David Berkowitz. Active 1976 to 1977 in New York
Victims: 6 deaths and 9 wounded.
THE KILLINGS
Donna Lauria (died) and Jody Valente (wounded)
July 29th, 1976: the Bronx, New York
At 1am, these two friends were sitting in a car outside Donna’s home when a gunman walked up to a car and shot the two occupants: he killed medical technician Donna and wounded her friend Jody Valente in the leg.
Carl Denaro and Rosemary Keenan (both wounded)
October 23rd, 1976: Queens, New York
Shot and wounded as they sat in a car outside a bar.
Donna DeMasi and Joanne Lomino (both wounded)
November 27th, 1976: Queens, New York
Shot and wounded as they sat on the steps outside Joanne’s home.
John Diel and Christine Freund
January 30th 1977: Queens, New York
Shot as they sat in a car – Diel survived, but Freund was killed.
Virginia Voskerichian
March 8th, 1977: New York
A 19-year-old student shot dead in the street.
Valentina Suriani and Alexander Esau
April 14th, 1977: the Bronx, New York
Both shot and killed as they sat in a car
Salvatore Lupo and Judith Placido
June 26th, 1977: Queens, New York
Both wounded as they sat in a car
And the final victims:
Stacy Moskowitz and Robert Violante
July 31st 1977: the Bronx, New York
Both shot as they sat in a car. Stacy died in hospital, while Violante was blinded
HOW HE WAS CAUGHT
After the three 1976 attacks, police had already confirmed that the shootings were all done with the same .44 Bulldog pistol, and the press dubbed him the .44 Killer. The attacks were random, with no links between the victims other than bad luck.
By early 1977, the killer was starting to taunt the police by leaving letters, with the first one left bside the dead bodies of Suriani and Esau. The letter said that he was not a woman-hater, but “I am a monster.” And he wrote to the Daily News with a letter threatening more killings, signed off as “ ‘Sam’s Creation’ .44”
This led to the newspaper nickname, Son of Sam. The newspaper columnist Jimmy Breslin responded to the letter and dared the killer to attack again. He responded by the attacks on his last four victims. But he made a mistake…
After shooting Moskowitz and Violante, he walked back to his car, a Ford Galaxie that had been parked illegally in front of a fire hydrant and had been given a ticket. He tore the ticket off the car window and threw it away, but he was seen by a witness, Cecilia Davis. She then saw the same young man later when she was walking her dog. This time she thought she saw a gun up his sleeve, so she called the police with the car details.
The car details led them instantly to David Berkowitz, who lived in the Yonkers suburb. They found his car and a loaded .44 gun on the seat, so staked out the car – they needed to link Berkowitz to the gun. As he went to the car, armed police jumped out and arrested him.
He admitted straight away that he was “Sam”, the serial killer, and made a full confession. People expecting a hardened criminal were surprised that Berkowitz was a chubby and quiet 24-year-old postal worker (and one-time auxiliary police officer too!)
HIS BACKGROUND
Berkowitz was born in 1953, illegitimate, to a woman who rejected him and soon put him up for adoption. He suffered from paranoia and, starting from dislike of his mother, he slowly began to believe that all women despised him.
Berkowitz claimed that by 1974, he was hearing voices that told him to kill, and the walls of his apartment were covered with graffiti messages. In April 1977, he shot and wounded a neighbour’s dog that barked and kept him awake, after sending poison pen letters to the dog’s owner: the neighbour was called Sam Carr, and the nickname Berkowitz chose shows how he was set over the edge by the dog barking.
THE TRIAL AND SENTENCE
Although David Berkowitz was obviously mentally ill, suffering from paranoid schizophrenia, he was judged to be sane enough to stand trial. But Berkowitz pleaded guilty, and so only a sentencing hearing was held, where he was sentenced to 365 years in jail (six consecutive life sentences).
In 1979 Berkowitz was attacked in prison and his neck slashed – although his life was never in danger, he did need more than 50 stitches. In 1987 he claimed to have become a Born-Again Christian.
In the mid 1990s, Berkowitz suddenly claimed that he not killed alone, but had been part of a satanic murder cult. The police did start to investigate the claim, but then suspended their investigation as there was no evidence of anyone else being involved.
Berkowitz will never leave jail.