David Berkowitz

Killer

• Born: June 1, 1953
• Place of Birth: Brooklyn, New York

Berkowitz was convicted of being the serial killer known as Son of Sam who terrorized New York City, although he later claimed that he was part of a satanic cult and did not act alone.

Early Life

David Berkowitz (BUR-koh-wihts) was born on June 1, 1953, to Jewish parents Betty Broder Falco and Joseph Kleinman. Although his mother was still married to Anthony Falco, his mother and Kleinman had a long-running affair. The newborn was adopted by Nathan and Pearl Berkowitz, a childless Jewish couple who lived in the New York City borough of the Bronx and who reversed the order of their adopted son’s original first and middle names.

As a boy, David Berkowitz suffered from severe depression; sometimes he hid in his apartment for hours or contemplated suicide. He also had episodes of violently disruptive behavior at home and in public school, and his adoptive parents sought help from school counselors, a rabbi, and a psychologist. A bad situation became worse in 1967 when Pearl developed cancer and died. Having to work sixty hours a week in his hardware store, Nathan spent little time with his troubled son, but he did persuade Berkowitz to graduate from high school. In 1971, immediately after graduation and not long after Nathan remarried, Berkowitz joined the Army and, after training, served in Korea and Kentucky. Upon his honorable discharge in 1974, he returned to metropolitan New York City, where he eventually worked for the United States Postal Service. He had been baptized into Christianity in Kentucky, but he had stopped attending church upon leaving the Army.

Life’s Work

Berkowitz achieved notoriety through eight incidents of nighttime murder or attempted murder with a .44-caliber revolver in New York City from July 29, 1976, until July 31, 1977. The dead were Donna Lauria, Christine Freund, Virginia Voskerichian, Alexander Esau, Valentina Suriani, and Stacy Moskowitz. Among the wounded were Joanne Lomino, left paraplegic, and Robert Violante, left almost totally blind. All the victims were young.

When reporters and police noticed the similarities among the shootings, news coverage intensified and a massive manhunt began. Soon, on April 17, 1977, at the scene of the double murder of Esau and Suriani, police officers found a note addressed to one of their captains; and the killer, suspected of acting alone, acquired a name. According to the note’s author, he was the Son of Sam, ordered to kill to supply blood for his father. Next, in early June, Jimmy Breslin, a columnist for New York’s Daily News, received a letter, signed Son of Sam, that heightened the fear among New Yorkers and the attention of the news media. At last, after two more shootings and another death, police followed up on a parking ticket issued near the time and place of the final shooting and, on August 10, 1977, arrested Berkowitz outside his apartment building in suburban Yonkers. Within hours, he told assistant district attorneys that he had committed all the crimes blamed on Son of Sam. After delays, he rejected his attorneys’ advice and pleaded guilty; eventually he received a sentence of 365 years in prison.

He survived a nearly deadly attack by another inmate in 1979. In 1987, Berkowitz said that he converted to Christianity through the witness of a fellow prisoner and considered himself a Messianic Jew. Since then, Berkowitz has attracted many followers who admire him for his conversion. Focus on the Family, a prominent Christian organization, broadcast a 2003 radio interview with Berkowitz across the United States and in fifty other nations. In 2006, Morning Star Communications published Son of Hope, a collection of journal entries by Berkowitz in which he told of God’s forgiveness and of ministry, life, and hope in a place that might seem hopeless. He also has a website, Arise and Shine, which is run by a postal worker from Texas. Berkowitz does not profit from sales of the book or anything on his website; instead, the New York State Crime Victims Board receives a portion of the book sales to distribute to the families of Berkowitz’s victims. Berkowitz's twelfth parole hearing was denied in 2024.

Significance

The coverage of the Son of Sam shootings became frenzied in 1977, and public attention rose correspondingly. Berkowitz’s confession relieved the fears of millions. Nevertheless, doubt has arisen about whether Berkowitz was the only criminal involved, despite a widespread idea that he was too antisocial to cooperate with others. While serving a life sentence, he has said that, although he knowingly played a part in all the Son of Sam incidents and was therefore entirely guilty, he personally killed only three people. He belonged, he claims, to a satanic cult but would not reveal the names of his surviving accomplices in the Son of Sam cases, partly because he fears for the safety of his relatives. Knowing that many persons outside prison doubt his sincerity, he has written that he does not deserve parole and has found freedom through Christ inside prison walls.

The Son of Sam case prompted New York lawmakers to pass what became known as the Son of Sam law in 1977, though the law was not applied to Berkowitz himself. The law stipulated that income earned by an accused or convicted criminal from works describing his or her crime must be placed into an escrow account and made available to victims of the individual’s crime and creditors. Other states followed with their own Son of Sam laws. In its ruling for Simon and Schuster, Inc. v. Members of New York State Crime Victims Board, the Supreme Court struck down New York’s 1977 Son of Sam law in December 1991 for being inconsistent with the First Amendment. New York State lawmakers repealed the law and replaced it with another Son of Sam law in 2001. The 2001 law states that crime victims must be notified when a person convicted of a violent crime receives $10,000 or more for his or her crimes. Although nearly forty states and the US federal government had active Son of Sam statutes as of 2022, many have not been used due to First Amendment concerns.

Bibliography

Abrahamsen, David. Confessions of Son of Sam. New York: Columbia University Press, 1985.

Berkowitz, David. Son of Hope: The Prison Journals of David Berkowitz. Vol. 1. New York: Morning Star Communications, 2006.

Griffin, Allie. "'Son of Sam' Killer David Berkowitz Denied Parole in 12th Attempt." New York Post, 28 May 2024, nypost.com/2024/05/28/us-news/son-of-sam-killer-david-berkowitz-denied-parole-in-12th-attempt/. Accessed 27 Sept. 2024.

Ewing, Charles Patrick. Insanity: Murder, Madness, and the Law. New York: Oxford University Press, 2008.

Klausner, Lawrence D. Son of Sam: Based on the Authorized Transcription of the Tapes, Official Documents, and Diaries of David Berkowitz. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1981.

Kovaleski, Serge F. “Backers Give ‘Son of Sam’ Image Makover.” New York Times. New York Times, 12 July 2010. Web. 24 Sept. 2015.

“‘Son of Sam’ Statutes: Federal and State Summary.” First Amendment Center. First Amendment Center at Vanderbilt U, 23 Mar. 2012. Web. 24 Sept. 2015.

Terry, Maury. The Ultimate Evil: The Truth About the Cult Murders: Son of Sam and Beyond. New York: Barnes and Noble Books, 1999.

United States. Offices of the United States Attorneys, Department of Justice. “1105. The First Amendment Problems of ‘Son of Sam Laws.’” Offices of the United States Attorneys: Criminal Resource Manual. DOJ, n.d. Web. 24 Sept. 2015.