1953–present
Latest News: Son of Sam Featured in Conversations with a Killer
David Berkowitz, the infamous Son of Sam serial killer, is the latest focus of Netflix’s popular docuseries Conversations with a Killer. The fourth installment, The Son of Sam Tapes, revisits the late-night Son of Sam killings that once terrorized New York City.
From 1976 to 1977, Berkowitz murdered six people and injured 11 others in a rampage of shootings that spanned 13 months. Following the largest manhunt in the city’s history, he was arrested in August 1977. During police questioning, Berkowitz claimed he was ordered to kill by his neighbor’s demon-possessed dog, but later recanted this story. In May 1978, the killer pleaded guilty to the murders and was sentenced to six consecutive life sentences.
Through new interviews and unearthed audio recordings, the three-part series looks at Berkowitz’s case through a fresh lens. “These rare tapes reveal unnerving insights into his psyche, shedding light on the intricate details of the case and the pervasive fear that gripped the city,” director Joe Berlinger told Netflix’s Tudum. “We hope to not only revisit history, but to bring clarity and depth to a narrative that has long intrigued and unsettled the public.”
Conversations with a Killer: The Son of Sam Tapes premieres July 30.
Who Is the Son of Sam?
The Son of Sam, whose real name is David Berkowitz, is a notorious serial killer who murdered six people in New York City from 1976 to 1977, plunging the city into a panic and unleashing one of the largest manhunts in New York history. Amid his shooting rampage, Berkowitz left taunting letters near his victim’s bodies signed as “Son of Sam.” He was eventually arrested in August 1977 after a witness saw him leaving the scene of the crime in a car with a parking ticket. Upon his arrest, Berkowitz told police he was commanded to kill people by a demon-possessed Labrador retriever belonging to his neighbor, Sam Carr, but later recanted this story. In May 1978, Berkowitz withdrew an insanity defense and pleaded guilty to all six murders. He is currently serving multiple life sentences at Shawangunk Correctional Facility in upstate New York.
Quick Facts
FULL NAME: David Richard Berkowitz
BORN: June 1, 1953
BIRTHPLACE: Brooklyn, New York
ASTROLOGICAL SIGN: Gemini
Early Life
David Berkowitz was born Richard David Falco on June 1, 1953, in Brooklyn, New York. His birth mother, Betty Broder, was a waitress, who conceived of him out of wedlock after having an affair with Joseph Kleinman, a married businessman. Berkowitz had a half-sister, Roslyn Falco. Shortly after his birth, Betty gave him up for adoption because Joseph had no interest in being in his life. When he was just days old, the newborn was adopted by hardware store owners Nathan and Pearl Berkowitz, who renamed him David Richard Berkowitz. Both his biological and adoptive parents were Jewish.
Growing up in the Bronx, Berkowitz was a smart but troubled child. He suffered several head injuries, including when he was hit by a driver at age 7. Berkowitz soon began exhibiting disruptive and violent behaviors, prompting his parents to seek the guidance of a psychologist and even a rabbi. At school, he didn’t have many friends and was frequently teased by his classmates. Prone to anger, Berkowitz was easily upset and took his frustrations out on kids much smaller and younger than him.
At 12 years old, Berkowitz started setting fires, which he documented in his diary. These arson activities would continue well into his adulthood and up until his eventual arrest. It wasn’t until he turned 13 that Berkowitz began torturing and killing animals and insects. Most notably, he poisoned his adoptive mother’s parakeet, Pudgy, with cleaning fluid.
Despite this, he was very close with Pearl. The following year, she died of breast cancer—a diagnosis that was hidden from him. Devastated by the loss and angry at his father for keeping her illness a secret, Berkowitz’s behavior became more erratic and he started to struggle in school. During this time, he didn’t see much of his father, who worked long hours. In 1971, Nathan remarried a woman named Mary, who David disliked, causing tension at home. Later that year, he graduated from Christopher Columbus High School and his father and stepmother moved to Florida.
At 18 years old, Berkowitz enlisted in the U.S. Army and served in South Korea and Kentucky, where he became a proficient marksman. During his service, he was baptized into Christianity, but stopped attending church services after he was honorably discharged in 1974. Upon returning to New York, Berkowitz briefly attended Bronx Community College and worked as a security guard and a cab driver. He also found his birth mother, Betty, in 1975 and formed a relationship with his half-sister, Roslyn. It was around this time he first began committing crimes.
Becoming the Son of Sam
In December 1975, Berkowitz attempted to kill a woman and a teenage girl with a hunting knife on a footbridge in the Bronx’s Co-op City. His first victim, an unidentified Hispanic woman, managed to fight him off and escape, while 15-year-old Michelle Forman suffered extensive injuries but survived the attack. Berkowitz was never suspected of these crimes, but later confessed to them after his arrest.
Following these first acts of violence, he relocated to an apartment in Yonkers in early 1976 and got a job as a letter sorter for the U.S. Postal Service. While he initially kept to himself, he would soon unleash his reign of terror on New York City.
Murders
On July 29, 1976, Berkowitz began his killing rampage in the Bronx, starting with two young women, Jody Valenti and Donna Lauria. The two friends were talking in Valenti’s parked car in the Pelham Bay neighborhood when he approached the vehicle with a .44 caliber revolver. Berkowitz shot at them five times, instantly killing 18-year-old Lauria. Valenti was wounded but survived the attack, giving a vague description of Berkowitz to the police.
Just a few months later, Berkowitz struck again. On October 23, he spotted a young couple, Carl Denaro and Rosemary Keenan, in another parked car in Flushing, Queens, and fired five shots at them. Both parties survived the shooting, but Denaro suffered a massive injury to the head and later had part of his skull replaced with a metal plate.
That November, Berkowitz attacked high school students Donna DeMasi and Joanne Lomino. The teenagers were talking on Lomino’s front porch when Berkowitz pretended to ask for directions and proceeded to fired at them. DeMasi was shot once in the neck, sustaining a minor injury, while Lomino took a bullet to the back, leaving her paralyzed from the waist down.
Though police had yet to put these shooting incidents together, that changed in January 1977, when Berkowitz attacked another couple in a parked car in Queens, shooting at Christine Freund and her fiancé, John Diel. While Diel survived, Freund was fatally shot in the head. Because Berkowitz used the same .44 caliber gun in all of his shootings, the police were on his trail, initially referring to him as the “.44 Caliber Killer.” The New York Police Department established a 200-person task force to catch the killer.
That March, Berkowitz murdered college student Virginia Voskerichian as she was walking home from class. The next month, Berkowitz killed another couple, Valentina Suriani and Alexander Esau, in their car in the Bronx. This time, however, he left a letter near his victims’ bodies addressed to NYPD Captain Joseph Borrelli. In the letter, he called himself the “Son of Sam” for the first time and taunted the police.
It was around this time that Berkowitz started harassing one of his neighbors, retiree Sam Carr. He sent an anonymous note to Carr in April complaining about his black Labrador retriever, named Harvey. Berkowitz sent another note a week later threatening Carr’s life, and by the end of the month, Harvey was shot, but survived.
In May, Berkowitz sent another hand-written letter to New York Daily News reporter Jimmy Breslin, in which he discussed in-depth the murder of Lauria. Breslin subsequently published it in the Daily News. As a result, the media coverage of his crimes became widespread—and Berkowitz relished the spotlight. All the while, New Yorkers lived in fear of being his next victim.
That June, Berkowitz struck Queens again when he shot at Judy Placido and Salvatore Lupo as they sat in their car after leaving a disco. While they were wounded, both Placido and Lupo survived their injuries.
Berkowitz’s final hit took place in the early hours of July 31, 1977. He shot Stacy Moskowitz and Bobby Violante as they were kissing in a car parked in Brooklyn. Moskowitz died of her injuries, and Violante lost his left eye and was rendered legally blind in the other. While the police searched far and wide for the killer, it was a witness who helped authorities finally catch Berkowitz.
Arrest and Confession
Cacilia Davis was walking her dog near the scene of the Moskowitz-Violante shootings when she spotted a strange man walking past a car that had just received a parking ticket. Concerned he was holding a gun, Davis ran home and heard gunshots in the area just minutes later. After a few days, she reported the incident to the police. As it turns out, only a handful of tickets were given out that day, and one of them was for Berkowitz’s 1970 Ford Galaxie sedan. The tip effectively cracked the case, putting an end to the largest manhunt in New York City history.
Exactly 11 days after his last murder, Berkowitz was arrested on August 10, 1977. As he was taken into custody, he reportedly told authorities, “Well, you’ve got me.”
“Son of Sam” Dog
During questioning, Berkowitz blamed his 13-month killing spree on his neighbor Sam Carr’s dog, claiming he was ordered to kill by a demon possessing the black Labrador retriever. Due to his outrageous claims, Berkowitz underwent numerous psychological evaluations but was declared “competent” to stand trial. Despite the results, his lawyers still urged him to enter an insanity plea, but he rejected their advice.
On May 8, 1978, Berkowitz pleaded guilty to the six murder charges against him, as well as nearly 2,000 fires he had set in and around New York City. At his first sentencing hearing just weeks later, Berkowitz tried to jump out of a window of the seventh-floor courtroom. As he was restrained by court officers, he yelled, “Stacy was a whore” and “I’ll kill them all.” Due to the commotion, the hearing was rescheduled, and on June 12, he was sentenced to 25-years-to-life for each murder.
Since his arrest, Berkowitz has retracted his possessed dog “Son of Sam” story. In a letter to his psychiatrist, Dr. David Abrahamsen, in March 1979, he said, “It was all a hoax, a silly hoax.” He also later claimed that he had been part of a satantic cult that helped him carry out the murders and that Sam Carr’s sons, John and Michael Carr, had been his accomplices. While this prompted police to investigate the possibility that Berkowitz didn’t act alone, no new evidence was found.
Following widespread speculation that Berkowitz was looking to sell his story to the highest bidder, the New York State Legislature passed the first Son of Sam law in 1977, preventing convicted criminals from financially profiting from books, movies, or other enterprises related to their crimes. To date, a total of 42 states have enacted similar laws. While there have been numerous media renditions of the Son of Sam case, Berkowitz has not financially profited from any works by him or anyone else.
Life in Prison
After his sentencing, Berkowitz was shuffled around prisons and psychiatric hospitals before landing at Attica Correctional Facility in 1978. It was there that a fellow inmate slashed him in the neck with a razor blade in July 1979. Berkowitz survived the attack, receiving upwards of 50 stitches at the prison hospital.
Nearly a decade later, in 1987, he converted to evangelical Christianity after another inmate gave him a Bible. Berkowitz has since rechristened himself the “Son of Hope.” In 1998, his testimony was captured in a video titled Son of Sam, Son of Hope. Berkowitz later expanded on his Christian redemption in his 2006 book Son of Hope: The Prison Journals of David Berkowitz. He also has religious website run by his supporters. Both the book and the site offer apologies to his victims and their families. The convicted killer was later moved to Sullivan Correctional Facility in 1990, where worked as an aide for disabled prisoners.
Berkowitz is currently serving his time in Shawangunk Correctional Facility in Wallkill, New York. While in prison, he continues to write journal essays on faith and repentance, as well as contribute to school-based projects for students in psychology, criminology, and sociology who want to learn more about the criminal mind and the criminal justice system.
Over the years, Berkowitz has been put up for parole 12 times, most recently in 2024. He has been consistently denied release.
Health Issues
In December 2017, prison officials revealed Berkowitz had been transferred from Shawangunk Correctional Facility to a nearby hospital. Although the officials would not offer specific medical details, the New York Post and the Times-Union of Albany reported that Berkowitz was set to undergo heart surgery.
In February 2018, the New York Post reported that Berkowitz had had a heart attack prior to his first surgery in December. In late January 2018, he had to undergo further treatment and returned to the hospital after experiencing complications.
Media: Movies and TV Shows
Berkowitz and his Son of Sam killings have been depicted in various movies and TV shows. In 1985, the made-for-television movie Out of the Darkness focused on the police investigation into the Son of Sam, with Berkowitz portrayed by actor Robert Trebor. Later on, the 1999 Spike Lee film Summer of Sam retold the case through a group of friends' search for a fictionalized Berkowitz after he kills one of their friends. In addition, Berkowitz was briefly portrayed by actor Oliver Cooper in the TV series Mindhunter in 2019.
Multiple documentaries have also tacked his crimes, including 2017’s Son of Sam: The Hunt for a Killer, which included interviews with his victims’ family members. The 2021 Netflix docuseries Sons of Sam: A Descent into Darkness, explored conspiracies surrounding Berkowtiz’s past claims that he worked with accomplices. Next, the killer will be examined further in Netflix’s Conversations with a Killer: The Son of Sam Tapes, which is set to premiere on July 30, 2025.
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