Lauria died, but Valenti survived to give the police a description of the gunman. He stabbed two young women - who survived - on Christmas Eve, and seven months later on 29 July, he shot 18-year-old Donna Lauria and 19-year-old jody Valenti, who had been sitting in a car in the Bronx. He was honourably discharged in 1974, and on returning to America, discovered his biological mother and the true story of his abandonment, something which according to forensic anthropologist Elliot Leyton in his book Hunting Humans: The Rise Of The Modern Multiple Murderer, was greatly disturbing to him, and was “a revelation that shattered his sense of identity”.įrom late 1975, Berkowitz began his violent crime spree.

Growing up, he was repeatedly in trouble for arson and petty larceny, and joined the army aged 17, serving in South Korea. Who is Berkowitz and what were his crimes?ĭavid Berkowitz was born Richard David Falco in 1953 in Brooklyn, but his birth mother gave him up for adoption when he was a baby. Is this falsely adding to the myth of the Son of Sam? Quite possibly – so in the meantime, here’s the true story behind the Berkowitz murders: Now a new Netflix documentary series, The Sons of Sam: A Descent into Darkness, re-examines the case, focusing on one theory that suggests Berkowitz didn't work alone and that he was part of a satanic cult. From Mindhunter’s second series and Spike Lee’s 1999 film Summer of Sam through to a running gag in Seinfeld and music by The Beastie Boys and Krizz Kaliko, Son of Sam has become something of a cultural touch point for Americans - most notably New Yorkers - since Berkowitz’s crimes were first revealed. If the bizarre story sounds familiar, well, that’s because the case of Berkowitz has been covered many times in popular culture before. As well as cementing him as a name in the true-crime hall fame of fame, the moniker also served almost to remove him from his heinous crimes, especially as Berkowitz was fantastically claiming that it was Sam, his neighbour’s dog, who had been taken over by a demonic force and was ordering him to carry out the killings. 44 Caliber Killer (due to the gun he used in his attacks) to using the same nickname in their headlines. It’s something the media also latched on to, shifting their narrative from calling him the. The perpetrator was later found out to be 22-year-old David Berkowitz, who through letters left at the crime scenes mythologised himself as the “Son of Sam”. In the summer of 1976, New Yorkers were terrified: a murderer was at large, stabbing and shooting a number of mainly young women.

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