Who Is 'Son of Sam' David Berkowitz?
Berkowitz was born Richard David Falco in 1953. He was adopted by a childless couple, Nathan and Pearl Berkowitz, who changed his name and raised him in the Bronx, N.Y.
As a child, Berkowitz was “very alienated, disturbed and frightened,” criminologist Scott Bonn, author of Why We Love Serial Killers, previously told A&E Crime + Investigation. His behavior worsened after his adopted mother died of cancer when he was 14.
After high school, Berkowitz enlisted in the U.S. Army. At the end of his three-year enlistment, he returned to New York City and began working as a mail sorter.
On the outside, Berkowitz seemed fine. But, behind the scenes, he was unraveling. Authorities believe he may have set hundreds of fires in the mid-1970s, coming to be known as the “Phantom of the Bronx.”
He turned to more violent crimes in December 1975, when he stabbed and wounded two women with a hunting knife. Then, in April 1976, he shot Wendy Savino five times as she sat in her car in Queens. She survived, but lost her right eye.
The first person he is believed to have killed was 18-year-old Donna Lauria, who was sitting in a friend’s vehicle in the Bronx in July 1976 when Berkowitz approached and fired four shots. After Lauria, he continued shooting seemingly random people, many as they sat in their cars.
Eventually, police realized they had a serial killer on their hands. They called him the “.44 caliber killer” because he used a Charter Arms Bulldog .44-caliber revolver. Later, he became known as “Son of Sam” because that’s how he signed letters he wrote to the police and to newspaper columnist Jimmy Breslin.
He adopted the nickname because he claimed that a demon had possessed the Labrador retriever that belonged to his neighbor, Sam Carr. Berkowitz alleged the demon spoke through the dog, commanding him to commit the murders.
Over time, investigators began to notice patterns in the case. The breakthrough came when they traced a parking ticket issued near one of the crime scenes to then-24-year-old Berkowitz, leading to his arrest in August 1977 and the end of the manhunt.
Berkowitz was initially deemed mentally unfit to stand trial. But the two court‐appointed psychiatrists who evaluated him later changed their minds. Though his attorneys advised him to plead not guilty by reason of insanity, Berkowitz pleaded guilty in May 1978 and openly admitted he was the “Son of Sam” and the “44‐caliber killer.” He was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison for each of the six killings, plus dozens of additional years for the attempted murders, for a total of 365 years in prison.
David Berkowitz's Life in Prison
In 1987, a decade into his sentence, Berkowitz found God and became a Christian. Now calling himself the “Son of Hope,” Berkowitz has maintained his faith ever since.
“I'm living a whole new life today, even behind prison walls, because God is not limited by anything,” Berkowitz told CBS New York in a 2007 jailhouse interview. “He’s not limited by prison walls… I’m a man who doesn’t even deserve to be alive but it's God who delights to show mercy. He’s the one who’s, I believe, chosen me for this time that we’re living in, to let people know that he does forgive sin.”
Berkowitz is just one of the many prisoners who have found religion behind bars. Some perpetrators turn to God because they truly regret their actions, while others may be motivated more by loneliness or fear, Pinchas Taylor, a rabbi and the director of the faith-based nonprofit American Faith Coalition, tells A&E Crime + Investigation. For some, he adds, prison simply presents the first opportunity they’ve ever had for self-reflection.
“As the saying goes, ‘There are no atheists in a foxhole,’” he says. “Incarceration strips a person down to his essentials. He loses his freedom, status and all external ways that he would ordinarily superficially define himself. Religion speaks to the essence of the core of a person, beyond those layers, and opens that possibility that a person is more than the worst thing they have done.”
Additionally, faith can help give an inmate structure. Prayer, study, worship and reflection help turn otherwise “empty” hours into meaningful time, Taylor explains. It also gives many prisoners a sense of hope during an otherwise-bleak chapter.
Longer-term, religion can help support rehabilitation, but it’s not a cure-all on its own, Taylor says. When paired with education, treatment programs, family support and meaningful employment, however, it can help prisoners transition to life outside.
“Many people reoffend because they return to the same emptiness, the same peer group, and the same habits,” Taylor says. “Bad habits fall hard. A healthy faith community can give them a new circle, which can stave these things off.”
Is every prisoner who claims to have found God, like Berkowitz, truly a changed person? Maybe, maybe not, Taylor says. The real proof, he adds, comes from their actions: “True repentance is a changed life, with remorse, responsibility, restitution where possible.”
