New York City. Arguably the most recognizable and well known city on the planet, The Big Apple is known for many things. From the Empire State Building to Times Square to Broadway to the Statue of Liberty, it has too many landmarks to count. For many, NYC is a place of fond memories and big dreams.
There is a much darker side to the city though. While beautiful, some sections of the city are run down and crime ridden, even with all the police involvement. And back in the day in the 70’s, that was still the case. The time of disco balls and drugs, New York was a haven of crime with the mob running most of the operations from the shadows.
But that’s not what we’re here to talk about. No, today we’re here to talk about the spree of bloodshed and panic that took place between July 1976 and July 1977. In those 12 months, the night was terrorized by a broken individual with a gun, a man who went on a rampage that left 6 people dead, and 11 more injured. He did all this for a very simple reason: because he believed that Satan had told him to kill.
As one resident who lived through that time recalled: “I remember that time very well, it was a very scary time. I remember when he was caught. We were very careful during that time, we were very aware as young people.”
As that same darkness swallows us once again, let us now begin our tale. A tale of death, fear, mental illness, satanic worship…and a dog. This is the tale of one of the most infamous murderers in American history, whose name ranks right up alongside evils such as Ted Bundy, Jeffrey Dahmer, and John Wayne Gacy. Originally he was known as the .44 Caliber Killer, but for his depravities and the insanity that caused it all, he will forever be known by another name. The Son of Sam.
From the Shadows
It was 1:10 a.m on July 29th, 1976, and it was a night that seemed like any other. That night, two friends, 18-year-old emergency medical technician Donna Lauria, and 19-year-old nurse Jody Valenti, were sitting in Jody’s Oldsmobile near the entrance of Donna’s apartment building in the Bronx. They had just pulled up after having a wonderful night at the local disco. Donna’s parents, Mike and Rose Lauria, came down to tell the girls to wrap it up, that it was late and that nothing good happens at 1 in the morning.
If only they knew how right they were…
After her parents left, Donna opened the car door and was getting ready to head in as well…when she took notice of something. A man appeared from the shadows and was quickly making his way over to their car.
“Who is this guy?” She asked. “What does he want?”
Sadly, those would be the last words she ever uttered. With that, the man crouched and produced a brown paper bag. Before the girls could react, the man pulled a gun from the bag, braced one elbow on his knee, aimed the weapon with both hands, and fired three times. One bullet hit Donna in the neck while one landed in Jody’s thigh, the third missing them both entirely.
With that, the man simply got up and walked away, stowing his gun back in the paper bag as he calmly went back to his vehicle and drove off into the night.
Just two young women, health workers, care givers, one whose life was snuffed out, the other injured and undoubtedly scarred mentally for the rest of her days.
Mike Lauria had heard the shots and raced down to see what had happened. Jody had managed to get out of the car and was crawling towards him, crying for help. Horror filled him when he saw a still bleeding Donna slumped inside the vehicle. Barefoot and clad only in his pajamas, Mike rushed the girls to the hospital, praying to any god who would listen that he would get there in time to save his daughter. Sadly this wasn’t to be.
The police were called and they arrived to question Jody, as well as Donna’s parents. Jody stated that she didn’t know the killer, that she didn’t recognize him at all, but she was able to describe him. A white man in his thirties, he stood about 5 feet 8 inches or 1.73 m tall, looked to weigh about 200 lb or 91 kg, and had short, dark, and curly hair.
When the officers asked Mike about it, he echoed Jody’s statement, giving a similar description of the man, and stated that he and his wife had seen the man Jody described, that he was sitting in a yellow compact car parked nearby before the attack. Said car was spotted by neighbors in the area, and they all claimed that it had been driving around the neighborhood for hours before the incident.
After they examined the bullets that were taken from both victims as well as the missed shot, the police were able to identify the gun used as a .44 caliber Charter Arm Bulldog. Other than that, they didn’t have much to go on. The mob was very prevalent in New York as previously stated, so they theorized that perhaps this was a mob execution, that maybe the girls had been mistaken for someone else and paid the price for it.
Or, and even more frightening, this was simply a random attack by a lone individual, a psycho with a gun who took the opportunity to murder a couple of women in the dead of night. If only they knew how close they were in that assumption.
After this, things would go quiet for about three months. The police had the description of the shooter as well as the car, but there were no leads or breakthroughs, no new information to go on…that is until October 23rd, 1976 when a similar attack went down.
Over in Flushing, Queens, next to Bowne Park, 20-year-old Citibank security guard Carl Denaro and 18-year-old Queens College student Rosemary Keenan were just sitting together in a car, talking and enjoying each other’s company. They’d known each other from college and they had been partying it up with friends for a good portion of the night. This was mostly because Carl was on his way out to the Air Force for at least 4 years, so he wanted to have a night to remember with the people he loved. After the party had died down, Carl drove Rosemary home, none the wiser that the night was about to go from fun to hellish.
All of a sudden, shots rang out in the night and the window exploded inwards. Both Carl and Rosemary screamed, but Rosemary managed to wrangle her way into the driver’s seat, start the car, and speed out of there, heading back to the bar where their friends rushed them to the hospital. Rosemary only suffered superficial wounds from the shattered glass, but Carl had actually taken a shot to the head and was bleeding pretty bad.
Thankfully they both managed to survive, but Carl had to get a metal plate inserted to replace a portion of his skull that had been severely damaged. Bullets found embedded in the side of the car and the one from Carl’s skull indicated that the shots came from a .44 caliber gun.
The police were in full investigation mode at that point, particularly since Rosemary’s father just so happened to be a 20-year veteran police detective of the NYPD. It was their assumption that, because of Carl’s long hair, the shooter had believed it was two women in the car, not a man and a woman. Unfortunately, no matter how much they looked into it, there wasn’t any evidence to point to this being anything other than a random attack.
They initially didn’t link the attack with the previous shooting. Neither Rosemary or Carl had gotten a look at the shooter, each shooting took place in different boroughs of the city, and as a result, each shooting was being looked at by separate precincts. With no new leads to follow up on, the case went cold.
Then it happened again.
It was November 27th, 1976, and this time, it was high school students 18-year-old Joanne Lomino and 16-year-old Donna DeMasi in Bellerose, Queens. It was just a little after midnight and the two friends were heading home from a wonderful time at the cinema. The two young ladies had made it to Donna’s house and were speaking on the porch, undoubtedly moments away from parting ways and finishing their night without incident, when they were approached by a man dressed in military fatigues.
His skin was pale and his physique was on the chubby side. In an oddly high pitched voice, he asked the ladies, “Can you tell me how to get…”, drawing their attention. Before he finished his sentence however, the man produced a handgun.
Donna and Joanne didn’t even have time to react before he started shooting. Donna was shot in the neck and Joanne in the back, both falling to the porch, crying out in pain. Then, instead of finishing off his helpless victims, the monster simply unloaded into the side of the apartment building before running off into the darkness.
Donna’s family raced them to the hospital and both girls thankfully survived. Joanne though would sadly carry the burden of that night for the rest of her life, since the bullet had shattered her spine, leaving her paralyzed from the waist down. Once more, upon examination, the bullets were concluded to have come from a .44 caliber gun, and a neighbor who had heard the gunshots and had gotten a look at the shooter, would explain that it was a young man with blonde hair.
So, that’s 6 young people who were attacked, each in pairs. 5 of them were severely wounded, one was left a paraplegic, and one’s life was brutally snuffed out. Each incident was looked into, each with little to no evidence to suggest they were anything more than completely random occurrences. None of these pairs knew the others, none of them had anything linking them together aside from the fact that they were mostly women and one mistaken for a woman, each with similar colored hair. It was totally by chance, each attack ending in blood and misery…and he was far from finished.
The Bloodshed Continues
The attack back in November was the last incident of 1976, so while people were still on edge, the two months of peace seemed like a welcome reprieve. It wouldn’t last for long though, as come January 30th, 1977, the shooter struck again, christening the new year in blood.
It was 12:40 a.m., and the 26-year-old secretary Christine Freund and her fiance, 30-year-old bartender John Diel, were sitting alone in Diel’s car near the Forest Hills LIRR station in Queens. They had just seen the new hit movie Rocky, and were on their way to a dance hall to continue their fun for the night…when everything went to hell. Three gunshots echoed in the night air, each penetrating the car, the shooter wreathed in darkness, unseen to his victims.
John reacted quickly and drove away in a panic, only suffering superficial wounds…but Christine wasn’t so lucky. Two of the three bullets had struck her fatally in the head and, while John was able to get her to the hospital, she succumbed to her injuries. A loving couple, soon to be married, enjoying a date night together, only for everything to come crashing down in the most heartbreaking way imaginable.
With this attack, the police finally seemed to get their act together. Detective Sergeant Joe Coffey was brought on the case and, along with NYPD Captain Joe Borrelli, they put the case under a microscope. Examining the bullets from the scene, they determined that, once again, the gun used was a .44 caliber firearm and, upon further inspection, they finally made the connection that the gun used in this homicide was likely the same one used in the previous attacks.
They finally made it public the type of gun used in these crimes, and that all these attacks spanning back to July were likely connected because almost all the targets happened to be young women with long dark hair. Because of this, thousands of women across New York City began to dye their hair or buy wigs in order to have a better chance of avoiding the killer.
The only discrepancy was that the original attacker was said to be a man with dark hair, and the witness to the Lomino–DeMasi attack was said to be blonde, so composite sketches were released for both, and the police suggested that multiple gunmen were involved. A task force was formed in order to track down this murderous gunman, with Borrelli and Coffey at the head of the hunt. Despite the two different hair colors given, they were of the belief that all these attacks were the workings of a sole psycho, prowling the streets of the different boroughs of New York City, armed with what the police identified as a .44 caliber Bulldog. Despite their efforts, no suspects could initially be identified.
Then, just a little over a month later, it happened again.
19-year-old Columbia University student Virginia Voskerichian was walking home alone on March 8th, 1977. She was a hard working young lady, who worked diligently in order to make the most of the opportunities afforded to her by her family after they had fled Bulgaria for the USA back in the 50’s. It was about 7:30 at night when she was accosted by a man armed with a gun. In a last ditch effort to protect herself, she lifted the textbooks she had been carrying up to her head as a makeshift shield, but sadly it did nothing.
The gun discharged, the books were pierced, and the bullet went directly into her face. She was dead before she hit the ground.
The creepy part? Virginia lived only about a block from where Christine had been shot. He’d returned to the area, seemingly unafraid of getting caught. He simply wanted to kill…so he did.
The even creepier part? While fleeing the scene, the killer passed by a man who had witnessed the whole thing. “Hi, mister,” was his only remark as he vanished into the night. Totally calm, totally nonplussed by the situation, as if it was just a normal night in the Big Apple.
The police were at a loss and were running themselves ragged trying to close this case. They were able to match the bullet to those of the previous cases, but that didn’t help them get any closer to catching the madman. They were looking at every lead, every clue, and still coming up empty handed. To quote Captain Borrelli: “If you watch detectives at any homicide, you’ll notice that they go about their jobs unemotionally…they didn’t want to look at her.
They knew it was senseless. She was someone beautiful and she was laying under the sheet, a bullet in her face had destroyed her. It began to grab at them, in the guts, and they just turned away. These were veterans and they couldn’t take it.”
A press conference was held by the NYPD, informing the public that the killer had struck once more. The public was of course in a panic, they had a monster on the loose in their city and the police were no closer to catching him than they had previously been. The only thing they had to go on was a description, and a basic one at that: “a white male, twenty-five to thirty years old, six feet tall, medium build, with dark hair.” Take a walk down the street or go to your local supermarket or mall, and tell me how many people you spot that match that description?
It’s the literal definition of a needle in a haystack.
With that, the task force was rebranded as Operation Omega, under the direction of one Deputy Inspector Timothy Dowd. 61-years-old, he was a tough and tenacious cop, as well as being sharp as a tack, having majored in Latin and English at City College and had studied for a master’s degree in business at the Baruch School of City College. It was all hands on deck now…and they were going to need it.
The next attack happened a little over a month later on April 17th, 1977. This was 20-year-old tow truck operator Alexander Esau and 18-year-old Lehman College student and aspiring actress and model Valentina Suriani. They were sitting together in Alexander’s brother’s car on the Hutchinson River Parkway service road in the Bronx.
What they were doing there is unknown, but we sadly know what happened to them. Out from the darkness came the villain of our story, pulling up alongside them in his own car, gun in hand, and, only a few blocks away from the scene of the Lauria–Valenti shooting, he unloaded on the couple. Four shots were heard, the police were called by a nearby neighbor, and they arrived at the scene to find Valentina in the driver’s seat, shot once in the head, and Alexander seated next to her, shot twice in the head.
Valentina died at the scene and, while he was able to make it to the hospital, Alexander soon joined her. He wasn’t able to give the police a description before he passed, but they had a suspicion as to who it was. The phantom had struck again, stolen two new souls for his collection, and had disappeared into the night once again, sight unseen.
Correspondence From a Killer
Now remember when Jack the Ripper is suspected to have mailed letters to the police and press during his reign of terror? Well here we find something rather similar. While investigating the scene of Alexander and Valentina’s murder, the police came upon something shocking.
A handwritten letter was placed near the bodies, and it was addressed to NYPD Captain Joseph Borrelli. Written mostly in block capitals with a few lower-case letters and written in what appeared to be a version of Scottish-English, the killer taunted the police for their inability to stop him, and expressed his want and desire to continue his murderous spree. Most noticeably, the killer also gives himself a name, one that would stick, and one that would be etched into the annals of true crime history forever more: The Son of Sam.
It reads as follows:
“Dear Captain Joseph Borrelli, I am deeply hurt by your calling me a wemon [sic] hater. 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 wave length then everybody else—programmed too 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 hoot it urts sonny boy.’ I miss my pretty princess most of all. She’s resting in our ladies house but I’ll see her soon.
I am the ‘Monster’—‘Beelzebub’—the ‘Chubby Behemouth.’ I love to hunt. Prowling the streets looking for fair game—tasty meat.
The wemon of Queens are z prettyist of all. I must be the water they drink. I live for the hunt—my life.
Blood for papa. Mr. Borrelli, sir, I dont want to kill anymore no sir, no more but I must, ‘honour 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 wa want to wish all of you a happy Easter.
May God bless you in this life and in the next and for now I say goodbye and goodnight. Police—Let me haunt you with these words; I’ll be back! I’ll be back!
To be interrpreted as—bang, bang, bang, bank, bang—ugh!! Yours in murder Mr. Monster.”
The killer seemed to be reveling in the bloodshed in his wake, while also blaming his ‘father,’ this ‘Sam,’ for his actions. In the same breath, he seemed to blame a dark-haired nurse for his father’s death, which seemed to correspond to the original shooting of Donna Lauria and Jody Valenti. This also seemed to reflect how he only seemed to go after women, or those he thought were women, with similar looks and hair color. When looking through the letter, it seemed to indicate that, much like a number of other serial killers, the murderer enjoyed the kills, and got a kick out of taunting the police and the media.
With this, the police were able to get a psych profile put together, where the killer was described as neurotic, potentially suffering from paranoid schizophrenia, and believed that he was possessed by demons. With that, the police went into overdrive. While no useful fingerprints could be lifted from the envelope, that didn’t stop them from tracking down every person they could that was registered as owning a .44 Bulldog, questioning them extensively and forensically testing each gun. Regardless of their efforts, they couldn’t find the perp or his gun.
It was a dead end.
And it didn’t help that the Omega task force received a tidal wave of tip calls. Apparently everyone knew the killer, whether it was their next door neighbor who came home late every night, the cashier at the grocery store who gave them weird looks every week, their cousin who had a weird obsession with guns, the creepy guy who spent way too much time drinking at the bar and had a deep hatred for pretty girls. The list was endless, the calls were constant, and none of it helped in the slightest.
New York City Mayor Abraham Beame was exasperated about the whole thing. He hated how the monster had the nerve to give himself a name, one that the media clearly would latch on to, only increasing his own ego and infamy. Calling a press conference, he stated: “The killings were a horror. The police were under terrible strain.
Everyone was beginning to question his ability to capture the gunman. The letter fused everything together. It was a man against an entire city. He had written this one policeman, but I knew it wasn’t that captain he was writing about.
It was every cop who was after him, all twenty-five thousand of them.”
And then another letter came. It was May 30th, 1977, and a Daily News columnist by the name of Jimmy Breslin received a handwritten letter. Postmarked early that same day in Englewood, New Jersey, it claimed to be from the Son of Sam. In the letter, he mentioned a number of the victims by name, and continued to mock the NYPD for their constant inability in catching him and stopping the killings. Titled Blood and Family – Darkness and Death – Absolute Depravity – .44, the letter reads as follows:
“Hello from the gutters of N.Y.C. which are filled with dog manure, vomit, stale wine, urine and blood. Hello from the sewers of N.Y.C. which swallow up these delicacies when they are washed away by the sweeper trucks. Hello from the cracks in the sidewalks of N.Y.C. and from the ants that dwell in these cracks and feed in the dried blood of the dead that has settled into the cracks.
J.B., 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 want to tell you that I read your column daily and I find it quite informative. Tell me Jim, what will you have for July twenty-ninth?
You can forget about me if you like because I don’t care for publicity. However you must not forget Donna Lauria and you cannot let the people forget 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 for a while that I went to sleep. No, rather, I am still here.
Like a spirit roaming the night. Thirsty, hungry, seldom stopping to rest; anxious to please Sam. I love my work.
Now, the void has been filled. Perhaps we shall meet face to face someday or perhaps I will be blown away by cops with smoking .38’s. Whatever, if I shall be fortunate enough to meet you I will tell you all about Sam if you 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 the next job. Or should I say you will see my handiwork at the next job?
Remember Ms. Lauria. Thank you.
In their blood and from the gutter ‘Sam’s creation’ .44 Here are some names to help you along. Forward them to the inspector for use by N.C.I.C: ‘The Duke of Death’ ‘The Wicked King Wicker’ ‘The Twenty Two Disciples of Hell’ ‘John ‘Wheaties’ – Rapist and Suffocator of Young Girls. PS: Please inform all the detectives working the slaying to remain.
P.S: JB, Please inform all the detectives working the case that I wish them the best of luck. ‘Keep ‘em digging, drive on, think positive, get off your butts, knock on coffins, etc.’ Upon my capture I promise to buy all the guys working the case a new pair of shoes if I can get up the money.
Son of Sam”
What did catch many eyes, including those of the cops, was the mention of July 29th. If you recall, that was the date of the first attack one year previous, the date that Donna Lauria was killed. It was handed over to the police and they came up with a number of theories, ones that sadly didn’t go anywhere, from thinking the writer was a comic-book letterer based on his writing style, or that the phrase “Wicked King Wicker” was in reference to the 1973 horror movie The Wicker Man.
A week after it was received, and with portions of it held back at the request of the police, the letter was made public in the Daily News, with an urging from Breslin for the killer to stop this madness, stop the murders, and to turn himself in. He didn’t.
The Final Attacks
On June 26, 1977, the monster struck again. 17-year-old high school graduate Judy Placido and 20-year-old mechanic’s helper Salvatore “Sal” Lupo were spending time together at a local disco, the Elephas, in Bayside, Queens. At around 3 in the morning, Judy turned to Sal and asked him to take her home, that it was getting late and she was worried about the phantom psycho out there gunning people down. By that time the disco was pretty much empty, the threat of the Son of Sam had everyone on edge and having similar thoughts, heading to the safety of their homes as the night dragged on. Sal agreed to take her home and so they left.
They got into Sal’s car…and the world around them exploded with the sound of gunshots. Judy recalled the following: “All of a sudden, I heard echoing in the car. There wasn’t any pain, just ringing in my ears. I looked at Sal, and his eyes were open wide, just like his mouth.
There were no screams. I don’t know why I didn’t scream. All the windows had been closed. I couldn’t understand what this pounding noise was.
After that, I felt disoriented, dazed.” Three gunshots had pierced the car with Sal being wounded in the right forearm, and Judy taking the worst of it, taking shots in the right temple, shoulder, and back of the neck. Both managed to exit the car and attempted to run back to the disco, but Judy collapsed in the parking lot. Sal managed to get help, the police and an ambulance was called, and Judy miraculously was able to survive.
In a dark twist of irony, Detective Coffey had been outside the Elephas about fifteen minutes before the shooting. When the call came over the radio, he was one of the first on the scene, asking if either Judy or Sal had seen their shooter. Neither of them had seen the attacker, same as before, with Sal having thought initially it was just some punk throwing rocks at their car before the truth became clear. There were witnesses though who said they saw a tall dark-haired man in a leisure suit fleeing the area, with one even claiming to see him leave in a car, giving them a partial license plate number.
As the 29th of July quickly started creeping up, the Omega task force and the police as a whole were in a near panic. They were desperate to find the killer, they were sure that with the anniversary of his first attack nearing, someone else was going to either die or get hurt on or near that day. The media did their part to help corral the public, making sure they knew the significance of that date and warning everyone to be even more careful than they already were. Everyone waited with bated breath as July 29th, 1977, came and went.
The sun rose and the sun set, and no attacks or murders went down. Everyone let out a collective sigh…they had been scared for nothing.
And then he struck, one final time.
It was July 31st, two days after the first anniversary of the first Son of Sam attack. All of the previous attacks had either been in Queens or the Bronx, but not this time, this time it happened in Brooklyn. It was early in the morning, and 20-year-old secretary Stacy Moskowitz and 20-year-old clothing salesman Robert “Bobby” Violante were sitting in his father’s car under a streetlight near a city park in the neighborhood of Bath Beach. It should be noted that, unlike any of the other women targeted by the killer, Stacy had unmistakable blonde hair.
The two of them had just been on their first date to the movies and were having a wonderful night. Then, as if to put a cap on their date night, Bobby made a suggestion.
Bobby: “How about taking a walk in the park?”
Stacy: “What if the Son of Sam is hiding there?”
Bobby: “This is Brooklyn, not Queens. Come on.”
While nervous, Stacy relented, and the two of them exited the car and made their way into the park for a nice night time walk together. Making their way over to the swings, Bobby leaned in for a kiss with her, and that’s when she spoke up. The figure of a man in the park had caught her eye and when she informed Bobby, he turned just as the man turned around and vanished into the night.
Still frightened, Stacy asked Bobby to return to the car, which they did, though Bobby convinced her to stay for a few more minutes, that he’d like another kiss. She once more relented, the two leaning in to end their night, their first date, with a proper kiss…and then it happened.
Bobby recalled later on the terror of that moment: “All of a sudden, I heard like a humming sound. First I thought I heard glass break. Then I didn’t hear Stacy any more. I didn’t feel anything, but I saw her fall away from me.
I don’t know who got shot first, her or me.” While the two of them were kissing, the Son of Sam had emerged from the shadows and approached the car, getting within three feet of the passenger side door. Lifting his gun, he unloaded into the window with five shots, Bobby was shot twice in the face and Stacy was shot once in the head. Stacy slumped back into the seat while Bobby, injured by coherent, pressed down on the horn and then pulled himself from the car, screaming for help.
The police were on the scene in no time flat, but by then, the Son of Sam was long gone. Both Stacy and Bobby were taken to Coney Island Hospital, with Stacy’s parents arriving at the hospital just in time to see their daughter being wheeled in. Bobby thankfully survived, but he had lost his left eye and had only 20% vision in the right. Stacy’s condition continued to get worse and they were forced to transfer her to Kings County Hospital where they were better equipped to deal with such extensive head trauma.
Unfortunately it was all for naught and, 38 hours later, she succumbed to her wounds while in the hospital.
And just like that, we’ve now covered the entirety of the killings attributed to the Son of Sam. This rampage lasted a whole year and left The City That Never Sleeps in a waking nightmare. The horrible story had captured the attention of the whole world, the story of a madman loose in the most iconic city on the planet, gun in hand, murdering beautiful women in the dark of the night. The police were at their wits end, the public were terrified, and they wanted nothing more than to get this lunatic off the streets.
And thankfully, after this final dark event, things quickly began to fall into place.
Closing In On Evil
The NYPD, after figuring out they had a true to form serial killer on their hands, were out in full force trying to track down this unyielding monster. To quickly recap, they tried to track down every lead, they brought in everyone who had registered the confirmed murder weapon, and they even fired every one of those weapons to try and link the ballistic markings to the proper gun. Sadly, no matter how deep they dug or how far they looked, the Son of Sam seemed to be two steps ahead of them, even going so far as to send those disturbing letters to the lead investigators and the press. They had their own Jack the Ripper on their hands, and every single night, they dreaded that the peace would be broken by the sound of gunfire and the screams of dying women.
Soon though, little threads littered through a number of the incidents would soon be woven together, and the resulting tapestry would lead them directly to one man.
Cacilia Davis was a resident of Brooklyn, and she had been walking her dog near the scene of the final attack. It was late at night when she came upon a traffic cop ticketing a parked car…a yellow car. To be more specific, it was a yellow 1970 Ford Galaxie. She didn’t think much of it at first, but that was before the officer had left and a figure exited the vehicle.
A young man, white complexion with short curly dark hair…and he was looking right at her, a dark object in his hand. Getting the creeps, she turned tail and booked it back home, but not before she heard what sounded like gunshots ringing out behind her. It took her a few days before she reported this to the police.
They looked up the car to which the ticket was given, and they got a name. The Yonkers Police Department was contacted to set up and interview with the individual, and the officer who took the call had a tale to tell. This was officer Wheat Carr, and as soon as the man’s name came up, she had an instant reaction: “Let me tell you about him. I know him. He lives right behind me.”
You see, Wheat Carr is the daughter of Sam Carr, and at this point I expect everyone’s alarm bells to be ringing. The Carrs had a fellow tenant that had been giving them issues for a good while, one that hadn’t been paying rent and had been complaining about their dog, a Black Lab named Harvey. At some point, someone had shot Harvey, but thankfully the dog survived, as did a German Shepherd who had also been shot.
Suspicion instantly fell on the tenant, and Wheat believed he had been the one who tried to kill their dog. On top of that, the man had impersonated the Carrs on at least one occasion in a rather ominous way.
Back on June 10th, a man named Jack Cassara received a letter in the mail, one addressed to him from Sam and Francis Carr. It read as follows: “Dear Jack, I’m sorry to hear about that fall you took from the roof of your house. Just want to say ‘I’m sorry’ but I’m sure it won’t be long until you feel much better, healthy, well and strong: Please be careful next time. Since your going to be confined for a long time, let us know if Nann needs anything.
Sincerely: Sam and Francis.” Jack had never met the Carrs, nor had he ever taken a fall. He asked Sam and Francis about the letter, but they knew nothing about it. However, they told Jack that they had also received letters, ones apologizing for the shooting of their dog as well as other dogs in the area.
This only heightened their already growing suspicion, and it put Jack on his toes, thinking someone was out to get him.
One thread is a coincidence, but two threads is enough to raise eyebrows. Between the incident with Cacilia Davis and the link to the name of Sam, the police in the two different departments now believed they might have just found their serial killer. They might have just found the Son of Sam.
On August 10th, 1977, the police tracked down the yellow 1970 Ford Galaxie. It was parked outside an apartment building at 35 Pine Street, Yonkers, New York. They searched the car and found a gun in the back seat, a duffel bag filled with ammunition, maps of the crime scenes, and a threatening letter addressed to Inspector Timothy Dowd of the Son of Sam task force.
They reasoned that it was a legal search based on the fact the gun was out in plain sight in the back seat. Regardless, they staked out the apartment building, waiting for a proper warrant to arrest the suspect and search his apartment. They wanted to do this as by the book as possible since they couldn’t risk this monster slipping through their fingers and disappearing for good.
10:00 p.m. rolled around, and the warrant had yet to arrive…but the suspect did. He was 24-year-old white man, about 5 feet 8 inches tall, weighed approximately 200 lb, and had short, dark, and curly hair. He exited the apartment and walked right to his car, a brown paper bag in hand. Sound familiar?
As he got into the driver’s seat, the police couldn’t wait any longer, warrant or no warrant. Detective John Falotico was the first officer to react, drawing his gun and going right up to the car. He stuck the barrel of the gun up to the man’s temple, and told him to get his hands up. The man simply looked up at Detective Falotico, gave him a soft smile, and said: “Well, you got me.
How come it took you so long?”
Meet David Berkowitz
Before we dive into the insanity even further, let’s rewind and get better acquainted with our madman. Let’s start off with some parental context. Elizabeth “Betty” Broder was a Jewish woman who grew up in the Bronx, and in 1936, she married an Italian man named Tony Falco. Things were rocky from the start, as Betty’s family didn’t approve of their relationship, since Tony wasn’t Jewish and all.
It also didn’t help that the whole family was poor, as most were during the Great Depression days. They started a fish market and had a daughter named Roslyn, but the market eventually went bust, and after less than 4 years of marriage, Tony left Betty for another woman.
Lonely and depressed, Betty soon started up an affair with a married man named Joseph Klineman. They were together for three years by the time Betty got pregnant again, but old Joseph wasn’t having any of it. Like a prime time dirtbag, he threatened to leave Betty and not pay child support if she didn’t give up the baby, as well as forbade her from giving the child his last name.
Apparently she didn’t think much of it, as she elected to stay with Joseph and give up the child. She arranged things with a nice Jewish couple in the Bronx by the name of Pearl and Nathan Berkowitz and, on June 1st, 1953, in Brooklyn, New York, Richard David Falco aka David Richard Berkowitz was born. To make things easy, we’ll simply be referring to him as Berkowitz from this point on as his name was changed almost immediately after he was adopted.
Pearl and Nathan had always wanted a child so they made sure Berkowitz barely wanted for a thing and tried to give him the best upbringing they could with their modest means. At first, there were no clear warning signs, aside from him being a loner. He was always big for his age, which led to him seeing himself as unappealing and unattractive, so he isolated himself. He also had a very violent temperament, and became known as a bully who would attack other kids, sometimes for no reason at all, using his larger size to his advantage.
At one point it’s stated that Berkowitz sustained a head injury while he was younger. Whether that contributed to his development is unknown, but given the history of similar cases, it seems rather likely.
Difficult and spoiled, Berkowitz became a nuisance, and soon enough he started showing a fascination with fire. He started by setting bugs ablaze for his amusement before moving on to setting parts of his neighborhood on fire. It got to the point that his parents actually sought out counseling for him, though it didn’t seem to help. Things only got worse after Pearl’s death.
Despite it all, it seemed that Berkowitz loved his mother, and he was devastated when he was informed that she had breast cancer. She and Nathan tried to hide it from him and they kept him in the dark for two years, which only made the eventual realization all the worse. She sadly lost the battle and passed away in the fall of 1967, which broke Berkowitz entirely. His interest in school waned, his grades tanked, and his bad attitude only became worse.
Berkowitz and his father moved into a new apartment at 170 Dreiser Loop in Co-op City in 1967 soon after Pearl’s death. They continued to live together through his high school years, though their relationship took a turn when Nathan remarried. Berkowitz disliked his new step-mother, causing him to act up even more, and when Berkowitz graduated from Christopher Columbus High School in 1971, Nathan moved with his wife to a retirement home in Florida, leaving his son all alone in the apartment.
At this point, Berkowitz’s mind had already begun to shift. Fantasy quickly began to encroach on reality, even conjuring up relationships that weren’t really there. Specifically, he believed that he was going out with a girl by the name of Iris Gerhardt, but according to her, they were no more than friends. Then, shortly after completing high school, Berkowitz enlisted in the United States Army.
He stayed for three whole years and seemed to respond well to the rigorous discipline the Army provided. He became an excellent marksman, and was particularly proficient with rifles. He even served with an infantry division in South Korea before receiving an honorable discharge in June 1974.
Once more he was isolated, once more he was alone. And it was around this time that Berkowitz was able to track down his birth mother, Betty. At first, he was thrilled to get to know the woman who gave him life.
After the death of Pearl, there was a mother sized hole in his heart that he was never quite able to fill, and getting to know Betty seemed to begin healing that rather large hole. Betty and his half sister Roslyn did everything they could to make him feel like family, make him feel like he had a home with them. But soon enough, the question of his real father came up, and that’s when Betty informed Berkowitz of the situation regarding his birth.
She told him how Joseph, who himself had passed away from cancer in 1965, didn’t want anything to do with him, forcing her to give him up for adoption. This new revelation, coupled with the feeling of abandonment he felt towards Nathan after he left him for Florida with his new wife, seemed to fracture something vital within David Berkowitz. His mind was already a rather fragile thing, but now it was broken, and there was no fixing it.
Soon, he started making excuses for not visiting his mother and sister as much, eventually ceasing to visit all together. His anger and hatred towards women had been building up over the years, and this new information, the feeling of being unwanted and lied to by those meant to love him, sent him right over the edge.
Psychotic
After enrolling at the Bronx Community College in the spring of 1975, Berkowitz studied there for one year before he went to work as a driver for the Co-Op City Taxi Company in 1976. He also worked odd jobs as a security guard and mail sorter for the post office. By this time though, he’d already begun committing crimes, both violent and otherwise. Before he even attempted to commit outright murder, Berkowitz had set some 1,500 fires across New York, and he kept a diary of every single one, even referring to himself as The Phantom of the Bronx.
In his book, Whoever Fights Monsters, author and FBI veteran Robert Ressler stated the following: “Most arsonists like the feeling that they are responsible for the excitement and violence of a fire. With the simple act of lighting matches, they control events in society that are not normally controlled; they orchestrate the fire, the screaming arrival and deployment of the fire trucks and fire fighters, the gathering crowds, the destruction of property and sometimes of people.”
In 1975, Berkowitz got his hands on the Satanic Bible, written by Anton LeVey, the founder of the Church of Satan and the religion known as Satanism. This undoubtedly was the last thing that Berkowitz needed, but it did the trick. After reading through its teachings, he became convinced that all the dark thoughts in his head, all the evil intentions in his heart, were because he was being puppeted by evil spirits. Now clearly this was a load of hogwash, but to Berkowitz, this all felt very real and, with this new information, he gave himself over to the darkness completely.
At this point, Berkowitz truly began to spiral, his mind falling deeper and deeper into the darkness. In what appeared to be one last ditch effort to stop, in one final call for help, he wrote a letter to his father, 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 dark now.
I can feel it more and more. The people, they are developing a 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 still they hate me. Most of them are young. I 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.”
Then, on Christmas Eve 1975, Berkowitz made his first attempt on a human life. He didn’t have his trademark .44 caliber Bulldog yet, so instead he went with a large hunting knife. According to him, he drove around for hours that day, looking for the perfect target. Eventually he found one.
He spotted a young Hispanic woman leaving a local grocery store, and the demons in his head told him: “She has to be sacrificed.” With that, he parked the car, went up behind the unsuspecting girl, and plunged the knife into her back over and over again. According to Berkowitz, the woman didn’t have much of a reaction at first, simply turning to look at him before screaming as loud as she could. He then fled the scene, though the police were unable to verify these claims.
One claim they did verify was the attack on 15-year-old Michelle Forman, a sophomore at Truman High School. On the same day as the supposed first attack, Berkowitz saw Michelle walking on a bridge near Dreiser Loop, went up to her, and drove the knife into her head. He then stabbed her an additional 5 times before taking his knife and fleeing the scene. Michelle thankfully survived this attack, but her wounds were so severe that she was made to stay in the hospital for a week in order to recover.
The Dog Made Me Do It
Since the beginning of this story, there have been a couple of instances where dogs have been mentioned. It’s now time to find out why. With the Christmas Eve stabbings behind him, Berkowitz thought it best to move, so in January 1976, he relocated to an apartment building in Yonkers. Said building was owned by Jack and Nann Cassara.
If that name sounds familiar, it’s because Jack was the recipient of the letter claiming he had fallen off his roof. On top of that, the Cassara’s had a dog…a German Shepherd. He signed a 2-year lease and paid a $200 security deposit.
When it came to the dog, Berkowitz knew no rest. The Shepherd was loud and noisy, barking and howling all throughout the day and night. Now all of us can understand the annoyance of a noisy dog, but to Berkowitz, the constant noise was much more than that. To his demented and decaying mind, the howls of the dog were commands from Satan. The dog was possessed by a devil and each bark was an order to go out and kill, to find a young woman and spill their blood for their hellish master.
In Berkowitz’s own words: “I’d come home to Coligni avenue like at six-thirty in the morning. 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. 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…The demons wouldn’t give me any peace.”
In regards to the dog’s owners, he also blamed them for the constant torment, believing them to also be demons from the pit. He believed that Jack in particular was a general from hell by the name of Jack Cosmo, who ordered all the dogs of New York to kill and consume blood: “When I moved in the Cassaras seemed very nice and quiet. But they tricked me. They lied.
I thought they were members of the human race. They weren’t! Suddenly the Cassaras began to show up with the demons. They began to howl and cry out.
‘Blood and death!’ They called out the names of the masters! The Blood Monster, John Wheaties, General Jack Cosmo.”
It didn’t take long, three months to be exact, for Berkowitz to meet his breaking point. He moved out of the apartment and never asked for his deposit back. It was then that he moved into an apartment at 35 Pine Street in Yonkers. This was, of course, the apartment building that he was eventually caught in and, as stated before, he had neighbors…with another dog.
This was Sam Carr, and his Black Labrador Retriever, Harvey. The torment started all over again, and Berkowitz hated Harvey for it. To try and end the noise, he attempted to use a molotov cocktail to burn the dog alive, but it fizzled out before it could hurt Harvey or anyone else. So Berkowitz went for something a bit simpler, shooting Harvey with his .44 Bulldog.
Thankfully Harvey wasn’t killed and made a recovery.
Regardless, it wasn’t just Harvey that was the problem, but Sam as well. To Berkowitz, Sam was possessed by a demon…also named Sam. Not exactly the most creative hellspawn, was he? So when David Berkowitz called himself “The Son of Sam,” he was referring to the demon inside his neighbor, not Sam Carr himself. “This Sam and his demons have been responsible for a lot of killing.”
Soon enough, after all the torment in his mind of the years, Berkowitz engaged in his year-long reign of bullets and blood. The darkness had won, and a demon was loose within The Big Apple. 6 souls had been stolen away, 11 had been horribly scarred, and the whole city was in a panic. And the rest, as they say, is history.
Justice Done
After being arrested on the charges of murder on August 10th, 1977, David Berkowitz was interrogated the next day, and he held nothing back. For 30 minutes, he confessed to every single shooting, every single murder, and he explained his motive. He said that demons were to blame, that they were the ones causing him to go out and commit murder, and even went so far as to blame the dogs, Sam Carr, and Jack Cassara. Most importantly, Berkowitz made it crystal clear that he intended to plead guilty.
As far as the motive goes, Berkowitz seemed to flip flop a little bit. At first he stuck to the story of the demon dogs commanding him to kill, but then he later went on to claim in 1979 that it was all a hoax. At times he alluded to having accomplices, going as far as saying: “There are other Sons out there, God help the world.”
There are those to this day that do believe he didn’t work alone, that it makes sense given the supposed sightings of different people and cars, though nothing has been proven. To that end, Berkowitz stated on several occasions that he wasn’t alone, that he was part of a murderous satanic cult that operated throughout the city. He said that he had only actually killed three of the victims, and the others were killed by fellow members of this cult, all using the same weapon.
And just who were these so-called cult members? Berkowitz was tight lipped on that front, but he did give two names: John and Michael Carr, the sons of Sam Carr, the neighbor and owner of Harvey. Of course this was a load of poppycock, and both John and Michael were long dead when this information came out so they couldn’t even speak up to defend themselves, but it’s safe to say he made it all up.
Now what about the trial? Well as stated, Berkowitz planned to plead guilty, but there was the issue of his competence. He underwent several evaluations before going to court and he was diagnosed as a schizophrenic, but at the end of the day, he was ruled competent to stand trial three times. His defense team urged him multiple times to plead not guilty by reason of insanity, but he wasn’t having any of it. He wished to pay for his crimes, and he wanted the word to know he had done it.
On May 8th, 1978, he appeared in court, calm, cool, and collected, and pled guilty to all charges. That didn’t stop him from trying to put on a show though. At his sentencing two weeks later, he broke away from the guards and attempted to jump out of a window of the seventh-floor courtroom. He was thankfully restrained, but that didn’t stop him from making a spectacle of himself.
He repeatedly chanted “Stacy was a whore” and “I’d kill her again! I’d kill them all again!” which led to another competency test, which he passed. On June 12, 1978, Berkowitz was sentenced to 25-years-to-life in prison for each murder, to be served consecutively.
He was housed in a number of different prison facilities from Attica to Sing Sing to Clinton Correctional Facility. Today he spends his time at Shawangunk Correctional Facility in the Town of Shawangunk, Ulster County, New York, where he is seen as a model prisoner, just awaiting his next parole hearing. Yes, The Son of Sam gets parole hearings. The first scheduled 25 years after he was sentenced, and the most recent one was in 2016.
Both times he was denied parole, and in his 2020 parole hearing was postponed indefinitely due to COVID. Berkowitz claims that he’d since become a pacifist and has converted to Christianity. Apparently he now claims that he isn’t a risk to the public…but it’s safe to say he’ll remain where he is.
Conclusion
At the end of the day, what were we looking at here? Simply this: David Berkowitz is a mentally disturbed individual who hated the world and all those around him, especially women, so he took his anger out on the world by going on a year-long rampage. He took his gun to the streets and killed when and where he pleased, and it’s a miracle that there weren’t more victims before it was all said and done.
In several interviews with author Robert Ressler, he even admitted that the demon story was all nonsense, a way to protect himself when he was originally caught, and that he felt a sexual pleasure when murdering women, that he even kept a scrapbook with all the newspaper clippings of his crimes to keep his fantasies alive. He got off on the murder, he got off on the attention, and he enjoyed every second of it.
Berkowitz is now one of the most well known serial killers in American history, right up there with the likes of Bundy and Dahmer. There’s an entire generation of people from the Big Apple that will always get a chill down their spine when the name “Son of Sam” is mentioned, and for good reason. At least they, along with the rest of the world, can rest easy knowing that there’s a near 100% chance that he’ll simply die in prison. He celebrated his 70th birthday in 2023, so there’s a chance that his death isn’t too far off in the future.
One good thing did come out of this whole thing, and it’s something that affects all those other criminals that crave the spotlight. The term “Son of Sam law” is a blanket term for laws that halt the ability of criminals from being able to profit from their crimes, namely from selling their story to publishers in the hopes their story can be turned into books for profit. There are some out there that argue that such laws go against our right to free speech, but the counterargument remains: they did horrible crimes, many of them killed multiple people, and they want to make money off the memories of those they stole away?
And with that, we remember those whose lives were either taken or changed from the actions of David Berkowitz. These people did nothing wrong, they were just out enjoying their lives, having a fun night on the town, and this evil monster just decided to shatter their worlds for his own sick pleasure.
The dead: Donna Lauria, Christine Freund, Virginia Voskerichian, Alexander Esau, Valentina Suriani, Stacy Moskowitz
The injured: Michelle Forman and the unnamed Hispanic woman, Jody Valenti, Carl Denaro, Rosemary Keenan, Donna DeMasi, Joanne Lomino, John Diel, Salvatore Lupo, Judy Placido, Robert Violante
Rest in Peace to all those lost, and to those who lived, we hope your lives improved for the better after your dark experience with this awful madman.
Appendix: Cultural Legacy
The Son of Sam case has left an indelible mark on American popular culture. In 1999, a movie named Summer of Sam was released. Directed by Spike Lee, it depicts the effect the Son of Sam killings had on a fictional group of characters in the Bronx, the killer himself (played by Michael Badalucco) being used more as a symbol and a metaphor for the times than anything else. Berkowitz was shown the movie and he was reportedly disturbed by it, calling it exploitation of “the ugliness of the past.” Other film portrayals include in the 2008 direct to video film Son of Sam and the CBS tv movie Out of the Darkness.
A number of songs have been inspired by David Berkowitz. Several examples include 1978’s “Son of Sam” by the Dead Boys, 1978’s “Are You Receiving Me?” by XTC, 1989’s “Looking Down the Barrel of a Gun” by The Beastie Boys, and 1993’s “Insane in the Brain” by Cypress Hill.
David Berkowitz has been either referenced or depicted several times in tv shows and documentaries. Examples of this include several episodes of the show Seinfeld where he is directly referenced, the Netflix show Mindhunter where he is played by Oliver Cooper, and the 2021 docuseries The Sons of Sam: A Descent into Darkness which focused around the idea that Berkowitz didn’t work alone.
Key Takeaways
- David Berkowitz, the ‘Son of Sam,’ killed six people and injured eleven during a year-long shooting spree in New York City from July 1976 to July 1977.
- Berkowitz taunted police through letters, adopting his infamous moniker and claiming a demonic dog named Sam commanded him to kill.
- Police finally captured Berkowitz after a witness reported seeing a suspicious man near a yellow Ford Galaxie, which was ticketed at a crime scene.
- Berkowitz later admitted his demonic possession claims were fabricated, confessing he derived sexual pleasure from murdering women.
- The case inspired ‘Son of Sam laws,’ which prevent criminals from profiting from their crimes through book deals or media sales.
Dana Ortiz covers prosecutorial mechanics, evidentiary procedure, and how investigations unwind decades after the original case file went cold.
Frequently Asked Questions
What was the original nickname given to the killer before he called himself ‘Son of Sam’?
Originally he was known as the .44 Caliber Killer.
What type of gun did the Son of Sam use in his attacks?
A .44 caliber Charter Arms Bulldog.
How many people were killed and how many were injured during the Son of Sam’s killing spree?
The spree left 6 people dead and 11 more injured.
What was the time period of the Son of Sam attacks?
The attacks took place between July 1976 and July 1977.
Who was the first victim killed by the Son of Sam?
18-year-old emergency medical technician Donna Lauria, who was shot on July 29th, 1976 while sitting in a car with her friend Jody Valenti in the Bronx.
What was the significance of the name ‘Son of Sam’ according to Berkowitz?
Berkowitz claimed that ‘Sam’ referred to a demon he believed was inside his neighbor Sam Carr’s dog Harvey, not Sam Carr himself. He believed the demon commanded him to kill.
How was David Berkowitz finally caught?
A witness named Cacilia Davis reported seeing a man with a dark object near a yellow Ford Galaxie that had been ticketed near the final crime scene. Police traced the car to Berkowitz, found a gun and crime scene maps in it, and arrested him on August 10, 1977.
What did Berkowitz claim was his motive for the killings?
Initially he claimed demons, particularly those in dogs, commanded him to kill. However, he later admitted to author Robert Ressler that the demon story was nonsense and that he actually felt sexual pleasure when murdering women.
What was Berkowitz’s sentence?
On June 12, 1978, Berkowitz was sentenced to 25-years-to-life in prison for each murder, to be served consecutively.
What is the ‘Son of Sam law’?
The term ‘Son of Sam law’ refers to laws that prevent criminals from profiting from their crimes, particularly from selling their story to publishers for books.
Sources
- Original Casual Criminalist video: The Son of Sam: The Boogeyman of 1970’s New York
- Hero image source by IAEA Imagebank / openverse, by.
