In the summer of 1977, the residents of New York City were terrorized by an unknown gunman known as the .44 Caliber Killer. He targeted young women and couples on lover lanes, which resulted in widespread panic. People were afraid to go out after dark, while women dyed their hair because the victims had similar hairstyles.
The killer communicated with the police through taunting letters, spreading even more fear throughout the community. After one of the largest manhunts in US history, law enforcement finally apprehended the killer. His name was David Berkowitz.
Background
David Richard Berkowitz was born Richard David Falco on June 1st, 1953, in Brooklyn, New York. His biological mother gave him up for adoption just a couple of days later because the baby was born out of wedlock. The boy was adopted by a middle-aged couple from the Bronx named Pearl and Nathan Berkowitz.
Berkowitz formed a strong bond with his adoptive mother and considered her his only friend. Even though he was very intelligent, Berkowitz wasn’t interested in school, and his grades weren’t as great as his parents expected of him. Kids from the neighborhood didn’t like Berkowitz because he bullied most of them.
When Berkowitz was just 14 years old, his adoptive mother passed away after a short battle with breast cancer. That devastated the teen, which resulted in him hating his father’s second wife. Berkowitz graduated from Christopher Columbus High School in 1971 and enlisted in the United States Army that same year. After completing the basic training at Fort Knox, Berkowitz was sent to South Korea. He was honorably discharged in June 1974.
Berkowitz returned to the Bronx and had a hard time getting used to the civilian life. He would wander around the city at night, feeling lost and unsure of his future. Wanting to learn more about his family, Berkowitz set out to find his birth mother, Elizabeth Broder. She agreed to meet him, and Berkowitz learned his biological father was married at the time of his birth and didn’t want anything to do with him.
In the spring of 1975, Berkowitz enrolled in the Bronx Community College, where he completed two semesters. In 1976, he briefly worked as a taxi driver before moving on to the position of a letter sorter for the United States Postal Service.
A failed stabbing
On December 24th, 1975, 15-year-old Michelle Forman, a student at Truman High School, was walking home when a man approached her just as she was crossing a bridge by the Dreiser Loop. She was stabbed six times, and the attacker fled the scene.
Forman managed to get help, and emergency services arrived soon after. Even though the stab wounds weren’t deep, the teen spent a week in the hospital. An investigation into the stabbing took place, but law enforcement failed to identify Berkowitz as the assailant. Soon after, he found an apartment in Yonkers and moved there.
Determined to harm someone, Berkowitz contacted one of his friends from the military, asking them to sell him a gun for protection. Days later, he was in possession of the .44 Special caliber Bulldog revolver. Around this time, Berkowitz started sleeping less and less, blaming the neighbor’s dog for waking him up every night.
The 1976 shootings
In the early morning of July 29th, 1976, 18-year-old Donna Lauria and 19-year-old Jody Valenti were sitting and talking in Valenti’s Oldsmobile car. The girls arrived in the neighborhood of Pelham Bay in the Bronx after spending the evening at Peachtree’s disco. Lauria opened the passenger side door, ready to go home, when she saw a man with a paper bag walking quickly towards the car.
He suddenly took out a gun from the bag, crouched, and aimed at the teen. The man fired three shots, killing Lauria on the spot and injuring Valenti. He then left the scene. Valenti survived the attack and provided law enforcement with a description of the shooter.
According to her, Valenti had never seen him before that night. Valenti’s neighbors were also interviewed, and they confirmed seeing a man resembling the description just hours before the shooting. He was driving around Pelham Bay in a yellow car. Investigators didn’t have a lot to go on because they were unable to find the motive for the attack.
On October 23rd, 1976, Carl Denaro and Rosemary Keenan were in Denaro’s car close to Bowne Park in Flushing. Suddenly, one of the windows was shattered, and Denaro immediately started the vehicle, driving away. He had a head wound but didn’t even acknowledge it at that time. Even though the investigators found .44 caliber bullets in Denaro’s cars, they didn’t connect this attack with the Lauria-Valenti shooting because of the lack of communication between the police precincts.
On November 27th, 1976, 16-year-old Donna DeMasi and her 18-year-old friend Joanne Lomino had just seen a movie and were returning home after midnight. They stopped at Lomino’s house in Floral Park to chat for a bit when a man came up to the porch. He asked them for directions before pulling out a gun.
Each girl was shot once, and they fell onto the porch. The next-door neighbor was still awake and ran out of the house after hearing gunshots. They saw a young man running away from the scene. DeMasi quickly recovered from her injuries, while Lomino, who was shot in her back, lost her ability to walk.
The beginning of a media frenzy
Berkowitz laid low throughout December 1976. In January of the following year, he was back on the streets, looking for targets. Just after midnight on January 30th, 1977, Christine Freund, a 26-year-old secretary, was with her fiancé, 30-year-old John Diel. The two had just seen the movie Rocky and were planning to go dancing somewhere.
Diel’s car was parked near the Forest Hills LIRR station in Queens. As they got into the vehicle, the car was hit with three bullets. Realizing someone was shooting at them, Diel drove away quickly. Unfortunately, Freund was shot twice and died at the hospital several hours later.
After finding the .44 caliber shells at yet another crime scene, police were now theorizing that the shootings were connected. However, after reviewing the witness testimony from the previous attacks, law enforcement started to believe more than one person was involved.
On the evening of March 8th, 1977, Virginia Voskerichian, a 20-year-old Columbia University student, was on her way home from school when she saw a man coming towards her. He pointed his gun at the young woman, who instinctively tried to shield her face with her textbooks. Tragically, she was shot in the head. The police discovered the same .44 caliber bullets as seen in the previous cases and were ready to go public.
NYPD held a press conference on March 10th, 1977. The mayor of New York announced to the public that the murders of Voskerichian and Freund were committed by the same person. The tabloid press latched onto the story, publishing articles about the shootings almost daily.
The summer of Sam
After recognizing the pattern among the shooting victims, the New York City Police Department put together the Omega task force. More than 300 officers were on the streets, actively trying to find the serial killer. However, another murder happened weeks after the Voskerichian shooting.
On April 17th, 1977, Alexander Esau and his girlfriend Valentina Suriani were in a car parked on the Hutchinson River Parkway service road. Around 3:00 am, four shots rang out through the quiet Bronx neighborhood, and the police were called to investigate. Officers quickly located the vehicle and found Esau bleeding in the passenger seat. He was shot twice in the head but was still alive. Suriani was already dead when the police arrived. Several hours later, Esau passed away in the hospital.
After committing the double murder, Berkowitz left a letter in the car next to the victims. It was addressed to Captain Joseph Borrelli of NYPD, and in it, Berkowitz responded to Captain Borrelli’s previous claims that the killer was a women hater. The police also learned that the murderer was calling himself Son of Sam.
Psychologists were called to analyze the letter, and their findings were revealed in late May 1977. The experts suggested the serial killer was suffering from paranoid schizophrenia. He had also convinced himself he was possessed by a demon.
On May 30th, 1977, just days after the psychological analysis was published in the media, Jimmy Breslin, a well-known journalist from the Daily News, received a letter from the .44 Caliber Killer. The handwriting was different from the one in the first letter, but it was clear that the author had knowledge of the previous crimes.
After consulting with the police, the Daily News published the letter seven days later. Son of Sam became the main topic in New York City, and residents were calling the tip line day and night, providing the police with possible leads. Everyone was scared and on the edge.
Around 3:00 am on June 26th, 1977, 20-year-old Salvatore Lupo and his 17-year-old girlfriend Judy Placido were sitting in his parked car in Bayside Queens. The two were talking about the Son of Sam when three bullets were fired into the vehicle. Both were hit, but luckily, the injuries were minor, and Lupo and Placido survived. Witnesses who happened to be nearby saw a man fleeing the scene and provided a description that matched the previous shootings.
As police increased their presence in Queens and the Bronx, Berkowitz decided to set his sights on Brooklyn. On July 31st, 1977, Stacy Moskowitz and Robert Violante were parked in Bath Beach. A man came up to the passenger side door and fired five times into the vehicle. Moskowitz died on the scene while Violante managed to pull through.
Finding Berkowitz
Four days after the Brooklyn shooting, Cacilia Davis, a resident of Bath Beach, shared her disturbing story with the police. She was walking her dog near the location of the crime when she saw an officer write a parking ticket for a yellow vehicle parked on the street. Less than a minute later, a man came from the direction of the car, and Davis felt uneasy because she couldn’t see what he was carrying in his hand.
Well aware of the recent attacks, she immediately decided to run home. Seconds later, Davis heard gunshots behind her. Believing this was a promising lead, investigators quickly tracked down the vehicle that got a ticket at the location. It was a yellow 1970 Ford Galaxy that belonged to David Berkowitz from Yonkers.
On August 9th, 1977, the Yonkers Police Department got a call from detectives in charge of the Moskowitz-Violante shooting. The dispatcher recognized Berkowitz’s name and said he was the neighbor of her father, Sam. Within minutes, detectives learned that their colleagues from Yonkers were investigating Berkowitz for arson in that neighborhood.
On August 10th, 1977, officers arrived at Berkowitz’s apartment at 35 Pine Street in Yonkers. They saw his car parked in front and decided to take a closer look inside after spotting a gun in the back seat. The brief search uncovered maps of Queens and the Bronx, as well as a letter addressed to one of the inspectors working on catching the killer.
While officers were waiting for a search warrant for Berkowitz’s apartment, the suspect exited the building around 10:00 pm and walked towards his car. Two detectives approached him with guns drawn. Son of Sam was finally arrested and taken into custody.
While Berkowitz was on his way to Yonkers police station, officers entered his apartment and discovered satanic symbols on the walls, as well as Berkowitz’s diaries. He was interrogated on August 11th, 1977, and pleaded guilty right away. The investigators learned that his neighbor Sam owned a black Labrador dog. The animal instructed Berkowitz to kill young girls and women because it was possessed by a demon.
The sentencing
Following the arrest and confession, Berkowitz was examined by three mental health experts, who all determined he was competent to stand trial. On May 8th, 1978, Berkowitz pleaded guilty in front of the judge, admitting he was responsible for the murders. The sentencing that took place a couple of weeks later was quickly rescheduled after Berkowitz tried to jump out of the courtroom window. After yet another psychological examination, Berkowitz was sentenced to life in prison for each murder on June 12th, 1978. He would be eligible for parole in 25 years.
Berkowitz spent time in several prisons in New York State before being transferred to Shawangunk Correctional Facility in Wallkill, where he remains to this day. He became eligible for parole in 2002, but during every hearing, he points out he is supposed to stay behind bars. Berkowitz has expressed remorse for the murders, stating religion had helped him reform.
