
was easily able to locate Berkowitz's house.
The next day, while police staked out David Berkowitz's
residence, they peaked inside of his car, the galaxy,
and noticed that there was a butt of a 44 caliber pistol
underneath, like in the back seat.
Interesting.
This is a coincidence.
The police were waiting to obtain a search warrant
for the apartment when David came out suddenly from his home
and he exited and began to walk to the car.
And as soon as he reached for the door handle,
police feared that once he got a hold of the gun,
it would be a bad situation.
So they literally pulled out their guns
and they were just like, get on the ground.
So they arrest him.
On what, though?
Suspicion?
Suspicion, probably, or holding or whatever.
They have right to hold him for some reason.
Well, if he was, he is the person
that was in the car that got taken and that shot fired.
He could be held as a material witness.
As a witness.
Yeah, of course.
So again, 44 caliber bulldog that they found.
David with his hands in the air stated, quote,
well, you got me, end quote.
Oh, hell no.
Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God, oh my God, oh my God.
I'd be like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
Detective Fela Tico, who was the arresting officer,
said, quote, God who?
Who have I got?
You know.
No, I don't.
Tell me.
I'm Sam.
You're Sam.
Sam who?
Sam.
David Berkowitz.
Located inside the car was another letter
written similarly to the other letters
talking about plans to shoot inside of a busy club,
like a discotheque, like within the next week or so.
Oh my gosh.
Could you imagine, though?
Now it's like we can imagine mass shootings.
Yeah.
But like in 70, like late 70s, maybe not so much.
But could you imagine?
He's just really scary.
He just like, he's like, well, you got me.
He's just like, you got me.
Cappals.
Like, nothing gave up.
It sounds bad, but he just surrendered immediately.
Berkowitz was taken to the Yonkers precinct
and held until they could officially
take a statement from him.
Confident in the arrest, police had held a press conference
where the mayor was state, quote,
the people of the city of New York can rest easy today
because of the fact that police have captured a man who they
believed to be the son of Sam.
Oh, wow.
In the early morning hours of April 11,
David Berkowitz confessed to all his crimes
he had committed over the last year and a half.
And he had expressed his intention of pleading guilty
to every single one of them.
He continued to maintain that he was in fact possessed
by several demons, and that he did believe
that he was being controlled by the neighborhood dogs who had
only been silenced by blood sacrifices.
The public was shocked to find out what David looked like,
this unassuming, broad-statured man who was a taxi driver
and post-office worker.
Yeah.
He seemed mild-mannered and was described by some
to be just quiet, and he was living in a nice area,
and some neighbors had never problem with him at all.
It didn't sit well with some people,
not to mention that he looked nothing
like the composite sketches.
Wow.
Initial psychiatric tests concluded
that Berkowitz was competent enough to stand trial.
And against the advice of his defense lawyers to plead not.
Does he find for himself?
Well, the defense lawyers were like, you should plead guilty
by reason of insanity.
And Berkowitz said, absolutely not.
He maintained his guilty plea.
Wow.
On September 19, 1977, David Berkowitz
was allowed to release a statement regarding the charges.
In this statement, Berkowitz says, quote,
there are other sons out there.
God help the world, end quote.
Doubt it.
Alluding to the fact that he did not work alone.
David Berkowitz was found guilty on all six counts
of secondary murder and all counts of attempted murder.
At his sentencing hearing just two weeks later,
Berkowitz tried to jump out of the courtroom window
in an effort to unalive himself.
Oh my god.
He was on the seventh floor.
When he was detained, he began to yell, quote,
Stacy was a whore.
She deserved to die.
I'd kill her again.
I'd kill them all again, end quote.
Once the courtroom calms and David was evaluated,
evaluated once more to.
I'll fucking say, he should have been evaluated after that shit.
Let me reevaluate again.
Let me just make sure that you're good.
Yeah.
So he was evaluated again just to make sure that he was
seen enough to be at his sentencing.
Berkowitz was sentenced to six 25 to life sentences
to run consecutively.
And I like when they say that, run consecutively.
Like they're going to give you a break in between?
Yeah.
No, no, no, no.
Berkowitz bounced around from psychiatric facility
to psychiatric facility for the first year or so
that he was sentenced before landing in Attica for almost
10 years.
Within this first year at Attica,
another inmate tried to kill Berkowitz by slashing at him.
Oh no.
Berkowitz, what?
Sentenced to sarcastic.
Oh no.
I was being genuine.
I just didn't come out like.
Berkowitz actually received 50 stitches to his neck
and was able to recover.
Berkowitz described Attica as a nightmare, but like good.
How many?
Sorry.
How many stitches would it take to stitch your whole head back
on?
Because I feel like 50 is a lot.
50 is a lot, right?
We could have some inside too.
You know what I mean?
Yeah, I don't know.
Jeez, that's scary.
That's horrible.
Berkowitz said about the slashing that he deserved it,
but that the experience also gave him a new perspective
and he was grateful to the inmate,
never revealing who the culprit actually was.
Like he knew who it was.
He's like, he never gave him up.
Respect.
It was at this time that David decided
to turn his life over to God.
OK.
He says in his testimony about his conversion to evangelism.
And quote.
The whole thing has been a quote thus far.
End quote.
It's just him breathing.
Quote, at one time I almost lost my life when another inmate
cut my throat.
Yet all through this, and I did not realize until later,
God had his loving hands on me.
10 years into my prison sentence and feeling despondent
without any hope, another inmate came up to me one day
as I was walking the prison yard on a cold winter's night.
He introduced himself to me and began to tell me
that Jesus Christ loved me and he wanted to forgive me.
Although I knew he meant well, I mocked him
because I did not think that God would ever forgive me
or that he would want anything to do with me.
Still this man persisted and then we became friends.
His name was Rick and we would walk the yard together.
Little by little, he would share with me about his life
and what he believed Jesus had done for him.
He kept reminding me that no matter what a person did,
Christ stood ready to forgive if that individual would be
willing to turn from bad things that they were doing
and put their faith and trust in Jesus Christ.
And he did on the cross by dying for our sins.
He gave me a Gideon's pocket testament
and asked me to read Psalms.
I did.
Every night I would read them and it was at this time
that the Lord was quietly melting my stone cold heart.
And quote.
Jesus, that's heavy.
It's really heavy, right?
Berkowitz has written many things
about his spiritual experiences and growth.
And though many have been published,
he has never taken any royalties.
He started a prison ministry and insists on going by the Son
of Hope instead of his aforementioned name.
Berkowitz has skipped or refused every opportunity
to have his conviction appealed or overturned saying,
quote, in all honesty, I believe I deserve to be in prison
for the rest of my life.
I have, with God's help, long ago come to terms
with my situation and have accepted my punishments, end quote.
In 2002, Berkowitz sued a previous lawyer
who had actually sold the Son of Sam letters
in the name of memorabilia.
It was just fucking gross.
That is so gross.
Berkowitz stated he would only drop the suit
if the profits made from the sales of the letters
were given to the victim's families,
to which the two came to an agreement out of court.
Isn't that intense?
It's like he's a different person.
But routine, we always talk about routine.
It's true.
And who knows what kind of medication he might be onto.
Yeah.
Helpful medication, exactly.
In 1993, Berkowitz made several claims
that he did not work alone, but actually with a group
of satanic assailants.
I don't know if I believe that.
Out of fear of risking the lives of friends and family,
David kept the names of the supposed suspects to himself.
The only two accomplices that Berkowitz ever named
were John and Michael Carr.
Have you heard about this?
These accusations would never be confirmed or denied
by the two men, since both were already dead by this point.
A year after David's arrest, John, whose middle name was
Weed as well, he actually died in a shooting that
was ruled a suicide, but only after a thorough investigation
since the scene was so bizarre.
I didn't go into the scene.
Essentially, he is by himself, from what I can remember,
by himself in this specific place.
It's out in the middle of nowhere.
It's snowing.
You could only get to this place if you drove there.
He's by himself, just him, with a gun.
But that's it.
How did he get there?
Exactly.
Within a year of John's death, Michael
would actually die in a car accident,
where it was like he slammed into this single car accident.
Very sus.
Both men were also very involved in the Church of Scientology
at the time.
And it has been speculated that this may be the clue
in revealing the true story of the real sons of Sam.
Wow.
Ooh, I just got chills.
David Berkowitz resides in Schwungham Correctional Facility,
and he is 69 years old.
He's still alive.
Oh, damn.
That's wild.
Isn't that wild?
And what about this actual Sam guy?
Like, he had nothing to do with anything?
I don't know.
Clearly, his sons were kind of involved.
The fact that John Wheaties.
That's so bizarre.
If you ever look up a picture of John Carr,
he is a taller, thinner, blond man.
Oh, and some of the suspects said that they thought.
Like the composites.
Some of the witnesses said that he.
He looks like the composites.
Kind of blond hair.
Interesting.
And that's why it always seemed to be like these different
composites of different people.
And that's what David was saying, that he was saying that it's
not just him.
So he later on, even after converting and everything,
said that he did admit to killing three people.
Not the original six.
But he took the fall for everyone.
Then, yeah.
But could you imagine if you were totally brainwashed?
It's like, for the great old good.
And it was like the Satanic cult thing or something,
where everybody had to take a turn shooting someone.
I was going to say, but they all used the same gun.
But they all used the same gun.
So they're just passing the gun around.
Essentially.
That's interesting.
I actually didn't know.
I say this after like every case.
I actually didn't know a lot about that case.
I think that when people talk about Son of Sam,
all that they say is like, yeah, the neighbor's dog told them
to kill people.
It's like, vague.
Like the way that they say it.
That's not exactly what happened.
So it's cool to kind of hear like the whole story.
And I mean, he's still alive.
Shit.
So I didn't include this in my notes,
but I will read it verbatim from the Wikipedia page
of Son of Sam.
Nisa Moskowitz, who is Stacey's mother,
who had previously not hidden her hatred for Birkowitz,
wrote him a letter shortly before her own death in 2006
for giving him for killing her daughter Stacey.
Moskowitz had actually lost all of her children
at very young ages.
Jody was just age nine and a possible suicide
and she lost her in 1968.
Oh my God.
Stacey, which was 77, and then Ricky, who was 37, and 99,
and he was sick.
She had no survivors except according to the New York
Post, her daughter's murderer.
And that's why she chose to forgive him.
Yeah.
That's intense.
It's really sad.
What a good woman though.
Seriously.
And there's tons of writings from David Birkowitz,
mostly all that have been published
are going to be nothing but spiritual things.
But it's really interesting.
I don't think that we've ever really seen a case where
I feel like somebody transitioned so thoroughly,
you know what I mean?
And this rehabilitation and stuff.
So I thought that was really interesting and I had no idea.
That is really interesting.
Well, thanks for bringing that.
I thought you were going to do the Zodiac Killer.
That's who I thought.
Oh, really?
Yeah.
And that's kind of funny that I mentioned that his picture
was almost like Zodiac.
Or he was on a similar wavelength.
Yeah.
The Zodiac would be interesting.
Thank you guys for joining us.
I was actually talking to a couple of listeners
and they said that they really enjoyed the mental breakdowns
and they were wondering what we weren't doing them.
So we're definitely going to just throw a couple in there
here now.
I think we just wanted to really focus on some big cases
and we've done just that.
So I think we'll be having a couple mental breakdowns come
out pretty soon.
Of course, we're not going to stop the content with the cases
and everything like that.
But we did our handles in the beginning of the podcast.
But definitely send us an email.
Shout us out.
Follow us.
Sponsor us.
But you can just go to our Patreon.
I would like to get some local businesses for sure.
Small businesses, independent businesses for sure.
To, you know, we'll talk about it.
Email us for sure.
Yeah, absolutely.
And just as a reminder, go ahead and check out Movication.
Go ahead and subscribe to their podcast.
They're great guys and they do everything over Discord.
So it's really cool that they're like super into what they do
because they're able to do it from home
and still kind of have a great time.
They just shoot the shit.
But it's also really fun to listen to.
It's a lot of fun.
I love listening to their opinions
because they crack me up.
Well, that is all we have for you guys today.
All right.
Bye.
Love you.
Bye.
Love you.
Bye.
Ooh woo.