1
00:00:09,009 --> 00:00:11,761
Test. Test. Test.

2
00:00:14,472 --> 00:00:15,390
Test.

3
00:00:17,434 --> 00:00:20,311
Interview with David Berkowitz
at Attica Prison.

4
00:00:20,395 --> 00:00:22,605
Over a number of weeks,

5
00:00:22,689 --> 00:00:27,902
we talked openly and actually formed
an ongoing relationship.

6
00:00:29,612 --> 00:00:34,909
I wanted to understand
why he had done what he had done.

7
00:00:35,869 --> 00:00:37,787
Can you think of what it was in you

8
00:00:37,871 --> 00:00:39,998
that made you homicidal
rather than suicidal?

9
00:00:40,665 --> 00:00:47,589
I was reading a lot of books
and movies about other individuals

10
00:00:47,672 --> 00:00:52,385
who took their problems out
on other people.

11
00:00:53,595 --> 00:00:57,098
The Boston Strangler, that Zodiac guy.

12
00:01:00,935 --> 00:01:03,104
Berkowitz had a cinematic mind.

13
00:01:03,188 --> 00:01:06,274
He was an avid student of true crime.

14
00:01:06,357 --> 00:01:08,902
He read of William Heirens,
the Lipstick Killer.

15
00:01:09,694 --> 00:01:12,614
These guys
had killed a whole bunch of people,

16
00:01:12,697 --> 00:01:14,699
gained a great deal of attention.

17
00:01:15,617 --> 00:01:20,663
In his 20s, he went to the library,
he checked out books on Jack the Ripper.

18
00:01:22,040 --> 00:01:23,917
Jack the Ripper, the historical book,

19
00:01:24,000 --> 00:01:26,002
it discussed the crimes in great length,

20
00:01:26,086 --> 00:01:30,673
showed snapshots of the morgue victims,
old black-and-white photos.

21
00:01:32,258 --> 00:01:35,136
-Do you identify with that stuff?
-Yeah.

22
00:01:36,471 --> 00:01:40,141
He was using
a lot of previous killers' MOs

23
00:01:40,225 --> 00:01:43,770
to inform his work, so to speak.

24
00:01:43,853 --> 00:01:46,564
But here I was seeing these other guys…

25
00:01:48,066 --> 00:01:51,861
acting out their angers
and frustrations on other people.

26
00:01:52,529 --> 00:01:55,782
He was writing his own
Stephen King story about himself.

27
00:01:56,282 --> 00:02:00,954
I became outwardly aggressive
after a period of time.

28
00:02:01,037 --> 00:02:04,791
Especially after all these movies
which seemed to encourage me.

29
00:02:05,834 --> 00:02:09,212
It's a deadly and very complicated story

30
00:02:09,295 --> 00:02:12,549
of how a human mind spirals out of control

31
00:02:13,049 --> 00:02:17,137
and becomes a lone gunman
and mass murderer.

32
00:02:20,598 --> 00:02:24,477
I was a person who,
since childhood, has always had a tendency

33
00:02:24,561 --> 00:02:28,106
to vent his aggression
through antisocial means.

34
00:02:28,189 --> 00:02:29,482
It was just a matter of time

35
00:02:29,566 --> 00:02:32,026
before the guns and anger
would blend together,

36
00:02:32,986 --> 00:02:35,321
and then everything's going to blow up,
you know?

37
00:02:37,000 --> 00:02:43,074



38
00:03:07,270 --> 00:03:10,607
Following Tuesday's killing
of 20-year-old Virginia Voskerichian,

39
00:03:10,690 --> 00:03:12,317
Commissioner Codd indicated

40
00:03:12,400 --> 00:03:14,736
that the same man may be
the murder suspect

41
00:03:14,819 --> 00:03:17,447
in perhaps three of five killings
of young women,

42
00:03:17,530 --> 00:03:22,243
two in Forest Hills and one in the Bronx,
dating back to last July 29th.

43
00:03:22,327 --> 00:03:25,955
Most of the victims are young
women with shoulder-length brown hair

44
00:03:26,039 --> 00:03:28,458
who were gunned down
as they sat in parked cars

45
00:03:28,541 --> 00:03:31,044
or walked the sidewalks
of the Bronx and Queens.

46
00:03:31,127 --> 00:03:35,048
Last night,
Virginia Voskerichian only got this far.

47
00:03:35,131 --> 00:03:37,926
Captain Borrelli, as of this moment,
can you reconstruct

48
00:03:38,009 --> 00:03:39,552
what happened last night?

49
00:03:40,136 --> 00:03:43,056
We know the victim is a student
at Columbia University.

50
00:03:43,640 --> 00:03:46,851
Somewhere along the line,
she was stopped on the street

51
00:03:46,935 --> 00:03:48,978
or accosted by an individual.

52
00:03:49,062 --> 00:03:53,733
She either saw a weapon being displayed
or for some reason she put the books up.

53
00:03:53,816 --> 00:03:56,110
That would indicate
a defensive-type reaction.

54
00:03:56,194 --> 00:03:58,655
Why? You know, the big question, why?

55
00:03:58,738 --> 00:04:01,991
A young girl like this,
he shoots her right in the face.

56
00:04:02,742 --> 00:04:05,954
I was concerned for my girls,
because I have four daughters.

57
00:04:06,037 --> 00:04:08,373
I'm picturing this young girl,

58
00:04:08,456 --> 00:04:11,501
my oldest daughter
was just maybe a year or two younger.

59
00:04:11,584 --> 00:04:13,002
That was very emotional.

60
00:04:13,836 --> 00:04:15,838
With the Virginia Voskerichian murder,

61
00:04:15,922 --> 00:04:18,341
now we have a total of five shootings.

62
00:04:18,424 --> 00:04:21,261
All these bullets,
these ballistics now are matching.

63
00:04:21,344 --> 00:04:24,931
It's a .44-caliber bullet
that came from the same gun.

64
00:04:25,014 --> 00:04:26,391
We have determined

65
00:04:26,474 --> 00:04:30,561
that there has been a .44-caliber revolver
used in every one of them.

66
00:04:30,645 --> 00:04:34,148
And that was the moment
where everything just switched on.

67
00:04:34,232 --> 00:04:36,234
"Oh my God, it's a serial killer."

68
00:04:37,819 --> 00:04:41,239
The general description that we have
is of a male, white,

69
00:04:41,322 --> 00:04:46,744
25 to 30 years of age,
5 feet 10 inches to 6 feet in height,

70
00:04:46,828 --> 00:04:50,456
medium build, well-groomed with dark hair.

71
00:04:50,540 --> 00:04:54,711
It's important that you tell the police
what you know

72
00:04:54,794 --> 00:04:57,422
and let them judge and follow through.

73
00:04:58,256 --> 00:05:00,800
As soon as the press conference was held,

74
00:05:00,883 --> 00:05:03,386
that's when the city
just went totally on edge.

75
00:05:03,469 --> 00:05:06,264
People wouldn't go out at night.
They're really scared.

76
00:05:06,347 --> 00:05:08,057
And I mean when they're scared,

77
00:05:08,141 --> 00:05:10,560
that's all they do
is talk about the killer.

78
00:05:10,643 --> 00:05:13,104
People have not gone out of their houses.

79
00:05:13,187 --> 00:05:14,981
It's just scary. It's frightening.

80
00:05:15,064 --> 00:05:17,275
Now the newspapers are picking it up.

81
00:05:17,358 --> 00:05:19,193
It's no longer page three.

82
00:05:19,277 --> 00:05:20,695
Now it's page one.

83
00:05:23,323 --> 00:05:25,742
Everyone wants a piece of this story.

84
00:05:28,536 --> 00:05:31,414
The Daily News and the Post
were the source of information

85
00:05:31,497 --> 00:05:33,624
for everyone in New York City.

86
00:05:34,125 --> 00:05:36,669
I was a reporter
at the New York Daily News.

87
00:05:36,753 --> 00:05:38,755
I got assigned to working nights

88
00:05:38,838 --> 00:05:42,008
back at the City room
where all the action was.

89
00:05:42,091 --> 00:05:43,426
Journalism back then was…

90
00:05:43,509 --> 00:05:49,098
you had a bottle of booze at your desk.
If you had a desk, it was gritty.

91
00:05:49,182 --> 00:05:51,559
Journalists thrive on chaos.

92
00:05:52,769 --> 00:05:55,688
I was 31 years old.
I had come out of the Army,

93
00:05:55,772 --> 00:05:58,983
and I suddenly was the city editor
of the New York Post.

94
00:06:00,193 --> 00:06:03,946
This wasn't just a story.
This was the story.

95
00:06:04,405 --> 00:06:08,326
The killer police are looking for
is called the .44 Caliber Killer

96
00:06:08,409 --> 00:06:10,078
because of the weapon he has used.

97
00:06:10,787 --> 00:06:13,373
Everything became public.

98
00:06:13,456 --> 00:06:17,627
The police commissioner is under pressure.
"We've got to solve this case right away."

99
00:06:17,710 --> 00:06:23,007
Ballistics compared the bullets
and we determined it was one gun.

100
00:06:23,091 --> 00:06:26,052
We know he's riding
because it's happening all over.

101
00:06:26,135 --> 00:06:30,223
Early in the morning hours,
you know, after midnight, generally.

102
00:06:30,890 --> 00:06:33,684
We were looking for something, anything.

103
00:06:33,768 --> 00:06:36,104
I was in the 15th homicide zone.

104
00:06:37,271 --> 00:06:40,525
And that was the most interesting time
of my life on a job.

105
00:06:41,317 --> 00:06:46,489
The assumption was this assailant
would be out at nighttime.

106
00:06:46,572 --> 00:06:49,409
But we didn't know
where he was going to strike again.

107
00:06:51,077 --> 00:06:54,705
Queens and the Bronx
had been all the locations.

108
00:06:56,249 --> 00:06:59,127
And we had heavy patrols in those areas.

109
00:06:59,752 --> 00:07:03,381
We also implemented
the use of unmarked cars.

110
00:07:04,757 --> 00:07:07,343
You don't really know
what's going on in his mind.

111
00:07:07,844 --> 00:07:08,678
You don't.

112
00:07:09,470 --> 00:07:13,766
But you kind of, I don't know,
try to beat him to the punch.

113
00:07:18,563 --> 00:07:20,982
Meanwhile, during the killing spree,

114
00:07:21,482 --> 00:07:25,486
Berkowitz really starts to kinda lose it.

115
00:07:26,946 --> 00:07:30,241
He was living
in these really cheap apartments

116
00:07:30,324 --> 00:07:33,411
in sort of bad neighborhoods
'cause it was all he can afford.

117
00:07:33,494 --> 00:07:38,082
He ended up in a series of odd jobs.
He becomes a security guard.

118
00:07:38,666 --> 00:07:40,668
I wasn't making real money.

119
00:07:40,751 --> 00:07:44,088
I left one job,
went into another, and then another.

120
00:07:44,172 --> 00:07:45,923
I wasn't unemployed for very long.

121
00:07:46,591 --> 00:07:48,926
You felt like
these were all dead-end jobs?

122
00:07:49,010 --> 00:07:49,844
Yeah.

123
00:07:50,178 --> 00:07:53,431
That all, of course,
started to add to his feelings

124
00:07:53,514 --> 00:07:55,975
of frustration and intense anger.

125
00:07:57,727 --> 00:08:02,565
He rents an apartment
at 35 Pine Street in Yonkers, New York,

126
00:08:02,648 --> 00:08:05,985
which will be the epicenter of everything.

127
00:08:06,527 --> 00:08:08,196
It's off the beaten path

128
00:08:08,279 --> 00:08:15,286
in what was a working-class neighborhood
of Yonkers that was in transition.

129
00:08:16,996 --> 00:08:19,123
I was frustrated as hell.

130
00:08:19,207 --> 00:08:21,334
I felt really dejected.

131
00:08:21,417 --> 00:08:23,294
No job satisfaction.

132
00:08:24,086 --> 00:08:26,130
No social life satisfaction.

133
00:08:26,214 --> 00:08:28,549
There was nothing in the apartment,
nothing at all,

134
00:08:28,633 --> 00:08:31,552
just my clothes, my guns and my bed.

135
00:08:32,053 --> 00:08:33,679
He was going to work every day.

136
00:08:33,763 --> 00:08:37,600
And then by night, many nights,
he was stalking victims.

137
00:08:44,607 --> 00:08:49,403
He was constantly searching,
you know, prowling, looking, you know.

138
00:08:49,987 --> 00:08:54,784
It was a situation, the circumstance
that he found himself in.

139
00:08:54,867 --> 00:08:57,286
He was an opportunist.

140
00:08:57,870 --> 00:09:00,456
For days on end,
you know, I was out every night

141
00:09:00,540 --> 00:09:01,999
like clockwork driving around.

142
00:09:02,083 --> 00:09:05,253
So I spotted
more things happening, you know?

143
00:09:06,879 --> 00:09:09,590
He told me he began seeking out,

144
00:09:09,674 --> 00:09:14,303
middle of the night, long walks,
long drives, with a gun in his pocket,

145
00:09:14,387 --> 00:09:17,515
looking for women that he could kill.

146
00:09:22,311 --> 00:09:24,939
And he said,
before he could pull a trigger,

147
00:09:25,022 --> 00:09:30,027
he had to view his victims
as what he wanted them to be.

148
00:09:31,821 --> 00:09:34,448
At that time, as angry as I was feeling,

149
00:09:34,532 --> 00:09:37,618
I had reduced them
to just objects of my, uh…

150
00:09:38,119 --> 00:09:40,037
anger, hatred or whatever.

151
00:09:40,538 --> 00:09:42,498
If I put myself in a position

152
00:09:42,582 --> 00:09:45,293
where I saw
that they were really humans, then I…

153
00:09:45,376 --> 00:09:49,547
like if I engage them in conversation
or something, then that would…

154
00:09:49,630 --> 00:09:53,926
Immediately, I would lose
everything I psyched myself up for.

155
00:09:54,427 --> 00:09:57,972
When some of his intended victims

156
00:09:58,055 --> 00:10:02,310
would maybe ask him for help or smile,
the game was off.

157
00:10:02,393 --> 00:10:04,020
He couldn't… He couldn't harm them.

158
00:10:06,647 --> 00:10:08,858
One night, he was out
with a gun in his pocket,

159
00:10:08,941 --> 00:10:10,776
intending to commit a murder.

160
00:10:11,277 --> 00:10:16,032
He came upon ideal victims
who were stuck in a snowbank.

161
00:10:16,115 --> 00:10:17,825
He had the perfect target.

162
00:10:19,952 --> 00:10:22,496
And I had the gun in my pocket.

163
00:10:23,080 --> 00:10:23,914
And I…

164
00:10:25,207 --> 00:10:27,251
You know, they asked me,
"Hey, can you give us a hand?

165
00:10:27,335 --> 00:10:29,503
'Cause we're stuck, we can't get out."

166
00:10:30,588 --> 00:10:32,923
I looked at these people
and I said, "All right, yeah, sure."

167
00:10:33,007 --> 00:10:34,300
And I helped them.

168
00:10:34,800 --> 00:10:39,013
You never thought at that time
about turning the gun on them?

169
00:10:39,513 --> 00:10:42,600
I… I…
No, because I wasn't worked up in that…

170
00:10:42,683 --> 00:10:44,268
in that state. I, uh…

171
00:10:44,810 --> 00:10:47,438
I didn't want to do that.
I had contact with them.

172
00:10:47,521 --> 00:10:48,856
I saw them as persons.

173
00:10:48,939 --> 00:10:52,193
Even for that brief second,
I looked at their faces, you know?

174
00:10:52,276 --> 00:10:56,030
And I said to myself, "Oh, thank God,
I mean something to somebody,

175
00:10:56,113 --> 00:10:57,907
even if it's just for a second."

176
00:10:57,990 --> 00:11:00,326
I'm called upon to help.

177
00:11:00,409 --> 00:11:05,247
I would have been more grateful
for that incident, you understand,

178
00:11:05,331 --> 00:11:09,669
for my chance to help somebody
than to go out and hurt somebody.

179
00:11:11,128 --> 00:11:13,881
And rather than kill them,
he pushed them out.

180
00:11:13,964 --> 00:11:16,592
And they were very thankful.

181
00:11:16,676 --> 00:11:20,262
And he said, you know,
"My pleasure. Have a good night."

182
00:11:21,055 --> 00:11:24,684
Sent them on their way,
happy to have done a good deed.

183
00:11:26,268 --> 00:11:28,437
And then he went on
and killed somebody else.

184
00:11:38,114 --> 00:11:40,074
18-year-old Valentina Suriani

185
00:11:40,157 --> 00:11:43,452
and her steady boyfriend,
20-year-old Alexander Esau,

186
00:11:43,536 --> 00:11:46,706
were parked in his car on
the Hutchinson River Parkway service road.

187
00:11:46,789 --> 00:11:50,918
At three a.m., three shots tore
through the side window of the car.

188
00:11:51,001 --> 00:11:53,129
Valentina died,
a bullet wound in the head.

189
00:11:53,713 --> 00:11:57,675
Alexander was hit twice in the head.
He died at nine o'clock last night.

190
00:11:59,218 --> 00:12:01,721
It was in April of 1977.

191
00:12:01,804 --> 00:12:03,681
This time, with the sixth shooting,

192
00:12:03,764 --> 00:12:07,685
a lot of us took note
because the killer went back to the Bronx.

193
00:12:07,768 --> 00:12:11,147
It was in
the Pelham Bay section of the Bronx,

194
00:12:11,230 --> 00:12:14,024
actually quite close
to where Berkowitz grew up.

195
00:12:14,942 --> 00:12:17,737
Everybody knew everybody
in that neighborhood.

196
00:12:18,779 --> 00:12:22,616
It was really close-knit
and always felt safe there.

197
00:12:22,700 --> 00:12:26,287
I mean, I was walking to school by myself
when I was ten years old.

198
00:12:27,413 --> 00:12:30,416
I met Valentina
when I first went off to school.

199
00:12:31,625 --> 00:12:35,421
We knew each other forever.
We'd hang out at each other's houses.

200
00:12:36,130 --> 00:12:39,633
When Val and Alex met,
they were destined to be together.

201
00:12:41,552 --> 00:12:44,597
Learning about Val was very tough.

202
00:12:44,680 --> 00:12:47,558
My sister Teresa and I
worked that Sunday morning

203
00:12:47,641 --> 00:12:49,268
at a local supermarket.

204
00:12:50,060 --> 00:12:53,898
Somewhere between 9:30 and ten o'clock
I saw my father coming down.

205
00:12:54,482 --> 00:12:57,234
He got on my line
and started shooing people away,

206
00:12:57,318 --> 00:12:58,569
telling them I was closed.

207
00:13:00,780 --> 00:13:03,532
I said, "Dad, what's the matter?
What did I do?"

208
00:13:03,616 --> 00:13:07,161
And he looked at me and he said,
"Gloria, Val was killed last night."

209
00:13:09,121 --> 00:13:12,666
I could feel the coffee and buns
coming back up.

210
00:13:14,960 --> 00:13:15,920
And, uh…

211
00:13:17,546 --> 00:13:23,219
I remember splashing cold water
on my face, and the anger hit.

212
00:13:24,053 --> 00:13:26,555
There was a big picture in the newspaper,

213
00:13:27,848 --> 00:13:29,934
.44 Caliber Killer headline.

214
00:13:30,684 --> 00:13:32,853
Everyone knew Val.
She wasn't some stranger.

215
00:13:32,937 --> 00:13:34,647
This was one of our own.

216
00:13:38,234 --> 00:13:40,194
As if they hadn't paid enough

217
00:13:40,277 --> 00:13:44,114
for the broken dreams or fantasies
of this psychopathic killer,

218
00:13:44,198 --> 00:13:47,493
many of those that prayed
for Valentina today

219
00:13:47,576 --> 00:13:52,414
will also be praying for her boyfriend
of three years, Alexander Esau.

220
00:13:52,498 --> 00:13:56,252
As the fifth victim of the killer's,
he'll be buried tomorrow.

221
00:13:57,127 --> 00:13:59,004
After Val and Alex were killed,

222
00:13:59,088 --> 00:14:01,006
the neighborhood did start to believe

223
00:14:01,090 --> 00:14:04,176
that he was targeting our neighborhood.

224
00:14:05,553 --> 00:14:07,471
Val and Donna Lauria,

225
00:14:07,555 --> 00:14:11,976
from the first shooting in July of '76,
lived pretty much on the same block.

226
00:14:13,227 --> 00:14:16,397
So those shootings were just yards apart.

227
00:14:17,189 --> 00:14:20,025
That's when, you know,
you relate everything back

228
00:14:20,109 --> 00:14:23,404
and you realize that they were that close.

229
00:14:23,946 --> 00:14:25,823
Girls started asking themselves,

230
00:14:25,906 --> 00:14:29,952
"Did… Did I meet
this guy at a bar or a disco?"

231
00:14:30,035 --> 00:14:32,371
"Did I rebuff him?
Is he gonna come after me?"

232
00:14:32,454 --> 00:14:33,956
Did they know this guy?

233
00:14:34,039 --> 00:14:37,251
You start to imagine maybe it is personal.

234
00:14:37,334 --> 00:14:39,378
Maybe he does know us.

235
00:14:41,672 --> 00:14:46,677
This double homicide in the Bronx
with Alexander Esau and Valentina Suriani

236
00:14:46,760 --> 00:14:52,975
was a huge front-page headline,
especially because the killer left a note.

237
00:14:57,730 --> 00:15:00,274
Where did
you put the note? The windshield?

238
00:15:00,357 --> 00:15:02,902
Right alongside
the car, you know? I just dropped it.

239
00:15:02,985 --> 00:15:06,614
It was in a sealed envelope,
and I just dropped it by the car.

240
00:15:07,740 --> 00:15:12,202
When the police get there,
the first patrolman sees a letter,

241
00:15:12,286 --> 00:15:15,164
an envelope on the street, picks it up.

242
00:15:15,748 --> 00:15:17,541
Did it have his name on it?

243
00:15:17,625 --> 00:15:19,043
No. It had the…

244
00:15:19,752 --> 00:15:24,214
the guy who was running the investigation,
it had his name on it.

245
00:15:24,298 --> 00:15:25,633
Joseph Borrelli.

246
00:15:29,511 --> 00:15:33,349
We're back in the war room,
in my squad office,

247
00:15:33,891 --> 00:15:38,103
and it was a bunch of us there,
and Captain Borrelli came walking in.

248
00:15:38,604 --> 00:15:41,482
He had the letter in his hands,
and he said, "I got to read this."

249
00:15:41,565 --> 00:15:43,108
And he read it to us.

250
00:15:44,818 --> 00:15:47,655
"Mr. Joe Borrelli, Queens Homicide."

251
00:15:47,738 --> 00:15:51,450
"I am deeply hurt
by your calling me a woman hater."

252
00:15:51,533 --> 00:15:54,787
"I am not. But I am a monster."

253
00:15:55,371 --> 00:15:56,747
"I am the "Son of Sam.'"

254
00:15:59,750 --> 00:16:02,127
"Sam loves to drink blood."

255
00:16:02,211 --> 00:16:05,422
"'Go out and kill,' commands Father Sam."

256
00:16:05,506 --> 00:16:07,716
"I feel like an outsider."

257
00:16:07,800 --> 00:16:10,719
"I'm on a different wavelength
than everybody else."

258
00:16:10,803 --> 00:16:12,388
"Programmed to kill."

259
00:16:12,471 --> 00:16:13,847
"I love to hunt."

260
00:16:13,931 --> 00:16:17,434
"Prowling the streets
looking for fair game. Tasty meat."

261
00:16:17,518 --> 00:16:20,604
"Mr. Borrelli, sir,
I don't want to kill anymore."

262
00:16:20,688 --> 00:16:24,358
"No, sir, no more,
but I must 'honor thy father.'"

263
00:16:24,441 --> 00:16:26,610
"To the people of Queens, I love you."

264
00:16:27,111 --> 00:16:29,905
"I want to wish all of you
a Happy Easter."

265
00:16:30,531 --> 00:16:34,451
"Police, let me haunt you
with these words."

266
00:16:34,535 --> 00:16:36,537
"I'll be back! I'll be back!"

267
00:16:36,620 --> 00:16:42,001
"To be interpreted as bang,
bang, bang, bang, bang."

268
00:16:44,086 --> 00:16:46,797
"Yours in murder, Mr. Monster."

269
00:16:48,632 --> 00:16:50,551
Is that… Is that crazy?

270
00:16:51,176 --> 00:16:53,846
Is that insanity? Is that…

271
00:16:53,929 --> 00:16:57,057
I don't have the words for it.
It's just unbelievable.

272
00:16:57,141 --> 00:16:59,685
I'm getting annoyed
just reading this damn…

273
00:17:04,481 --> 00:17:07,943
When that letter was read,
it's like our jaws dropped.

274
00:17:08,027 --> 00:17:11,572
And it was a major concern

275
00:17:11,655 --> 00:17:15,159
because, uh, not only taunting us,

276
00:17:15,659 --> 00:17:18,370
but warning us
that he's gonna do it again.

277
00:17:20,039 --> 00:17:24,001
He was scarier than anybody else
I can ever remember covering.

278
00:17:24,084 --> 00:17:27,087
In this letter, he goes from saying
he doesn't want to kill people

279
00:17:27,171 --> 00:17:28,255
and have a nice Easter

280
00:17:28,338 --> 00:17:31,300
to "I'm going to drink
all these girls' blood

281
00:17:31,383 --> 00:17:32,801
and I'm going to be back,

282
00:17:32,885 --> 00:17:35,262
I'm going to kill anybody
that tries to kill me."

283
00:17:35,345 --> 00:17:37,598
That's all in the space of one letter.

284
00:17:39,224 --> 00:17:42,895
Son of Sam. That's the first time
we ever heard that name.

285
00:17:42,978 --> 00:17:44,938
What does that mean? Who is Sam?

286
00:17:45,022 --> 00:17:48,108
Many men in the Vietnam War
refer to themselves as sons of Sam,

287
00:17:48,192 --> 00:17:49,359
being sons of Uncle Sam.

288
00:17:49,443 --> 00:17:53,697
Of course, we have it also connected
with satanism, diabolism.

289
00:17:55,240 --> 00:17:57,576
Son of Sam being Sam the Devil.

290
00:17:58,160 --> 00:18:00,120
And we just don't know what he means.

291
00:18:01,413 --> 00:18:05,834
He knew that this Captain Borrelli
was the guy that was trying to find him.

292
00:18:05,918 --> 00:18:09,254
And so, you know,
it's a "Catch me if you can."

293
00:18:09,338 --> 00:18:10,881
"I'm smarter than you are."

294
00:18:11,465 --> 00:18:15,010
"Be vewy, vewy afwaid! I'm da monsta."

295
00:18:15,803 --> 00:18:18,097
They don't print it in the paper,

296
00:18:18,180 --> 00:18:20,557
but they publicize
that he did leave a note.

297
00:18:20,641 --> 00:18:25,437
The city was just horrified,
terrified, in a frenzy of fear.

298
00:18:25,521 --> 00:18:28,816
In New York, the search continues
for the .44 Caliber Killer.

299
00:18:28,899 --> 00:18:31,193
Some women in the area are terrified,

300
00:18:31,276 --> 00:18:34,154
particularly ones
with shoulder-length dark brown hair.

301
00:18:34,655 --> 00:18:37,783
I had the dark hair,
and I would pin it back in a bun

302
00:18:37,866 --> 00:18:39,243
or a ponytail.

303
00:18:39,326 --> 00:18:42,454
When I went out at night,
I would race into the house.

304
00:18:43,288 --> 00:18:46,959
We put our hair up so the guy
can't see the length of our hair.

305
00:18:51,046 --> 00:18:53,799
They weren't crazy letters, by the way.

306
00:18:53,882 --> 00:18:56,635
People look at them and say,
"The man's a deranged madman."

307
00:18:56,718 --> 00:19:00,055
But you see, they miss
the whole point of the letters.

308
00:19:01,932 --> 00:19:05,227
The letters were actually
just to spur the police on, right?

309
00:19:05,769 --> 00:19:07,563
You see, to drive them harder,

310
00:19:07,646 --> 00:19:10,357
to push the police
into doing more to catch me.

311
00:19:11,567 --> 00:19:13,777
It was a fun game for him.

312
00:19:15,654 --> 00:19:20,325
And he intended to keep it going
as long as he possibly could.

313
00:19:20,409 --> 00:19:25,789
I think now he's into kind of enjoying
the publicity aspect of this.

314
00:19:25,873 --> 00:19:30,169
I see it as a kind of becoming
a cat and mouse thing.

315
00:19:30,252 --> 00:19:32,254
What's it going to take to break this?

316
00:19:32,337 --> 00:19:33,547
A lot of luck.

317
00:19:33,630 --> 00:19:35,924
We're gonna have to be
in the right place at the right time.

318
00:19:36,008 --> 00:19:38,427
-But right now, there's nothing to go on?
-Nothing.

319
00:19:40,095 --> 00:19:43,182
At this point,
the case has exploded beyond

320
00:19:43,265 --> 00:19:46,602
just a single precinct captain
handling it.

321
00:19:50,981 --> 00:19:55,736
So, two days after this sixth shooting,
the double homicide in the Bronx,

322
00:19:55,819 --> 00:19:58,906
the police commissioner decided
we have to make something very formal.

323
00:19:58,989 --> 00:20:01,909
So they announced
the formation of a task force.

324
00:20:01,992 --> 00:20:04,578
Up until that point,
it was kind of unofficial.

325
00:20:04,661 --> 00:20:06,580
It was just a group of us together.

326
00:20:06,663 --> 00:20:10,709
When it was expanded,
they gave it the name Omega Task Force.

327
00:20:10,792 --> 00:20:14,129
And this would have
about 30 crack detectives

328
00:20:14,213 --> 00:20:16,965
that will develop
some kind of psychological profile

329
00:20:17,049 --> 00:20:18,675
on who this killer could be.

330
00:20:20,177 --> 00:20:23,472
When you make an appeal
to the public then to help,

331
00:20:23,555 --> 00:20:27,517
then I think we're obligated,
when they call, that we have to go out

332
00:20:27,601 --> 00:20:29,686
and work on whatever they give us.

333
00:20:30,187 --> 00:20:35,192
You appreciate help from any source.
Because we're at a state, we needed help.

334
00:20:35,776 --> 00:20:38,111
Joe Borrelli is a captain,

335
00:20:38,195 --> 00:20:42,491
and in the hierarchy of police,
that isn't a high enough rank.

336
00:20:42,574 --> 00:20:48,205
So the commissioner
gives it over to a deputy inspector, Dowd.

337
00:20:48,747 --> 00:20:49,873
Timothy Dowd.

338
00:20:49,957 --> 00:20:54,211
Commissioner Codd calls me,
"Joe, I'm sending out Dowd."

339
00:20:54,294 --> 00:20:56,880
"You're gonna remain
as his executive officer

340
00:20:56,964 --> 00:20:58,674
'cause you're there from the beginning."

341
00:20:58,757 --> 00:21:00,050
Didn't bother me at all.

342
00:21:00,133 --> 00:21:04,471
Yes, we've received a tremendous
amount of calls from the public,

343
00:21:05,013 --> 00:21:06,848
the public's been very cooperative.

344
00:21:06,932 --> 00:21:08,850
Yellow George Zebra.

345
00:21:08,934 --> 00:21:11,186
The task force was like bedlam.

346
00:21:11,270 --> 00:21:14,147
There were seven phones
in the task force office.

347
00:21:14,648 --> 00:21:18,151
There was one call after another
on all seven lines.

348
00:21:18,777 --> 00:21:22,281
They were taking down
hundreds and hundreds and hundreds

349
00:21:22,364 --> 00:21:23,865
of leads from the public.

350
00:21:25,867 --> 00:21:29,913
We didn't have a face or an image
or anything to work with.

351
00:21:29,997 --> 00:21:34,251
You know, the department artists
who sketched out these here images

352
00:21:34,334 --> 00:21:38,964
from people's reckoning of somebody
for a few seconds,

353
00:21:40,132 --> 00:21:40,966
they were off.

354
00:21:41,049 --> 00:21:43,510
But the press took it and ran with it.

355
00:21:43,593 --> 00:21:48,515
He was generally described
as white, between 20 and 35 years old.

356
00:21:50,017 --> 00:21:54,688
People were calling, you know.
Conspiracy theories all over the place.

357
00:21:54,771 --> 00:21:59,818
We always had three piles of information.
I used to call it the three I's.

358
00:22:00,319 --> 00:22:05,032
It was immediate, important, ignore.

359
00:22:07,075 --> 00:22:09,703
The newspapers
would be interviewing psychiatrists,

360
00:22:09,786 --> 00:22:14,041
and any time they mentioned something,
some crazy things like, uh,

361
00:22:14,583 --> 00:22:16,209
"We think he's impotent."

362
00:22:16,710 --> 00:22:20,839
You know, we'd get calls of women
giving up impotent friends

363
00:22:20,922 --> 00:22:21,882
or something like that.

364
00:22:21,965 --> 00:22:24,343
It was crazy, absolutely crazy.

365
00:22:25,761 --> 00:22:27,929
One of a million amateur psychologists

366
00:22:28,013 --> 00:22:31,433
who are attempting to figure out
Son of Sam, each with his own theory.

367
00:22:31,516 --> 00:22:34,603
Dr. Harvey Schlossberg
is a professional psychologist

368
00:22:34,686 --> 00:22:36,438
and a professional policeman.

369
00:22:36,521 --> 00:22:41,276
This individual is a, uh,
contrary to popular belief,

370
00:22:41,360 --> 00:22:45,405
where people are looking for somebody
with red eyes, foaming at the mouth,

371
00:22:45,489 --> 00:22:47,032
like a mad dog kind of thing.

372
00:22:47,115 --> 00:22:50,285
I think this is a normal appearing

373
00:22:50,369 --> 00:22:54,414
and, apparently, normal functioning
individual for the most part.

374
00:22:54,498 --> 00:22:56,792
I think he doesn't stand out at all.

375
00:22:56,875 --> 00:23:00,504
He's a former cop.
He's a cab driver, or a priest,

376
00:23:00,587 --> 00:23:04,049
or a sailor, or perhaps even
a television newscaster.

377
00:23:04,132 --> 00:23:06,510
Right now, he is anyone.

378
00:23:07,761 --> 00:23:11,640
Everybody went absolutely nuts
as amateur detectives

379
00:23:11,723 --> 00:23:14,684
trying to find out who this person was,

380
00:23:15,227 --> 00:23:19,272
but nobody had any clue
as what was going on with this guy.

381
00:23:19,356 --> 00:23:20,857
People just think…

382
00:23:20,941 --> 00:23:23,360
maybe they either thought
I was a deranged madman

383
00:23:23,443 --> 00:23:26,279
totally out of contact with reality,
which wasn't the case.

384
00:23:26,363 --> 00:23:29,533
Or they think I'm just
this cold-blooded, vicious person

385
00:23:29,616 --> 00:23:32,077
who just walks up to somebody,
you know, pow!

386
00:23:32,702 --> 00:23:36,123
But they didn't know, like,

387
00:23:36,206 --> 00:23:38,166
what was going on inside me. Understand?

388
00:23:38,250 --> 00:23:40,127
It was just a continuous succession,

389
00:23:40,210 --> 00:23:43,630
a whole lifetime of angers
and frustrations coming out.

390
00:23:55,225 --> 00:23:57,811
In the late 1960s, after his mother died,

391
00:23:57,894 --> 00:24:00,147
at the age of about 15,

392
00:24:00,230 --> 00:24:04,818
David moved from the South Bronx
up to this newly built neighborhood

393
00:24:04,901 --> 00:24:08,405
called Co-op City in the Bronx
with his father,

394
00:24:08,488 --> 00:24:13,660
which was affordable housing
for businessmen, firemen, cops,

395
00:24:13,743 --> 00:24:16,246
taxi drivers, working people.

396
00:24:16,329 --> 00:24:19,249
And he just fell in with a group of kids.

397
00:24:20,876 --> 00:24:24,212
In 1970,
I moved to Co-op City in the Bronx.

398
00:24:25,422 --> 00:24:27,382
It was a nice place to live at the time.

399
00:24:28,508 --> 00:24:31,845
We had a supermarket.
We had a community center.

400
00:24:31,928 --> 00:24:33,472
You could hang out right there

401
00:24:33,555 --> 00:24:35,265
without ever leaving the community.

402
00:24:35,765 --> 00:24:37,893
I was in my senior year of high school.

403
00:24:37,976 --> 00:24:39,769
Didn't really know anybody at the time.

404
00:24:41,271 --> 00:24:43,732
One day, my younger brother
came up and said,

405
00:24:43,815 --> 00:24:45,817
"John, there's a bunch
of guys you should meet

406
00:24:45,901 --> 00:24:47,319
down at the bottom of the building."

407
00:24:47,402 --> 00:24:50,030
I went down,
and it was a whole group of guys I met.

408
00:24:51,114 --> 00:24:53,033
David Berkowitz was one of them.

409
00:24:53,825 --> 00:24:56,536
Berkowitz became what's known as a buff,

410
00:24:56,620 --> 00:24:58,830
a fire buff and a police buff.

411
00:24:59,998 --> 00:25:03,043
The '70s New York City
was like the Wild West.

412
00:25:03,126 --> 00:25:05,086
There were fires all over the place,

413
00:25:05,712 --> 00:25:10,884
and fire buffs would take their scanners
and they would ride around the Bronx,

414
00:25:10,967 --> 00:25:14,095
and if a big fire came in,
they would go to the fire.

415
00:25:14,179 --> 00:25:17,557
Or if a major police incident happened,
they would go.

416
00:25:18,808 --> 00:25:20,310
If there was a fire

417
00:25:20,393 --> 00:25:24,147
with a building in flames,
and if people were trapped in there,

418
00:25:24,231 --> 00:25:26,942
I'd be the first one to run in there
to help them, you know?

419
00:25:29,903 --> 00:25:31,988
Kids were playing football and baseball.

420
00:25:32,072 --> 00:25:34,449
We were responding
to fires and police scenes.

421
00:25:34,950 --> 00:25:36,409
And Dave was an integral part.

422
00:25:36,493 --> 00:25:40,038
Dave was with us every single night,
every weekend.

423
00:25:40,121 --> 00:25:41,748
We were inseparable.

424
00:25:41,831 --> 00:25:46,211
This was a guy who was able to
present totally normal in the real world,

425
00:25:46,294 --> 00:25:49,089
have acquaintances, have social relations,

426
00:25:49,172 --> 00:25:52,425
but at the same time
was harboring deep inner rage,

427
00:25:52,509 --> 00:25:57,597
not only at himself and his situation
and his circumstances in life.

428
00:25:57,681 --> 00:26:00,725
My hidden or repressed feelings

429
00:26:00,809 --> 00:26:03,395
or emotions or whatever you see
that were below the surface,

430
00:26:03,478 --> 00:26:04,354
you can't see that.

431
00:26:04,437 --> 00:26:06,314
They didn't understand the motives.

432
00:26:06,398 --> 00:26:10,068
Even before he started killing,
he was, you know, a walking,

433
00:26:10,151 --> 00:26:15,532
seething cauldron of rage
that was so well-concealed.

434
00:26:15,615 --> 00:26:20,412
His entire life he had been practicing
that act of keeping that all inside,

435
00:26:21,079 --> 00:26:23,999
this… this horrible side of himself.

436
00:26:26,751 --> 00:26:29,546
It wasn't so much them
that I was trying to fool.

437
00:26:29,629 --> 00:26:30,714
It was myself.

438
00:26:31,881 --> 00:26:35,093
I wanted to do, you know, something good.

439
00:26:35,594 --> 00:26:37,679
I wanted to be needed by somebody.

440
00:26:37,762 --> 00:26:39,848
I'd have much rather been a hero
than a villain

441
00:26:39,931 --> 00:26:43,518
doing something spectacular
every other week, you know?

442
00:26:43,602 --> 00:26:45,312
Rescuing people or something.

443
00:26:47,564 --> 00:26:51,901
David Berkowitz was always
looking to be a hero

444
00:26:51,985 --> 00:26:54,279
and get attention for being a hero.

445
00:26:54,362 --> 00:26:56,948
In his own mind, he was a patriot.

446
00:26:57,032 --> 00:26:58,783
He was an all-American boy.

447
00:27:12,297 --> 00:27:15,550
It was June of '71,
Dave graduated Columbus High School.

448
00:27:16,051 --> 00:27:19,346
Couldn't wait, went down to the recruiter,
signed up for the Army.

449
00:27:19,429 --> 00:27:21,056
Meanwhile, in this jungle war,

450
00:27:21,139 --> 00:27:24,934
the United States is becoming
more fully involved with each passing day.

451
00:27:25,018 --> 00:27:27,062
He wanted to go into infantry,

452
00:27:27,145 --> 00:27:29,439
he wanted to go to Vietnam
to fight for his country.

453
00:27:29,522 --> 00:27:32,567
Why did you feel
like you wanted to go to Vietnam?

454
00:27:34,152 --> 00:27:37,447
I was very patriotic, and, uh, just, uh…

455
00:27:39,240 --> 00:27:40,367
I can't explain it.

456
00:27:40,450 --> 00:27:43,870
You didn't have
any sort of bloodlust at that point

457
00:27:43,953 --> 00:27:45,830
that made you want to go to Vietnam?

458
00:27:45,914 --> 00:27:47,165
Not…

459
00:27:47,248 --> 00:27:49,959
Perhaps subconsciously,
but I wasn't aware of it. Yeah.

460
00:27:51,169 --> 00:27:53,838
I think he probably
reasoned that, you know,

461
00:27:53,922 --> 00:27:55,799
"Any son of a bitch as horrible as me

462
00:27:55,882 --> 00:27:57,926
would probably be a damn good killer,

463
00:27:58,009 --> 00:28:00,178
so I should be in Vietnam."

464
00:28:00,720 --> 00:28:05,225
He would be able
to go back to his childhood

465
00:28:05,308 --> 00:28:10,271
where he gained some pleasure out
of knocking over enemy soldiers.

466
00:28:14,275 --> 00:28:19,030
But, uh, instead of the chance
for death and glory in combat…

467
00:28:21,366 --> 00:28:26,579
…he was sent to the demilitarized zone,
the DMZ in South Korea,

468
00:28:28,123 --> 00:28:31,167
where there was no shooting war going on.

469
00:28:32,001 --> 00:28:33,461
There's no action there.

470
00:28:34,337 --> 00:28:36,631
That desire to experience combat

471
00:28:36,715 --> 00:28:40,218
and perhaps become a hero was thwarted.

472
00:28:41,136 --> 00:28:43,888
His demons continued to eat away at him

473
00:28:43,972 --> 00:28:46,725
during these idle hours
that he had on base.

474
00:28:46,808 --> 00:28:49,644
When you weren't
in the field on maneuvers,

475
00:28:49,728 --> 00:28:52,397
at around four o'clock, five o'clock,
you were done.

476
00:28:52,480 --> 00:28:55,942
You showered up, got your pass,
you went into the village and partied.

477
00:28:56,443 --> 00:29:00,530
You got drunk
on the cheap Korean wines they had

478
00:29:00,613 --> 00:29:03,241
and all the grass that was available,
you know?

479
00:29:03,324 --> 00:29:04,367
All the women.

480
00:29:04,451 --> 00:29:08,121
And for the next year,
we all got letters from Dave,

481
00:29:08,204 --> 00:29:11,875
and it's just amazing
how somebody could change.

482
00:29:13,084 --> 00:29:16,588
He said that he had to start
using drugs to calm down,

483
00:29:16,671 --> 00:29:21,176
and the drugs he was using
can totally warp your mind.

484
00:29:22,051 --> 00:29:25,346
You were smoking dope
while writing these letters?

485
00:29:25,430 --> 00:29:28,099
Yeah, they were
kind of crazy in themselves

486
00:29:28,183 --> 00:29:31,728
because that was
when I just, like, used to get high a lot.

487
00:29:31,811 --> 00:29:34,481
You know, just smoke with all the guys.

488
00:29:34,564 --> 00:29:36,941
And we used to write, how would ya call,

489
00:29:37,025 --> 00:29:40,236
freaky letters
to shock everybody, you know?

490
00:29:40,320 --> 00:29:42,405
Did you ever do anything, any acid or…

491
00:29:42,489 --> 00:29:44,365
I tried that, yeah, a few times.

492
00:29:44,949 --> 00:29:46,201
But I don't…

493
00:29:46,284 --> 00:29:49,662
I never used any of those drugs
or anything in excess, you know?

494
00:29:50,747 --> 00:29:53,500
He was changing, he was a changed person,

495
00:29:53,583 --> 00:29:57,003
and we knew he was shot, he was gone.

496
00:30:04,677 --> 00:30:09,307
He comes back
from the Army in June of 1974.

497
00:30:09,390 --> 00:30:14,103
He was 21, with very little feelings
of ambition or a future.

498
00:30:14,187 --> 00:30:17,065
Did you ever try to join
the fire department or police?

499
00:30:17,148 --> 00:30:19,651
When I was a teenager, I wanted to join,

500
00:30:19,734 --> 00:30:22,737
but then I realize you've got to have
almost a college degree

501
00:30:22,821 --> 00:30:24,697
majoring in the sciences

502
00:30:24,781 --> 00:30:29,494
and types of hydraulics, and math.
I could never get into that.

503
00:30:30,537 --> 00:30:33,248
Meanwhile, of course,
he's seeing all his friends

504
00:30:33,331 --> 00:30:35,667
go into their tracks of getting married,

505
00:30:36,751 --> 00:30:39,504
becoming the cop that he wanted to become,

506
00:30:39,587 --> 00:30:41,714
and he had nothing.

507
00:30:41,798 --> 00:30:44,008
So none of the guys
had anything to do with him,

508
00:30:44,092 --> 00:30:48,304
so he came back and he was kind of alone.
We never got together again.

509
00:30:49,764 --> 00:30:52,767
Berkowitz is left alone in the big city,

510
00:30:53,810 --> 00:30:56,354
which was a bad place to be
for David Berkowitz.

511
00:30:56,437 --> 00:31:00,608
His father remarried and moved to Florida,

512
00:31:00,692 --> 00:31:04,737
and David took that
as another sign of rejection.

513
00:31:05,738 --> 00:31:10,118
He had this rage
that he'd carried since childhood,

514
00:31:10,201 --> 00:31:12,078
and he could no longer control it.

515
00:31:12,161 --> 00:31:15,874
When did the moment come
when you said that's it, you know?

516
00:31:17,584 --> 00:31:20,503
I had, I guess, made a decision to myself

517
00:31:20,587 --> 00:31:24,257
almost unconsciously
to just begin prowling around

518
00:31:24,340 --> 00:31:25,800
looking for somebody to harm.

519
00:31:39,898 --> 00:31:46,070
He just had this need to kill
to release frustration.

520
00:31:46,154 --> 00:31:49,282
So he experimented at first.

521
00:31:49,365 --> 00:31:51,200
"How am I going to do this?"

522
00:31:52,577 --> 00:31:54,913
He didn't settle on the gun right away.

523
00:31:55,872 --> 00:31:58,416
Christmas Eve 1975,

524
00:31:58,917 --> 00:32:03,796
his first violent experiment
was with a 14-year-old girl

525
00:32:03,880 --> 00:32:07,634
on this overpass in Co-op City,
quite near where he grew up.

526
00:32:09,344 --> 00:32:14,766
David is on that bridge,
walking, seeking to do harm,

527
00:32:14,849 --> 00:32:17,393
and a young lady walks in front of him.

528
00:32:18,394 --> 00:32:20,188
And this is the first attack.

529
00:32:21,272 --> 00:32:23,232
David will stab her.

530
00:32:24,901 --> 00:32:28,321
She screams and yells and claws at him,

531
00:32:28,404 --> 00:32:29,364
and David runs.

532
00:32:30,073 --> 00:32:31,616
She's wearing a heavy coat.

533
00:32:31,699 --> 00:32:34,744
That probably prevented the blade
from getting deep enough

534
00:32:34,827 --> 00:32:37,288
to do significant damage,

535
00:32:37,372 --> 00:32:40,792
but he stabbed her
no fewer than six times.

536
00:32:40,875 --> 00:32:42,919
Why did you let her go after you had her?

537
00:32:43,002 --> 00:32:46,255
Because I didn't really
want to do anything, you see?

538
00:32:46,339 --> 00:32:50,760
The one stabbing attack
confirmed by police and investigators

539
00:32:51,260 --> 00:32:54,889
and by the hospital was a failure.

540
00:32:55,807 --> 00:33:00,269
I think he was shamed and outraged
that she survived.

541
00:33:02,063 --> 00:33:04,148
He realizes at that moment

542
00:33:04,232 --> 00:33:08,194
that stabbing people
is just too personal for him.

543
00:33:08,277 --> 00:33:11,990
It's too humanizing, too messy, too loud.

544
00:33:12,073 --> 00:33:15,827
He learned that wasn't
a reliable methodology

545
00:33:16,744 --> 00:33:18,538
for murdering a woman.

546
00:33:18,621 --> 00:33:23,001
He needed to keep as much distance
as possible in these killings.

547
00:33:29,757 --> 00:33:33,219
In May of '76, he decides
that he's gonna take a road trip,

548
00:33:33,302 --> 00:33:34,679
he's gonna get in his car

549
00:33:34,762 --> 00:33:38,891
and go visit his old Army buddy
Billy Dan Parker in Houston, Texas.

550
00:33:39,475 --> 00:33:43,021
That night, he said,
"You want to see a good movie?"

551
00:33:43,104 --> 00:33:46,357
I say, "A really good movie I like."
This is my friend Dan, right?

552
00:33:47,025 --> 00:33:50,528
And I says, "Yeah, all right,
I haven't been to the movie in a while."

553
00:33:51,029 --> 00:33:54,240
It's pretty popular.
It's a movie called Taxi Driver.

554
00:33:55,908 --> 00:33:59,746
So he sees this movie,
and he immediately relates to it.

555
00:33:59,829 --> 00:34:04,042
Because all of a sudden it's about a guy
who comes back from the Army rejected

556
00:34:04,125 --> 00:34:06,210
with feelings of anomie and ennui

557
00:34:06,294 --> 00:34:10,048
and total alienation and rejection
from society, like Berkowitz.

558
00:34:10,548 --> 00:34:12,842
The guy who was on a hero mission.

559
00:34:12,925 --> 00:34:15,678
He's shooting "the bad guys", right?

560
00:34:17,388 --> 00:34:20,349
I do remember the scene
where, I think it was De Niro,

561
00:34:20,433 --> 00:34:21,934
was standing in front of a mirror.

562
00:34:22,018 --> 00:34:22,935
You're talkin' to me?

563
00:34:23,019 --> 00:34:24,687
And I think
he's pulling out his gun saying,

564
00:34:24,771 --> 00:34:26,397
"You talkin' to me? You talkin' to me?"

565
00:34:27,607 --> 00:34:29,400
"Well, I'm the only one here."

566
00:34:29,901 --> 00:34:31,027
Huh? Huh?

567
00:34:31,986 --> 00:34:35,990
The movies didn't cause it,
but they reassured me

568
00:34:36,074 --> 00:34:39,786
of my feelings of self-destructive
or destructive tendencies

569
00:34:39,869 --> 00:34:45,750
and, you know, reaffirmed the idea
that I could take 'em out against society,

570
00:34:45,833 --> 00:34:47,502
like it's the proper thing to do.

571
00:34:48,294 --> 00:34:50,171
The American way or something.

572
00:34:51,547 --> 00:34:54,884
The guy from Taxi Driver did it,
all these mass killers did it.

573
00:34:57,011 --> 00:35:01,265
It clarified for him
this dark path that he had

574
00:35:01,349 --> 00:35:03,267
no choice but to go down,

575
00:35:03,768 --> 00:35:07,105
and he found
not just the perfect narrative,

576
00:35:07,188 --> 00:35:08,815
but also the weapon.

577
00:35:10,358 --> 00:35:14,695
He buys the infamous
.44 Charter Arms Bulldog

578
00:35:14,779 --> 00:35:17,323
in a pawn shop in Houston, Texas.

579
00:35:17,406 --> 00:35:19,117
He bought it under his name.

580
00:35:19,200 --> 00:35:21,953
"How about this gun, Dave?
Do you think it's nice?"

581
00:35:22,036 --> 00:35:25,331
I said, "Yeah, Dan, that's a good one!"
That was the .44 Bulldog.

582
00:35:25,414 --> 00:35:27,875
'Cause it was inexpensive, $125.

583
00:35:29,252 --> 00:35:33,548
And it was small and powerful.
It was a .44.

584
00:35:34,173 --> 00:35:36,592
You fill out that silly form,
and that was it.

585
00:35:36,676 --> 00:35:38,094
We walked out with the gun.

586
00:35:39,137 --> 00:35:40,638
In the movie Taxi Driver,

587
00:35:40,721 --> 00:35:45,852
the .44 becomes synonymous
with the destruction of females.

588
00:35:45,935 --> 00:35:50,189
There's the very, very famous or infamous,
depending on your perspective,

589
00:35:50,273 --> 00:35:54,026
scene with Martin Scorsese,
who plays a character in the movie,

590
00:35:54,110 --> 00:35:57,530
sitting in the backseat of Travis' cab,

591
00:35:57,613 --> 00:35:59,240
looking up at an apartment,

592
00:35:59,323 --> 00:36:01,951
talking about his wife
being up there cheating on him,

593
00:36:02,034 --> 00:36:04,495
and he says the very now-famous line…

594
00:36:04,579 --> 00:36:07,415
I'm gonna kill her. I'm gonna
kill her with a .44 Magnum pistol.

595
00:36:07,498 --> 00:36:10,126
Ever see what a .44 Magnum pistol
would do to a woman's face?

596
00:36:10,209 --> 00:36:11,460
it'd fuckin' destroy it.

597
00:36:12,336 --> 00:36:17,800
I gotta think that Berkowitz was inspired
by that in some capacity as well.

598
00:36:20,428 --> 00:36:24,473
Just after I got back
to New York from Texas,

599
00:36:24,557 --> 00:36:26,058
I put in the application

600
00:36:26,559 --> 00:36:29,020
to get a cab driver's job.

601
00:36:29,812 --> 00:36:31,105
Now I had the cab!

602
00:36:31,606 --> 00:36:35,276
And I was actually patterning my life
after the movie Taxi Driver.

603
00:36:35,359 --> 00:36:38,321
I saw myself exactly as Robert De Niro.

604
00:36:38,404 --> 00:36:41,574
An outcast, a loser,
living in a cramped little apartment.

605
00:36:42,074 --> 00:36:45,703
I just saw everything.
That was me in that movie! You understand?

606
00:36:46,954 --> 00:36:49,916
He became this egomaniac

607
00:36:49,999 --> 00:36:54,212
who could, uh,
who could manipulate an entire city,

608
00:36:55,087 --> 00:36:55,922
which he did.

609
00:37:02,970 --> 00:37:07,850
April 1977 needs to be studied
as one of the most pivotal months

610
00:37:07,934 --> 00:37:09,894
in the entire Son of Sam spree.

611
00:37:10,478 --> 00:37:15,066
The month in which you realize
that everything got ramped up a notch.

612
00:37:17,401 --> 00:37:20,780
At this point,
Berkowitz has committed six shootings.

613
00:37:22,406 --> 00:37:24,200
You can say he lost it before,

614
00:37:24,283 --> 00:37:28,204
but he really started
to lose his grasp of reality now.

615
00:37:30,081 --> 00:37:33,668
He is exhibiting the inability
to handle noise,

616
00:37:34,585 --> 00:37:38,756
inability to handle life in general,
the feelings of absolute rejection

617
00:37:38,839 --> 00:37:41,425
to the point of total paranoia
about the world.

618
00:37:42,134 --> 00:37:45,888
He's now complaining about
the neighbor downstairs making noise.

619
00:37:45,972 --> 00:37:48,224
He had issues with dogs barking.

620
00:37:51,644 --> 00:37:54,480
They were annoying sounds,
they would annoy anybody

621
00:37:54,563 --> 00:37:56,357
when done in the way it was.

622
00:37:56,899 --> 00:37:59,068
They were right down below my window.

623
00:37:59,151 --> 00:38:01,112
They roamed around the whole big yard.

624
00:38:03,406 --> 00:38:05,825
There was a series of neighbors with dogs

625
00:38:05,908 --> 00:38:08,119
that really were a trigger for him.

626
00:38:09,620 --> 00:38:14,041
But there was one that pushed him
right over the edge of sanity.

627
00:38:14,959 --> 00:38:19,422
At 35 Pine Street,
David's apartment, has two windows.

628
00:38:20,965 --> 00:38:23,426
They face the street behind.

629
00:38:25,011 --> 00:38:30,057
The house directly behind
was owned by Sam Carr,

630
00:38:30,850 --> 00:38:33,311
just an average Joe

631
00:38:34,353 --> 00:38:35,855
with his three children,

632
00:38:35,938 --> 00:38:38,566
owning a dog, keeping him in the backyard.

633
00:38:39,400 --> 00:38:41,277
The dog's name is Harvey.

634
00:38:41,944 --> 00:38:43,070
Harvey barks.

635
00:38:45,698 --> 00:38:47,616
Sam had nothing to do with this.

636
00:38:48,200 --> 00:38:51,370
But suddenly, with the howling of the dog

637
00:38:52,246 --> 00:38:55,291
and this constant tormenting of David,

638
00:38:55,374 --> 00:39:01,255
Sam suddenly gets
to be important in David's life.

639
00:39:03,007 --> 00:39:06,135
Since he was responsible
for, you know, keeping me up

640
00:39:06,218 --> 00:39:08,137
in an agitated state all the time,

641
00:39:08,220 --> 00:39:11,474
that dog raised hell in my life, you know.

642
00:39:13,267 --> 00:39:17,063
Berkowitz just became obsessed
with the Carr family.

643
00:39:17,146 --> 00:39:18,731
He harassed them like crazy.

644
00:39:18,814 --> 00:39:22,777
He's going in the middle of the night
and throwing Molotov cocktails.

645
00:39:23,819 --> 00:39:28,532
He also sent them
a whole bevy of threatening letters.

646
00:39:29,116 --> 00:39:31,994
David will actually go to the house,

647
00:39:32,078 --> 00:39:35,081
first setting a fire,
then shooting the dog.

648
00:39:41,045 --> 00:39:43,130
Did you shoot the dog with the .44?

649
00:39:43,214 --> 00:39:46,342
No, the rifle, the .45-caliber rifle.

650
00:39:46,926 --> 00:39:49,220
I admit it was pretty extreme. Um…

651
00:39:50,304 --> 00:39:53,933
But, you know, his dog was inconsiderate.

652
00:39:54,016 --> 00:39:56,268
That doesn't work. The dog survives.

653
00:39:56,352 --> 00:39:59,688
Eventually the Carrs
will go to the Yonkers PD,

654
00:39:59,772 --> 00:40:01,524
but there was nothing to go on.

655
00:40:01,607 --> 00:40:04,819
At this point,
Sam Carr can't identify who does it.

656
00:40:06,112 --> 00:40:11,617
He was reacting to Sam Carr
and the noise that the barking dogs make,

657
00:40:11,700 --> 00:40:14,120
and Berkowitz
was absolutely inspired by that.

658
00:40:14,620 --> 00:40:16,330
It happened about the same time

659
00:40:16,414 --> 00:40:18,833
that the identity of Son of Sam
came about?

660
00:40:18,916 --> 00:40:21,085
Yeah, that's where I got it from.

661
00:40:21,961 --> 00:40:26,298
And the idea of calling myself Son of Sam
I guess, just came to me

662
00:40:26,382 --> 00:40:30,928
because Sam Carr was causing me
a lot of aggravation

663
00:40:31,804 --> 00:40:33,764
with his dog barking.

664
00:40:35,599 --> 00:40:37,810
This was a guy who was just wigging out

665
00:40:37,893 --> 00:40:40,438
in his apartment
on Pine Street in Yonkers,

666
00:40:41,021 --> 00:40:46,152
and the waves of madness
emanating from David Berkowitz's mind

667
00:40:46,235 --> 00:40:49,780
really ended up engulfing
the entire city of New York.

668
00:40:55,119 --> 00:40:57,621
What the killer looks like,
where he lives,

669
00:40:57,705 --> 00:40:59,582
what he does, why he kills,

670
00:40:59,665 --> 00:41:03,919
all of this, like the true identity
of Jack the Ripper, is still unknown.

671
00:41:05,921 --> 00:41:09,258
We weren't making
much progress, not because of effort.

672
00:41:09,341 --> 00:41:12,052
It was stalled
because there was a lack of any…

673
00:41:12,636 --> 00:41:14,889
legitimate lead
that we could follow up on.

674
00:41:16,056 --> 00:41:21,103
Well, we're confirmed in our opinion
of his method of operation.

675
00:41:21,187 --> 00:41:23,647
Are you any closer to his identity now?

676
00:41:24,482 --> 00:41:27,193
Uh… To his actual name, or…

677
00:41:29,236 --> 00:41:30,154
I would say no.

678
00:41:30,654 --> 00:41:33,324
We were dealing not only
with trying to solve a case,

679
00:41:33,908 --> 00:41:37,036
but we had to satisfy the press, you know,

680
00:41:37,119 --> 00:41:40,372
and the press,
they were pushing and pushing.

681
00:41:40,456 --> 00:41:42,541
You couldn't feed them enough information.

682
00:41:43,125 --> 00:41:46,921
What is it about the courtship
process that seems to attract him?

683
00:41:47,004 --> 00:41:48,005
Do you have any idea?

684
00:41:48,547 --> 00:41:49,882
I really have no idea.

685
00:41:50,466 --> 00:41:52,092
You couldn't satisfy them.

686
00:41:52,176 --> 00:41:56,138
Their appetite was such
that they hadn't eaten in a month.

687
00:41:56,222 --> 00:41:57,598
That's the way it was.

688
00:41:57,681 --> 00:42:00,059
When Berkowitz realized

689
00:42:00,142 --> 00:42:03,437
the way that the newspaper stories
were being played,

690
00:42:03,938 --> 00:42:07,107
he said, "Wow, that's me."

691
00:42:07,191 --> 00:42:10,236
"I'm doing things that are bringing

692
00:42:10,319 --> 00:42:14,532
a great deal of attention
to this alternate personality of mine."

693
00:42:14,615 --> 00:42:17,117
But he wanted to control that narrative.

694
00:42:17,701 --> 00:42:20,287
He was always a character
in search of an author.

695
00:42:21,789 --> 00:42:27,711
And Jimmy Breslin became the guy
that sketched him in as the Son of Sam.

696
00:42:27,795 --> 00:42:30,756
You don't know what he looks like,
what he sounds like, where he lives,

697
00:42:30,839 --> 00:42:32,508
don't know where he's gonna be tonight.

698
00:42:32,591 --> 00:42:33,759
Uh, we're helpless.

699
00:42:33,842 --> 00:42:38,681
Jimmy Breslin was the king
of New York City tabloid journalism.

700
00:42:38,764 --> 00:42:40,266
He was a columnist.

701
00:42:40,349 --> 00:42:44,937
He was the most powerful journalist
in New York City at the time.

702
00:42:45,020 --> 00:42:48,524
We've got 40,000 dead,
remember them while you walk the streets.

703
00:42:48,607 --> 00:42:50,192
God bless you. Thank you.

704
00:42:50,276 --> 00:42:53,320
Jimmy Breslin was
kind of the working man's columnist.

705
00:42:53,404 --> 00:42:56,115
He lived in Queens,
and he was out on the beat.

706
00:42:56,198 --> 00:42:59,243
He wasn't afraid to go out
and knock on doors.

707
00:42:59,326 --> 00:43:02,663
A walk around the convention
floor at night is disheartening.

708
00:43:02,746 --> 00:43:08,043
But they are running a nearly all-white
political party in the year 1968.

709
00:43:08,919 --> 00:43:12,381
There are people that bought
the Daily News every day

710
00:43:12,464 --> 00:43:15,009
because they wanted to read Jimmy Breslin.

711
00:43:15,092 --> 00:43:18,512
My father was known
to care about the permanent underclass.

712
00:43:19,263 --> 00:43:21,807
And he used to tell me,
"News travels east to west,

713
00:43:21,890 --> 00:43:23,684
and it begins in New York City."

714
00:43:25,561 --> 00:43:28,689
In the summer of '77,
I was a student at New York University,

715
00:43:28,772 --> 00:43:31,650
I think I was 20, 21.
I worked for the Daily News.

716
00:43:31,734 --> 00:43:34,403
I delivered newspapers.
I was in the back of the truck

717
00:43:34,486 --> 00:43:37,031
throwing the bundles
all over at newsstands.

718
00:43:37,656 --> 00:43:39,575
So it was part of our family business.

719
00:43:39,658 --> 00:43:41,785
Newspaper writing in our family,
in the column,

720
00:43:41,869 --> 00:43:44,747
everybody had to contribute
whether you liked it or not.

721
00:43:44,830 --> 00:43:47,833
My father was paying acute attention
to the murders.

722
00:43:48,542 --> 00:43:52,254
He said to me, you know, "I want you
to go to the Daily News, to my office,

723
00:43:52,755 --> 00:43:54,506
and I want you to check the mail."

724
00:43:54,590 --> 00:43:58,093
He had hundreds of letters
coming in every day.

725
00:43:58,177 --> 00:44:00,596
I'm rummaging through,
and I find this one letter.

726
00:44:01,597 --> 00:44:04,683
And I looked at it,
and it was written with very cryptic,

727
00:44:04,767 --> 00:44:07,061
like the handwriting wasn't just normal.

728
00:44:07,144 --> 00:44:09,980
It was all, like, zigzaggy almost.

729
00:44:10,606 --> 00:44:13,192
I showed it to the secretary,
she said, "Oh my God."

730
00:44:13,942 --> 00:44:16,070
"Take that home now.
Your father wants it."

731
00:44:16,987 --> 00:44:19,365
So I raced out of the Daily News building,

732
00:44:19,448 --> 00:44:23,786
up 3rd Avenue, to get the E train
to our home in Forest Hills.

733
00:44:23,869 --> 00:44:25,412
My father was in the bedroom.

734
00:44:25,496 --> 00:44:28,207
I brought it in.
He said, "Let me see that thing."

735
00:44:30,709 --> 00:44:35,798
"Dear Mr. Jimmy Breslin,
hello from the gutters of NYC,

736
00:44:36,340 --> 00:44:43,263
which are filled with dog manure,
vomit, stale wine, urine, and blood."

737
00:44:43,347 --> 00:44:46,266
"Hello from the cracks
in the sidewalk of New York City,

738
00:44:46,350 --> 00:44:49,103
and from the ants
that dwell in these cracks

739
00:44:49,186 --> 00:44:53,982
and feed on the dried blood of the dead
that has seeped into these cracks."

740
00:44:54,066 --> 00:44:57,986
"JB, I'm just dropping a line
to let you know

741
00:44:58,070 --> 00:44:59,780
that I appreciate your interest

742
00:44:59,863 --> 00:45:03,992
in these recent and horrendous
.44-caliber killings."

743
00:45:04,076 --> 00:45:07,621
"Tell me, Jim,
what will you have for July 29th?"

744
00:45:07,705 --> 00:45:11,375
"You could forget about me if you like,
because I don't care for publicity."

745
00:45:11,458 --> 00:45:14,753
"However, you must not forget
Donna Lauria,

746
00:45:14,837 --> 00:45:17,673
and you cannot let the people
forget her either."

747
00:45:17,756 --> 00:45:20,509
"She was a very, very sweet girl,

748
00:45:20,592 --> 00:45:23,053
but Sam's a thirsty lad,

749
00:45:23,137 --> 00:45:27,850
and he won't let me stop killing
until he gets his fill of blood."

750
00:45:28,934 --> 00:45:29,977
"Upon my capture,

751
00:45:30,060 --> 00:45:34,189
I promise to buy all you guys
working on the case a new pair of shoes

752
00:45:34,273 --> 00:45:35,983
if I can get up the money."

753
00:45:36,984 --> 00:45:38,235
"Son of Sam."

754
00:45:42,030 --> 00:45:43,490
That's crazy.

755
00:45:44,700 --> 00:45:46,785
The letter was very eerie.

756
00:45:46,869 --> 00:45:50,330
I mean, you know, then you know
that he read something that you wrote,

757
00:45:50,414 --> 00:45:54,042
and that somewhere out there,
he's reading again.

758
00:45:54,126 --> 00:45:56,670
The killer signs it, Son of Sam.

759
00:45:56,754 --> 00:46:00,007
In Borrelli's letter, he used that phrase
in the body of the letter.

760
00:46:00,090 --> 00:46:02,801
So now that seals the deal.

761
00:46:02,885 --> 00:46:04,386
This killer is Son of Sam.

762
00:46:04,470 --> 00:46:07,347
He's really no longer
the .44 Caliber Killer.

763
00:46:07,431 --> 00:46:09,808
And the Daily News now, they publish it.

764
00:46:10,309 --> 00:46:13,520
This menace, this terror, this phantom

765
00:46:13,604 --> 00:46:16,815
that had just been something abstract
to most people,

766
00:46:16,899 --> 00:46:18,734
now all of a sudden had a name

767
00:46:18,817 --> 00:46:20,736
that caught on like wildfire.

768
00:46:26,825 --> 00:46:29,286
Why did you choose Breslin
to send stuff to?

769
00:46:29,369 --> 00:46:32,331
I selected Breslin,
the reason was because he…

770
00:46:32,414 --> 00:46:35,542
He ran a few columns
about the earlier crimes.

771
00:46:35,626 --> 00:46:39,880
He expressed more interest
than any one reporter

772
00:46:40,464 --> 00:46:42,090
from the other papers, you know?

773
00:46:42,174 --> 00:46:43,258
So I wrote to him.

774
00:46:44,802 --> 00:46:48,096
Berkowitz knew
that if he could get Breslin,

775
00:46:48,180 --> 00:46:52,518
now the Son of Sam was world-famous.
Now the Son of Sam was Jack the Ripper.

776
00:46:53,018 --> 00:46:54,812
He will be remembered forever.

777
00:46:55,521 --> 00:46:59,358
Did you get the idea
for this kind of writing…

778
00:47:00,234 --> 00:47:01,944
From the Jack the Ripper book.

779
00:47:02,027 --> 00:47:03,737
So the Jack the Ripper book, okay.

780
00:47:03,821 --> 00:47:05,906
It said in the book that there was

781
00:47:06,698 --> 00:47:12,788
a great many of these so-called killers
that have a need to flaunt their crimes

782
00:47:12,871 --> 00:47:15,874
and write the news media
or the police and things.

783
00:47:15,958 --> 00:47:17,251
I got it right from that

784
00:47:17,334 --> 00:47:20,045
because I had that book
even before the shooting started.

785
00:47:21,797 --> 00:47:26,301
Several days after that letter
went in, my father wrote the column…

786
00:47:28,971 --> 00:47:30,764
…for the killer to give himself up.

787
00:47:32,933 --> 00:47:35,060
The page one story afterwards was,

788
00:47:35,143 --> 00:47:39,356
"Give yourself up! It's your only way out.
Breslin to the killer."

789
00:47:40,566 --> 00:47:43,569
Berkowitz loved the attention
that he was getting.

790
00:47:44,069 --> 00:47:47,573
He played with the media.
He toyed with the media.

791
00:47:48,198 --> 00:47:51,159
David liked the response,
and he answered it.

792
00:47:58,625 --> 00:48:00,586
On June 26th, 1977,

793
00:48:00,669 --> 00:48:04,172
just weeks after Jimmy Breslin
gets a letter from the Son of Sam,

794
00:48:04,256 --> 00:48:08,135
just over two months
after the sixth shooting in the Bronx,

795
00:48:08,677 --> 00:48:11,430
another young couple in Bayside, Queens,

796
00:48:12,014 --> 00:48:16,018
Judy Placido, who's 17,
Sal Lupo, who's 20,

797
00:48:16,518 --> 00:48:18,896
they are at a disco,
and it was called Eléphas.

798
00:48:21,899 --> 00:48:25,235
This was during the disco craze,
and people wanted to go out and dance,

799
00:48:25,319 --> 00:48:29,615
even though we have a killer on the loose,
some people still wanted to go out.

800
00:48:32,701 --> 00:48:37,331
I arrived at Eléphas
somewhere around 11, 12 o'clock.

801
00:48:38,081 --> 00:48:39,333
Had a few drinks.

802
00:48:39,875 --> 00:48:42,085
Met a girl, Judy Placido.

803
00:48:43,086 --> 00:48:47,716
Danced a little bit,
I went outside, got some air…

804
00:48:50,302 --> 00:48:54,222
They just, you know,
get along and click up that night,

805
00:48:54,306 --> 00:48:57,517
and they end up in the bouncers' Cadillac.

806
00:48:58,560 --> 00:49:03,815
They're in a car outside Eléphas,
and Judy Placido had long, dark hair.

807
00:49:05,317 --> 00:49:07,569
I lit a cigarette. She lit a cigarette.

808
00:49:11,657 --> 00:49:13,283
I put my arm around her.

809
00:49:14,326 --> 00:49:17,621
We were mentioning about,
you know, the Son of Sam being around.

810
00:49:18,622 --> 00:49:20,749
So anyway,
just as I put my arm around her,

811
00:49:20,832 --> 00:49:24,962
I see a face by the passenger side window.

812
00:49:30,008 --> 00:49:32,886
There was, um, a first shot.

813
00:49:35,347 --> 00:49:38,058
Went through the window,
hit my wrist, hit her.

814
00:49:39,309 --> 00:49:40,727
I slid down.

815
00:49:41,228 --> 00:49:43,021
And then, two more followed after that.

816
00:49:46,024 --> 00:49:49,486
It was loud. You didn't really…
You know, your ears were ringing.

817
00:49:51,446 --> 00:49:53,281
I tried to get out and get help.

818
00:49:53,907 --> 00:49:57,911
They're actually talking
about the Son of Sam, this elusive killer,

819
00:49:57,995 --> 00:50:02,791
and then gunfire, and they both get hit,
Sal Lupo got hit in the arm.

820
00:50:03,417 --> 00:50:06,211
Judy Placido
is actually grievously wounded.

821
00:50:06,294 --> 00:50:08,714
She is shot in the head.

822
00:50:08,797 --> 00:50:12,134
The bullet traveled, hit her skull,
and didn't penetrate it,

823
00:50:12,217 --> 00:50:15,262
and really, by all accounts,
should have been mortally wounded.

824
00:50:15,345 --> 00:50:16,805
She survived.

825
00:50:17,848 --> 00:50:21,226
Did you give a description to the
police for them to draw a sketch?

826
00:50:21,309 --> 00:50:24,938
No, they never…
an artist really never came.

827
00:50:25,022 --> 00:50:25,897
You know?

828
00:50:25,981 --> 00:50:28,191
'Cause they kept showing me
lots of pictures,

829
00:50:28,275 --> 00:50:30,027
and all it was doing
is jamming my head up.

830
00:50:30,110 --> 00:50:31,820
I couldn't think who… you know.

831
00:50:32,362 --> 00:50:33,822
I couldn't really think.

832
00:50:35,240 --> 00:50:38,702
Nothing that we received at
the scene of the last incident will, uh,

833
00:50:38,785 --> 00:50:42,080
enable us to get a further description
of his facial qualities.

834
00:50:45,042 --> 00:50:47,002
The hysteria at that point

835
00:50:47,085 --> 00:50:52,049
was that everybody
was extremely afraid to even go out.

836
00:50:52,132 --> 00:50:55,719
It was like Jack the Ripper,
you just didn't leave home after dark.

837
00:50:55,802 --> 00:50:59,181
One thing that I really don't do anymore
is sit in parked cars.

838
00:50:59,264 --> 00:51:01,183
I think I'm moving outta here.

839
00:51:02,225 --> 00:51:04,936
The police said they were
trying to put a net over the city

840
00:51:05,020 --> 00:51:08,231
to catch this guy,
but they didn't have a lot to go on.

841
00:51:09,524 --> 00:51:12,152
We're kind of searching for straws.

842
00:51:12,235 --> 00:51:14,529
We're doing everything you can think of.

843
00:51:14,613 --> 00:51:18,283
What else can we do?
You know, that was a big topic.

844
00:51:18,366 --> 00:51:21,286
Some of the guys
were coming up with different ways

845
00:51:21,369 --> 00:51:22,788
of drawing this guy out.

846
00:51:23,747 --> 00:51:25,874
We did some unusual things.

847
00:51:25,957 --> 00:51:28,001
We were going to set up a decoy unit,

848
00:51:28,627 --> 00:51:31,671
put a female mannequin
and a male detective,

849
00:51:31,755 --> 00:51:33,256
and put them in lovers' lane.

850
00:51:34,508 --> 00:51:37,677
Everybody out, all over,
Queens and the Bronx.

851
00:51:39,638 --> 00:51:42,307
After a while,
the detectives came to me and said,

852
00:51:42,390 --> 00:51:45,685
"It's not working, there's no movement."

853
00:51:45,769 --> 00:51:47,854
"Even if he was looking at us,

854
00:51:48,396 --> 00:51:53,860
all he had to do was spend five minutes
and realize there was a dummy in the car."

855
00:51:54,861 --> 00:51:58,406
So we borrowed some wigs, female wigs.

856
00:52:01,326 --> 00:52:04,746
And we put the female wigs
on the male detectives.

857
00:52:05,247 --> 00:52:07,582
And that made the couple in the car.

858
00:52:08,166 --> 00:52:11,837
Pretending to be lovers in a lovers' lane,

859
00:52:11,920 --> 00:52:15,423
is it putting their lives in jeopardy?
Sure. Definitely.

860
00:52:16,424 --> 00:52:20,137
You get driven, you know,
I mean, you want it to end.

861
00:52:20,220 --> 00:52:23,056
You want it so badly
that you'll do anything, you know.

862
00:52:23,140 --> 00:52:24,808
It was one hell of a mess.

863
00:52:29,563 --> 00:52:33,233
His anniversary's coming Friday.
And, you know, if they…

864
00:52:33,316 --> 00:52:37,904
People just don't realize these things
don't end until they catch this guy.

865
00:52:37,988 --> 00:52:40,782
You still got to be cautious.
I mean, this guy's a nut.

866
00:52:41,867 --> 00:52:44,786
I'm supposed to go to a party
Friday night and I'm not going.

867
00:52:44,870 --> 00:52:47,330
-How come?
-I'm scared. It's crazy.

868
00:52:47,414 --> 00:52:50,333
He's killing all these people.
I'd be stupid to go out.

869
00:52:50,417 --> 00:52:52,544
So if you think
New York City is in a bad way,

870
00:52:52,627 --> 00:52:54,337
with a serial killer on the loose,

871
00:52:54,421 --> 00:52:56,965
a financial crisis,
a pretty bad crime rate,

872
00:52:57,048 --> 00:52:58,508
now the first anniversary

873
00:52:58,592 --> 00:53:00,927
of the first Son of Sam shooting
is approaching.

874
00:53:02,053 --> 00:53:06,057
Everybody is geared up to,
"Okay, he's gonna hit again."

875
00:53:06,141 --> 00:53:08,935
Son of Sam alluded to that
in the letter to Jimmy Breslin,

876
00:53:09,019 --> 00:53:12,147
"What will you have for the 29th?"
And everyone's worried.

877
00:53:13,356 --> 00:53:15,275
And now Jimmy Breslin

878
00:53:15,358 --> 00:53:20,113
decided to write
a challenge to the killer.

879
00:53:20,906 --> 00:53:27,746
On July 28th, the Daily News headline,
"To the .44-Caliber Killer…

880
00:53:28,872 --> 00:53:31,249
on his first deathday."

881
00:53:32,959 --> 00:53:36,296
Holy crow. Is that yellow journalism?

882
00:53:37,130 --> 00:53:39,841
I don't know. I wouldn't have written it.

883
00:53:40,508 --> 00:53:42,052
They egged the killer on.

884
00:53:43,678 --> 00:53:46,723
News sells. So my father was not a fool.

885
00:53:46,806 --> 00:53:48,808
It's his job to keep up a story.

886
00:53:48,892 --> 00:53:52,270
You don't bail on a story, especially
when they haven't caught a killer

887
00:53:52,354 --> 00:53:54,439
who wrote to you and the whole city,

888
00:53:54,522 --> 00:53:56,775
and it's a significant day,
the anniversary.

889
00:53:57,275 --> 00:53:58,610
You have to write to him.

890
00:53:58,693 --> 00:54:01,863
And other journalists,
of course, were irate over this.

891
00:54:01,947 --> 00:54:03,198
Well, that's too bad.

892
00:54:03,281 --> 00:54:05,784
Is that like taunting the guy into action?

893
00:54:06,451 --> 00:54:08,036
No, I don't think it was taunting.

894
00:54:08,119 --> 00:54:11,456
This man had been going out
looking to kill at all times.

895
00:54:11,539 --> 00:54:13,083
And where did it begin?

896
00:54:13,166 --> 00:54:16,670
It started with him
writing about it, the 29th.

897
00:54:16,753 --> 00:54:18,672
He was the one that brought up the date.

898
00:54:19,172 --> 00:54:22,092
You know,
that's how I got attention from them.

899
00:54:23,927 --> 00:54:26,972
Not so much to stir something up,
but the idea to feel important.

900
00:54:27,555 --> 00:54:30,892
They just see the letters
as a guy terrorizing. Yeah, well…

901
00:54:31,434 --> 00:54:35,272
Immediately all their attention
is directed towards me, you know…

902
00:54:35,355 --> 00:54:38,942
All the press and all the media people
from New York City went there.

903
00:54:39,025 --> 00:54:41,528
All I had to do was sit back
in my own home.

904
00:54:41,611 --> 00:54:43,655
I saw everything right from the TV set.

905
00:54:44,823 --> 00:54:47,659
He was watching the press.
He was reading it.

906
00:54:48,618 --> 00:54:51,371
And every word meant something to him.

907
00:54:52,539 --> 00:54:55,041
The press became the filter agent

908
00:54:55,125 --> 00:54:58,837
of what would get to the killer
and what the killer would respond back.

909
00:54:59,796 --> 00:55:01,715
The anniversary is approaching.

910
00:55:03,216 --> 00:55:07,679
They're waiting for what he's going to do.
What life is he going to shatter?

911
00:55:08,430 --> 00:55:10,807
Officially, police say they're confident

912
00:55:10,890 --> 00:55:13,935
they will catch the killer,
that it is just a matter of time.

913
00:55:14,019 --> 00:55:18,440
However, privately, some say they fear
that someone else's time may run out

914
00:55:18,523 --> 00:55:20,025
before the killer's does.

915
00:55:21,443 --> 00:55:23,737
New York City is awfully big.

916
00:55:23,820 --> 00:55:27,073
And the cops were
looking all over the city for me.

917
00:55:28,825 --> 00:55:30,493
Waiting for the Grim Reaper.

917
00:55:31,305 --> 00:56:31,674
Watch Online Movies and Series for FREE
www.osdb.link/lm