In the late 1970s, over the period of one year; a serial killer who was known as “Son of Sam” murdered half a dozen people and wounded ten others.
He stabbed and shot his victims who were mostly parked in Lover’s Lanes. Following the murders, he contacted the media to spread the word that he would kill again. His reign of terror gripped New York and many were too afraid to leave their homes at night.
Then the real serial killer was revealed to be the seemingly shy, reserved, and politely-spoken David Berkowitz. So where did it all go wrong?
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5. Difficult Beginnings
Born Richard David Falco on June 1st, 1953, in Brooklyn, New York. Berkowitz was the illegitimate child of Betty Broder and Joseph Kleinman.
Betty already had one daughter, Rosyln, from her previous marriage to Tony Falco. After Roslyn was born, Tony ran off with another woman, and Betty got involved with Joseph who was already married.
When Betty fell pregnant, Joseph said she couldn’t keep the baby. Betty put her son up for adoption at two weeks old. Nathan and Pearl Berkowitz adopted the boy and changed his name to Richard David Berkowitz. They raised their son in the Bronx.
At a very young age, his parents revealed to him that he was adopted and that his real mother had died during childbirth.
Berkowitz said he was suicidal as a child and had severe bouts of depression as he always believed his birth caused his mother’s death.
Berkowitz never blamed his parents for this lie that had caused him so much turmoil because it was the adoption agency who said it would be better if he was told that he had caused the death of his mother – rather than just telling him the truth.
4. Berkowitz The Bully
Age 7-years-old, Berkowitz was hit by a car and sustained a head injury. He then suffered a second head injury when he ran directly into a wall.
Further reading: 10 Notorious Serial Killers Who All Suffered Childhood Head Injuries
There is one alarming factor that many notorious serial killers have in common – head injuries as children. Researchers at the University of Glasgow found that 21% of eligible killers had suffered a head injury in the past. When you compare this to the most notorious serial killers of all time – the evidence is staggering.
Damage to the frontal cortex of the brain can often result in drastic changes in behavior, aggression, and impaired moral judgment.
However, these two injuries in his childhood did not seem to harm the young boy’s IQ. He scored 118 on tests placing him above average for children his age.
Despite being a good-looking boy who was highly intelligent; Berkowitz would pick fights with the other children and constantly disrupt the classroom. Berkowitz was described by many people who knew him in childhood as a loner. He was constantly teased for being heavier than the other children.
Berkowitz explained that for a lonely child their world starts to become very small; they don’t see the bigger picture and instead they just dwell on their own problems.
Later, Berkowitz told former Robert Ressler that he harmed animals in order to take out his rage on the world. He poisoned his mother’s fish and he also fed rat poison to his mother’s bird. Berkowitz said watching the bird die slowly over a period of three weeks gave him a huge thrill.
3. Obsession With Fire-Setting
From the age of 12, Berkowitz became obsessed with starting fires. Up until the time of the murders, he was the cause of at least 1,488 fires. He recorded every incident of arson in a personal journal.
Berkowitz got a huge thrill from watching the firefighters battle with the flames. He enjoyed watching the crowds gather to view his sinister work, and he fantasied about dead bodies being carried from the burning buildings.
He also turned to other acts of vandalism to take out his rage on the world including smashing car windows.
His obsession with journaling also followed him into adulthood. After the murders, Berkowitz kept a scrapbook of every newspaper article that reported his crimes; later confessing this was so he could keep his fantasies alive.
Berkowitz was asked later by interviewers what could stop a young serial killer in the making. He replied:
“I think sometimes with teenagers and young adults, there is an obsession with death. There is a sense of loneliness, a sense of hopelessness, a sense of despair – I think that a person that’s going through some self-destructive thoughts (will) isolate themselves from others.
“If a person is in the home with somebody and they seem becoming detached, alone, aloof, then that’s maybe a time to reach out there and say ‘Hey, what’s going on with your life? I see you’re struggling with something. What’s on your mind? Let’s share, let’s open up a little bit.’ A lot of times people just need someone to really talk to, someone to spend time with, a friend or a family member that’s going to stick close with them.”
2. Loss Of His Mother
Sadly, Pearl Berkowitz died from breast cancer when her son was just 14 years old. As a teenager, Berkowitz watched his mother’s decline during her chemotherapy treatment which was traumatic for him.
Now only Berkowitz and his adoptive father lived in the apartment together. His father had always worked away a lot as he could never bear the tension in the family home; his son’s behavioral problems were such a torment. Following the death of his mother, he became increasingly more introverted. This created even more of a void between father and son.
Berkowitz later said in an interview from prison:
“I think that what (children) need is closeness. In society today, people are so far apart and even in families… so many families are broken. Broken homes. And I don’t mean the broken homes in the sense that Dad’s in prison… or Mom and Dad are separated or something like that… but sometimes the family could be all under the same roof – Mom, Dad, and the kids – and yet the home can still be broken because people are not communicating, there’s no real bonding. There’s no deeper love. Sometimes even in one’s own home, they could be strangers.”
When his father eventually remarried four years later and moved to Florida; Berkowitz joined the army.
He joined the US Army in the summer of 1971. His hopes were that he would be posted to Vietnam; he’d become a war hero and receive many medals of honor. This would finally give him an identity he could be proud of and that people would pay attention to.
However, things did not go to plan; Berkowitz was instead sent to Korea instead. He had his first sexual experience with a prostitute and caught gonorrhea from this encounter. He returned to New York following an honorable discharge in June 1974.
1. Female Resentment
Around the time of Mother’s Day in 1975, Berkowitz finally found his long-lost mother, Betty, and his half-sister, Roslyn. They were still living in New York and the entire tale that Berkowitz had killed his mother was revealed to be a lie.
Berkowitz had this huge, emotional reunion in his mind which again was not a reality. He visited his mother often in Brooklyn but it was still nothing like the doting mother and adoring son relationship that he had with Pearl.
One psychiatrist later said, “This is what pushed Berkowitz over the edge, he was so full of rage because he had met his natural mother and she was a disappointment.”
Later, Berkowitz revealed the real reason for killing all of the women was out of resentment for his mother. He also felt inadequate around them.
If we look at all the female relationships in Berkowitz’s life…
- He believed that he caused the death of his birth mother.
- His adoptive mother who he was very close to died when he was 14.
- He later reunites with his birth mother, only to be disappointed.
- Females were never kind to him as a young boy when he was being bullied.
- And his first sexual experience with a woman was with a prostitute and he caught an STD.
This is why, as he explained, he looked for women to shoot and kill. The boyfriend was not the intended victim; just a tragic case of the wrong place, wrong time. He also got a sexual thrill from the killings.
The power Berkowitz was deprived of in childhood; feeling belittled, bullied, and abandoned all of his life – he now gained from looking at the newspaper clippings of the tragedy and mayhem he had personally caused on the streets of New York.
Berkowitz loved this idea of becoming notorious. He would write sensational letters to the newspapers so his crimes stayed on the front pages. All of these factors fed his incredibly fragile ego and wounded self-esteem.
He went from insignificant nobody to a serial killer whose name is now known around the entire world.
