﻿We tend to think of serial killers as fit and dangerous men with the cunning
and skill to harm innocent people relatively easily, or in some cases the charisma to evade
police and lure their victims to their own dooms willingly. However, a case in
1970’s New York City proved to the country that anybody could be capable of horrific murders,
even someone deemed a “loser” or “non-threat” by society. Today we’ll be covering the story
of David Berkowitz, known sometimes as the .44 Caliber Killer or more notably “The Son of Sam”,
who terrorized New York and eluded the biggest police manhunt in New York City History.
It all started on June 1st, 1953, when Richard David Falco was born. His mother, Betty Brodar,
had been abandoned by her former husband Tony Falco, and began an illicit affair with a married
man named Joseph Kleinman. Betty had one child from her failed marriage, a daughter named Roslyn,
but she soon found out that she was once again pregnant and went to tell Joseph. Given that
Betty was his mistress he was less than happy and forbade her from giving the baby his last name,
forcing her to name Richard after the man that had abandoned her. Joseph then successfully
pressured Betty into giving the baby up for adoption, and just a few days after being born,
Richard was adopted by a couple named Pearl and Nathan Berkowitz in the Bronx.
The couple then changed the order of RIchard’s first and middle names and gave him their own
last name, officially making him David Berkowitz. The family lived fairly middle class with money
coming in as hardware store retailers, and life could have been smooth sailing for
David here on out, but tragically it wasn’t. David’s adopted father was incredibly distant and
refrained from developing any real relationship with the boy, going so far as to say the adoption
as a whole was a mistake. On the other hand, Pearl was absolutely infatuated with their new son and
developed a deep bond with David. At school David was a mischievous troublemaker with a temper,
and would use his large size to intimidate other kids. Despite being of above-average intelligence
he lost interest in school and would either skip classes or pretend to be sick.
At seven years old David was hit by a car and suffered from some head injuries,
and while it isn’t known if this caused lasting damage that may have influenced his later crimes,
it should be noted that it was after this head trauma that he developed an infatuation with fire.
A budding pyromaniac, David began setting fires around his neighborhood
and engaging in petty larceny. His behaviour troubled his parents and they brought him to
see a psychotherapist but it doesn’t appear that anything really came from that. At 14 years old,
David’s life would take a turn for the worst. For two years he watched his mother pearl,
his best friend and deepest relationship, suffer and wither away due to breast cancer, and in 1967
he passed anyway. Her death dealt a devastating blow to David’s mental health and he became
depressed and isolated, growing ever more distant with his father, especially after he remarried and
moved the family to Boynton Beach in Miami. David was looking for a way to get away from his
family, and in 1971, at 18 years old, he finally saw his opportunity. He joined the military and
after basic training was shipped out to Korea where he served for three years. In June of 1974,
after being Honourably Discharged from the military, David returned to his birthplace
of New York City, where he settled in the Bronx. While the structure and discipline of
the military was good for David, it didn’t do much to appease his temper. He was a very argumentative
and aggressive person, and was known for starting petty fights with his neighbors in his apartment
and with fellow students at the Bronx Community College. David also went so far as to give regular
threats to those around him, including Charles Glassman, deputy police sheriff
and David’s downstairs neighbor, who received four different handwritten threats from David.
Once out of the military, David also decided to get back in touch with his birth mother,
finding both her and his half-sister Roslyn. After meeting for a few times, Betty told David
about her relationship with his father and how she had been pressured to give him up for adoption.
According to Forensic Anthropologist Elliott Leyton, this information was absolutely
devastating for David’s sense of identity and worth, and he was especially distraught over
the string of absent and distant fathers he seemed to have. David didn’t keep up a relationship with
his birth mother for much longer after learning the true nature, although he did keep up with
his half-sister for a short while longer until at some point cutting ties with her as well.
As dark emotions continued to swirl and well up within David, he began to fall back into old
habits and fascinations. In 1974 alone David set off 1,500 fires around the Bronx, and diligently
wrote down the details of each fire in a journal where he also referred to himself as “The Phantom
of The Bronx”. Not long after this fascination resurfaced he soon found himself in the throws of
a new obsession. In 1975 David read the Satanic Bible by Anton LaVey who started the Church of
Satan, and found himself convinced that he was actually possessed by evil and demonic spirits.
In November of that same year David wrote a letter to his father in which he expressed that he was
depressed and even stated that “...the world was getting darker…”. This was the first sign
of the unhealthy mental state that would soon drive David to murder. Just one month later,
on Christmas Eve of all ays, David finally gave into his urges and went out with intent to kill.
He grabbed a knife and attacked an unidentified woman as she was leaving the grocery store,
stabbing her several times before she was able to get away and luckily survive. While still
out on the prowl, David came across 15 year old Michelle Foreman who took six stab wounds before
managing to escape David and finding safety in some nearby apartments. While Michelle did survive
her attack the wounds were so brutal that she was hospitalized for seven whole days afterwards. Soon
after this, in January of 1976, David rented a house in Yonkers and moved, but moved again to an
apartment complex only a few months after this due to his landlord’s dog incessantly barking, which
apparently was so maddening he almost took his own life over it, and he claimed the dog’s barks were
actually commands from evil spirits telling him to kill women. Unfortunately for David,
moving to a new apartment complex wouldn’t get him any further from barking dogs, as his new neighbor
Sam Carr also had a dog who barked, which David viewed as a sign from Satan himself to kill women,
and David eventually used a molotov cocktail and a gun to kill Carr’s dog. David convinced
himself that Sam Carr must be possessed by the devil, and used this as the inspiration for his
serial killing moniker “The Son of Sam ''. David wasn’t pleased that both of his previous
victims managed to survive their stabbings, and decided to swap to a much more effective manner
of killing, collecting for himself a wide and impressive number of guns by June of 1976. His
first kill happened on July 26th of that same year, and involved two women named Donna Lauria
and Jody Valenti who had both been sitting in Jody’s car discussing a club they had been to.
Donna went to get out of the car to leave and saw David rapidly approaching before he
let off three shots. The first one nailed Donna straight in the head and instantly killed her
while the second bullet hit Jody’s thigh, and the third bullet completely missed both women.
Jody was luckily able to survive and get to the police after David left the scene, and was able to
give them a full description of her attacker. Just a few months after this, on October 23rd, David
proceeded with his next attack, which involved Carl Denaro and his girlfriend Rosemary Keenan
as they sat in Rosemary’s car. Similar to his last attack, David approached from the passenger’s side
and emptied his gun, managing to hit Carl in the head and miss Rosemary entirely. David’s
attacks continued in this manner without much notice, attacking one to two people as they sat
in their car, especially women with long dark hair. That was, until April 17th, 1976, when
David decided to leave a note at the murder scene of Alexander Esau and Valentina Suriani.
The handwritten letter discovered at the crime scene was addressed directly to the
police and taunted them, as well as identifying the killer the police were dealing with, stating,
“I am a monster. I am the “son of Sam”. I feel like an outsider. I am on a different wavelength
then everybody else. programmed to kill. However, to stop me you must kill me… I am the
“monster” - “beelzebub” -the chubby behe-mouth.” This was the first time David used the name the
Son of Sam, and it quickly replaced the name the media had given him: The .44 Caliber Killer.
March 30th of the following year, prolific crime writer Jimmy Breslin received a letter
from the Son of Sam and quickly gave it to the police who confirmed it was the real killer.
The police allowed portions of the letter to be published by the media, along with a message from
Breslin who was trying to convince the killer to give up and turn himself into the police. Along
with the letter and Breslin’s statement, the police also mentioned that the killer seemed
to be targeting women with long dark hair, which caused such a panic that salons were all booked up
and stores couldn’t meet the demand for wigs. After this incident the Police opened up an
official task force to track down the Son of Sam which consisted of 300 cops working day and night
for a total of $90,000 a day in order to find the killer’s identity. David went to two more
attacks in June and July before being caught which ended with injuries for Judy Placido and
Sal Lugo in June, and severe injuries and death for Bobby Violante and Stacy Moskowityz in July.
Stacy Moskowitz would be the last victim to fall at the hands of the Son of Sam.
On August 9th a woman named Cecilia Davis was out walking her dog when she saw a police
officer ticketing a car, and after the officer had left spotted someone who appeared to be the
owner of the car holding something dark in his hand and giving her a threatening look.
Cecilia quickly went inside her house and told the police about the man, and they swiftly rounded up
the owners of all cars ticketed that night which happened to include David’s 1970 four
door yellow Ford Galaxie. While rounding up the drivers, NYPD detective James Justis contacted the
Yonkers police to help him reach David Berkowitz and learned that they not only wanted him for
other crimes, but that they directly suspected him of being the Son of Sam. The next day the
police showed up at David’s apartment and found a gun and unsent letter threatening the head of
the Son of Sam task force in his car and sent some officers to go collect a search warrant.
While waiting for the warrant, David actually left his apartment building and got in his car
where he was approached and promptly arrested by Detective John Falotico. He was charged the
next day with 2nd degree murder for the death of Stacy Moskowitz, but wouldn’t actually be
sentenced until June 12th,1978 where he received six consecutive life sentences. After a decade of
being an aggressive and problematic prisoner, David became a born-again christian and turned
into a model prisoner, and even went so far as to deny his parole as he believes that he deserves
to be in jail. David is still alive and currently serving his life sentences, and most likely will
remain in prison until his death as he rejects his parole every two years when it comes up.
With that we’ve reached the end of the case and the end of the story of The Son of Sam. Leave
your thoughts in the comments down below, and like and subscribe if you enjoyed the video. Let
us know any other cases you’d like us to work on in the future and we’ll see you in the next one.