A bullet was found intact, and it matched a bullet found at the scene of Berkowitz’s first murder. On March 8, 19-year-old college student Virginia Voskerichian was shot to death as she walked home in Manhattan. Police began to suspect that these crimes were perpetrated by a single killer, but few bullets were found intact to confirm the assumption. On January 30, 1977, Berkowitz fatally shot Christine Freund as she sat in a car in Queens with her fiancee. A little more than a month later, on November 26, 16-year-old Donna DeMasi and 18-year-old Joanne Lomino were shot and seriously wounded in the street on their way home from a movie. In the early morning of October 24, Berkowitz struck again, critically wounding 20-year-old Carl Denaro as he sat in a car and talked with a female friend in Queens. Police could find no motives or leads in the shooting. Eighteen-year-old Donna Lauria was killed instantly, and her friend Jody Valenti was wounded. Early the next morning, he walked up to a parked car in the Bronx where two young women were talking and fired five bullets from his.44 revolver into the vehicle. On July 28, 1976, Berkowitz quit his job as a security guard. He also saw Sam Carr as a powerful demon and was referring to him when he later called himself "Son of Sam." His neighbor, retiree Sam Carr, had a black Labrador retriever named Harvey, who Berkowitz believed pleaded with him to kill. ![]() In April, Berkowitz moved to an apartment house in Yonkers, but his new home also had dogs. He also began to see his neighbors as demons. One of the neighborhood dogs was shot during this time, probably by Berkowitz. Berkowitz became convinced that the German shepherd that lived in the house and other neighborhood dogs were possessed by demons who ordered him to murder attractive young women. In January 1976, he moved into a two-family home in Yonkers, a suburb of New York. On Christmas Eve, 1975, he gave into these internal voices and severely wounded 15-year-old Michelle Forman with a hunting knife. ![]() He began to hear voices of “demons” that tormented him and told him to commit murder. His mental condition began to severely deteriorate in 1975 (he would later be diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic).įeeling isolated from the world around him, he became an arsonist and set hundreds of fires in New York City without being arrested. In 1974, he returned to New York and worked as a security guard. In 1971, he joined the army and served for three years, where he distinguished himself as a talented marksman. He was traumatized by the death of his adoptive mother from cancer in 1967 and thereafter became more and more of a loner. ![]() Thousands more simply stayed home at night.Īfter his arrest, Berkowitz claimed that demons and a black Labrador retriever owned by a neighbor named Sam had ordered him to commit the killings.ĭavid Berkowitz was brought up by adoptive parents in the Bronx. ![]() Because Berkowitz generally targeted attractive young women with long brown hair, hundreds of young women had their hair cut short and dyed blonde during the time he terrorized the city. On August 10, 1977, 24-year-old postal employee David Berkowitz is arrested and charged with being the “Son of Sam,” the serial killer who terrorized New York City for more than a year, killing six young people and wounding seven others with a.
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