Uncovering The Son Of Sam Conspiracy

During the mid 1970s, the bustling city of New York was terrorized by a killer known as the son of Sam. The biggest man hun in New York City history, son of Sam. The son of Sam. Son of Sam. An animal like this has to be cool. A killer who at random with no apparent motive walked up to young people on the streets of New York City and shot them. And then walked away, like nothing happened. He taunted police, left behind cryptic notes and killed without hesitation. And it would be a long time until the suspect known as the son of Sam was in custody. In New York, the search continues for the 44 caliber killer who has come to be known as the son of Sam. There's a killer on the loose. He calls himself son of Sam. But even today, it's unknown if the terror is really over. Many people believe that the man behind bars for the son of Sam killings was just the fall guy, a small part of a much larger puzzle. And that there's a lot of credible evidence that the son of Sam was actually the son of Sam. This is going to be a long one. So we are going to skip all the podcaster, YouTuber stuff, and dive right in. My name is Brianna, and I'm hot on the case. Today's sponsor is All Pray Press on Nails and their new collab with Liquid Death. With All Pray, you get salon quality nails from the comfort of your own home. And as you can probably tell from this ominous evidence style box packaging, this set was designed with true crime listeners in mind. In the box, you don't just get the press on, you get a full forensics level kit, including these stickers. They're patented extend gel, which is a soft gel formula. And of course, your forensics flashlight, the omnelight that you'll use to cure that soft gel. I put mine on a few days ago, and I'm loving them. They feel comfortable, natural, flexible, and applying them was super simple. But don't wait too long because this is a limited edition product and it is designed to sell out. So if you want your nails to look immaculate and mysterious, check it out before it disappears. Thank you so much to All Pray Nail for partnering with me on this episode. The son of Sam, David Richard Berkowitz was born Richard David Falco on June 1st 1953 in Brooklyn, New York. His birth mother was a very, very young woman named Betty Bruder. Her husband, Tony Falco, had recently left her to run off with another woman. His birth father was a married man stepping out on his own wife named Joseph. When Betty found out that she was pregnant, Joseph wanted nothing to do with the baby. He told her to get rid of it and said that if she planned on keeping it, not to put his name on the baby's birth certificate. So when the baby was born, Betty put her strange husband, Tony Falco's name on the birth certificate. In a few days after he was born, Betty put the baby up for adoption. The newborn was quickly adopted by a middle-aged Jewish couple in the Bronx named Nathan and Pearl Berkowitz. They desperately wanted a child but had trouble conceiving. And after adopting Richard David Falco, they rearranged his name a little bit to give him a fresh start at life. And that was the birth of David Richard Berkowitz. Nathan and Pearl owned their own hardware store that was actually pretty successful. So David grew up living a very nice normal childhood in an apartment in the Bronx. David grew up his whole life knowing that he was adopted and his mother Pearl would do her best not to make her son feel abandoned by his birth parents and instead focus on the fact that they wanted him so much. Like out of all of the babies in the entire world, they specifically chose him. It wasn't until David got a little bit older like around four or five that it actually clicked for him that he was born to a different set of parents and he began asking questions about his birth mother. And to save him the pain of abandonment and rejection, his mother Pearl lied to him and said that he was very wanted and very loved. But his birth mother tragically died during childbirth. Growing up David was extremely smart but he didn't really apply himself in school and he actually had no interest in school or learning anything. Instead, David was a pretty messed up kid. He was troubled and he was difficult. He was constantly misbehaving, having outbursts in class. Like sometimes he would just start screaming in the middle of class. He would try to fight his classmates. David was an outcast in school. He was a really big loner. He didn't really have a lot of friends. He was definitely seen as a bully. His teachers had no idea what to do with him and the school actually ended up telling David's parents that they had to go take him to a child psychologist or else he was likely going to be expelled from school. And David saw that psychologist every single week for two entire years but didn't help him at all. Nothing really changed at all. If anything, his bad behavior escalated. Now David was breaking the law. He was stealing. He was starting fires, which as we know is of course one of the three indicators that could possibly predict that a child might grow up to become a serial killer. David would have really long stretches of time where he became withdrawn and depressed and his parents had no idea why. Sometimes her son would go days without talking to them or leaving his room. He would just lock himself in his closet and refuse to leave just so he could be alone. He would really claim that this was the beginning of his declining mental health and his delusions. He would claim that there was an evil force that would force him to sneak out of his family's apartment at night and just wander the empty streets of New York. He had a lot of trouble making connections, forming relationships, having friends. He really didn't even have that close of a connection with his father Nathan. The only real connection that David had was the one that he had with his mother Pearl. It was really the only positive thing in David's entire life, which made it only so much more devastating when in 1967 when David was only 14 years old. His mother was diagnosed with breast cancer and they did not catch it fast enough. She was dead only a few months later. The only silver lining was that she never had to see what her son would become. After his mother's passing, David's father would have to work 10 hour days, six days a week just to make ends meet, leaving his grieving son alone. Like all of the time. And only a few years later, David's father actually remarried, which failed David with anger and resentment. He couldn't understand that his father could move on so quickly and he had no interest in forming a relationship with his new stepmother. For the next few years, David was more depressed than ever and as soon as he was out of high school, David wanted to get as far away from his life as possible. So he enlisted in the United States Army. He was stationed in Fort Knox. He was also stationed in South Korea and it was while David was in South Korea that he had his first and likely only sexual experience. It was with a Korean sex worker and afterwards he actually contracted an STD which only fueled his disgust and hatred towards women even more. Like I said, David was a bully in school but he still wanted female attention and like affection, connection, but he never received any and after the death of his mother that need for a woman in his life only straightened. David moved back to New York City after being honorably discharged three years later in June of 1974. By then his father, new stepmother had moved away to Florida so David was completely alone. Still wanting a female and/or motherly connection, David started doing some digging into his birth parents and that's when he discovered that he had been lied to his entire life. His birth mother, Betty, was still very much alive. He found her, reached out to her, and met her. But this was not the family reunion that David was hoping for. I think he thought that meeting his birth mother he'd be able to replace his mother Pearl. Maybe his birth mother didn't want to give him up for adoption. Maybe she was forced to. Maybe she had a really good reason too. Betty would see him. Regret the last two decades she lived without him. Her little baby boy, she would wrap him up in her arms and he would have a mother again. But this did not happen. The meeting was awkward. This woman gave birth to him but she was still stranger and then Betty told David the story of his birth and why he was put up for adoption. That two men didn't want to be his father, wanted nothing to do with him. That the woman that gave birth to him, his mother, gave him up so she wouldn't lose a man that already had a wife. and family of his own. David realized that no one wanted him. No one wanted him now. No one wanted him since the day that he was born. He had no family, no friends, no future, no love. He blamed society and women for all of his shortcomings. And soon, terror would rip through the streets of New York because of it. On Christmas Eve, 1975, two teenage girls were stabbed in the Bronx just minutes apart from each other. The first victim survived luckily, but her identity has never been released to the public. The second victim was a 15-year-old girl named Michelle Foreman. She was stabbed six times, hospitalized for over a week, but luckily also survived. Months later, on July 29th, 1976, two teenage girls and really good friends, 19-year-old Jody Valenti, an 18-year-old Donna Laria, were the next victims. Jody and Donna both worked in the medical field. Jody was a nurse and Donna was an emergency medical tech. That night, the two girls were out at the local disco tech. And afterwards, Jody drove them both back to Donna's neighborhood in the Bronx. It was a little bit after 1 a.m. and the two girls were double parked outside of Donna's place, just chatting in the car about the night that they had at the disco tech. And after that was over, Donna opened the passenger car door to get out so she could go inside her home. But as she did that, she immediately noticed that a strange man was rushing towards her, clutching a brown paper bag. Donna was able to get out the words, "Now what is this before the deafening sounds of three gunshots blasted through the quiet street?" The man had taken a gun of the brown paper bag dropped to one knee and aimed his gun with his elbow on his knee. One of the shots killed 18-year-old Donna instantly. Another hit 19-year-old Jody in the thigh, and then the man just got up and just walked away. Like, nothing happened. Jody did survive and she described the shooter as a white man in his mid 30s, around 5'8", 200 pounds with dark curly hair. Donna's father also just so happened to witness this man, and he described his daughter's killer and his car, a yellow Volkswagen beetle. Neighbors reported also seeing that exact same car driving around their neighborhood hours before the shooting. Investigators were absolutely stumped. No one could figure out who would want to shoot and kill these two nice girls. It was a very random attack with no apparent motive. The shooter didn't attempt to rob them or sexually assault them. So quickly, the investigation into Donna's murder and Jody's attempted murder went cold. The shooting was chalked up to be a single random tragic case of mistaken identity or something like that. But sadly, this was not an isolated attack. About a month later, on October 23rd, 1976, there was another shooting this time in Queens. A 20-year-old city bank security guard named Carl Denaro was hanging out the local bar when he randomly ran into an old friend named Rosemary Keenan, an 18-year-old Queens-called student. The two chatted for a while at the bar, and then sometime around 145 left together. Rosemary drove, so the two of them sat in her parked car in a neighborhood in Queens, just chatting and catching up. When the car windows suddenly all shattered, Carl said that it felt like the car had exploded. Rosemary started speeding away. She looked over and noticed that her friend Carl had blood pouring from his head. Carl woke up in the hospital around 4am. He couldn't really remember anything after all the windows shattered. Two detectives spoke to Carl in the hospital. Shortly after he woke up, Carl said that he had a terrible headache. The officers asked if they could call Carl's parents for him to let them know that he was in the hospital, but Carl said that there was no need for that, as long as he was home by 7am. That's when the detectives had to tell this 20-year-old boy that he would not be leaving the hospital anytime soon, because he had been shot in the head. He later had surgery because he needed to have a metal plate put in his head to replace part of his skull. Bullets were found in Rosemary's car that came from a 44-coloured firearm, but they were too damaged to actually match the ballistics to a specific gun. Luckily, both Carl and Rosemary survived the attack, but neither of them saw their shooter. Again, there was no apparent motive for the shooting, but the attacks were not linked, because they happened in different burrows of the city. A month later, on November 26, 1976, a third shooting. It was the week after Thanksgiving, two high school students and best friends, 18-year-old Joanne Lamino, and 16-year-old Donna Demassi were walking back to Joanne's place in Floral Park, Queens, a little after midnight after seeing a late movie. The two girls were just hanging out, chatting outside, a little after 1am when a man approached them, asking for directions. All he got out was, can you tell me how to get before he was cut off by the sound of gunshots? This man had taken out a revolver and shot both girls. He also shot up the front of Joanne's apartment building before fleeing. 16-year-old Donna was shot in the neck at point-blink range but survived, and miraculously made a full recovery, but 18-year-old Joanne was shot in the back. She survived, but she was left permanently paralyzed from the waist down. The girls described their shooter as a man in his early 20s with a high-pitched voice. A neighbor that heard the gunshots ran outside quick enough to see the shooter running down the road. He said that he was a blonde man, clutching a gun in his left hand. A composite sketch was made, but it resulted in few leads. Several months later, on January 30th, 1977, there was another shooting. 30-year-old Joanne Deal and his 26-year-old fiance, Christine Front, were sitting in his car and queens planning to go out dancing after just seeing Rocky at the movie theater. It was around 12.40 AM when Joanne said he heard what sounded like an explosion, and then his fiance folded over into his seat and slumped into his arms. Joanne had zero clue what happened, so he just started speeding away hoping to get help. Three bullets have been shot into his car. Two of them hit his fiance, Christine, who tragically died hours later in the hospital. Joanne survived, but he did not see the shooter. As they both got into the car, all of a sudden, the right person just said, "Win don't cave." And he heard three shots, and his girlfriend slumped. I revved the engine once or twice, and then all of a sudden, there was a crash, you know, at 10. And I seen Chris falling like this towards me, you know? And I grabbed, I started screaming, Chris, Chris, Chris, you know? And then there was one more bang, you know? And like, I had her on, you know, I pulled her towards me, and we went down, you know, I went down in my seat, like, you know, I went down, and I heard one more bang. Once again, the bullets were from a 44 caliber revolver, and investigators finally began to piece together that maybe all of these random shootings might be connected. And the public also began to notice that a lot of young people have been randomly being shot dead in the middle of the night in their city. So the police publicly acknowledged for the first time that all of these shootings might actually be connected. And the composite sketches were released, the one of the dark-haired man in the Donna Larria murder, and the blonde-haired man seen in the Donna Demasi and Joanne Lomino shooting. At this point, the NYPD noticed that they believed that they were looking for multiple suspects, not a lone shooter. A little over a month later, on March 8th, 1977, in Queens, there was another shooting, but this time it was in the evening, not in the middle of the night. And for the first time, the victim was a single woman walking alone. 19-year-old Virginia Vascaricchen was a student at Columbia University and was walking home from campus alone after her last class. She was holding her textbooks in her arms as she was walking through the quiet neighborhood. It wasn't late, and there was a good amount of people still around at that time, so she felt safe. Even though she lived only a block away from where Christine Front was shot and killed a little over a month earlier. And then out of nowhere, a man came right up to Virginia and pointed a gun, inches away from her face. All Virginia had time to do was lift her textbooks that were in her arms above her face to try and protect and shield herself. But the bullet went straight through her books. She was shot in the face at point blank range and died instantly. Every night coming home from school, it was an easy passage for Virginia Vascaricchen. Leaving the subway two blocks back, she would come down here to Dartmouth Street, turn right, and would then have to walk approximately two blocks more to Essex, which you'd turn left and into her door. But last night, she only got this far. Ballistics were tested and confirmed that the same gun that killed Virginia was used in the previous shootings. They knew the shooter's weapon was a 44 caliber and they believed they knew the exact kind of gun the shooter was using. A 44 caliber charter arms bulldog revolver. On March 10th, 1977, two days at the Virginia was killed, the mayor of New York City and members of the NYPD held a press conference to release the public that they had confirmation the same 44 caliber firearm was used in several of the shootings and that they were likely all connected. They believed that the shooter was targeting women with long dark hair and targeting women who were out late at night often sitting in parked cars with their boyfriends or their friends. What followed was one of the largest manhunts at the state had ever seen even to this day. We have determined that there has been a 44 caliber revolver used in every one of them, which is why, as the mayor mentioned, it's important that any person having information with respect to anyone who's in possession of a 44 caliber revolver call us. The general description that we have is of a male, white, 25 to 30 years of age, five feet, 10 inches to six feet in height, medium build, well-broomed with dark hair, which is combed straight back, and wearing a raincoat type of outer garment, tan or brownish. The NYPD formed a task force called Operation Omega, specifically to investigate the shooter dubbed the 44 caliber killer by the media. This is a police sketch of the suspect in one of the nastiest murder cases New York police have had come their way in a long time. The killer police are looking for is called the 44 caliber killer because of the weapon he has used. The task force was made up of over 200 people. His headquarters were one of the most intense manhunts in the history of New York, search for the 44 caliber killer. Operating out of this office, the city's best detectives, pour over clues and run down Lee. All right, so he's sort of composite. He may know the identity. OK, he states that this informant has been reliable to cast, huh? On the wall are snapshots of the victims. Most of them pretty girls with long, dark hair. The media circus surrounding the 44 caliber killer was insane. There was around the clock media coverage. Headlining news in every newspaper across the entire city, and then the entire state, and then the entire country. The 44 caliber killer was headlining news across the entire world. Citizens of New York City were terrified to leave their homes at night, especially the young women. Barr's clubs, discos anywhere that young women used to go were now completely deserted. Young women with long, dark hair began booking out salons to chop it all off and or bleach it blonde. New York City sold out of wigs, bleach, pepper spray, and pocket knives within days. Like my system will not come out of the house now. So we want to score the people who are scared, like, help out the people. By day, it's common to see young women with curtsheeps over their hair or hair pinned up, because most of the victims had long hair. When you get people cutting their hair, when you get people dying their hair, when you get people, when you get my wife who was scared to either walk three, when you get me who was scared to walk the street for God's sake. You have to be careful. You have to watch where you're going now. How late you stay out. Then about a month after the press conference, the 44 caliber killer struck again. On April 17, 1977, 18-year-old Valentina Serrani and her 20-year-old boyfriend, Alexander Asal, were parked about a block away from where she lived in the Bronx, only a few blocks away, from where the first shooting took place the previous summer. It was around 3 a.m. that a neighbor called the police after hearing the sound of three gunshots. Valentina and Alexander were slumped over in Valentina's car. Valentina was shot in the head and pronounced dead at the scene. Alexander was shot twice in the head, and he died the following night in the hospital. They were quickly confirmed as victims of the 44 caliber killer through ballistics. And for the first time, the 44 caliber killer left behind something at the crime scene for the Omega Task Force, a handwritten letter addressed to the captain of the NYPD and a member of the Omega Task Force. In the letter, the shooter rejected the nickname the 44 caliber killer and instead referred to himself as the son of Sam for the very first time. The note is very cryptic, with odd word choices, some grammatical errors and misspelled words, and it read, "I am deeply hurt by you're calling me a weemon hater. I am not, but I am a monster. I am the son of Sam. I am a little brat." When father Sam gets drunk, he gets mean. He beats his family. Sometimes he ties me up to the back of the house. Other times, he locks me in the garage. Sam loves to drink blood. Go out and kill commands father Sam. Behind our house some rest. Mostly young, to enslautered. Their blood drained just bones now. Papa Sam keeps me locked in the attic too. I can't get out, but I look out the attic window and watch the world go by. I feel like an outsider. I am on a different wavelength than everybody else, programmed to kill. However, to stop me, you must kill me. Attention all police. Shoot me first. Shoot to kill or else. Keep out of my way or you will die. Papa Sam is old now. He needs some blood to preserve his youth. He has had too many heart attacks. Too many heart attacks. Ug me, hoot. It hurts sunny boy. I miss my pretty princess most of all. She's resting in our lady's house, but I'll see her soon. I am the monster, Baleseebub, the chubby behemoth. I love to hunt, prowling the streets, looking for a fair game, tasty meat. The wemen of queens are the prettiest of all. I must be the water they drink. I live for the hunt, my life. Blood for Papa, Mr. Barley. Sir, I don't want to kill anymore, no sir, no more, but I must. Honor thy father. I want to make love to the world. I love people. I don't belong to earth. Return me to Yahoo's, to the people of queens. I love you. And I will want to wish all of you a happy Easter. May God bless you all in this life and in the next. And for now I say goodbye and good night. Police. Let me haunt you with these words. I'll be back. I'll be back. To be interpreted as bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, ugg. The full letter was not initially released to the public only bits, which included the killers preferred moniker, the son of Sam. A psychological profile was put together and released to the public to try and get some more person of interest tips from the public. The psychological profile of the son of Sam believed that the son of Sam was likely a paranoid schizophrenic, possibly a satanist, who believes that he is demonically possessed. He's a loner, who gets sexual gratification from killing women. And he has little to no experience and luck with women and dating. And it's very possible that the release of the psychological profile hurt the son of Sam's ego because only a few days later the son of Sam sent another note. This time it was to a writer for the New York Daily News. The letter was postmarked for that exact same day out of Inglewood, New Jersey. The back of the envelope read, blood and family, darkness and death, absolute depravity, 44 caliber. There was also a symbol drawn on the back of the envelope that looked like a mix of the sign for males, the sign for females, a cross, and the letter S. The letter inside read, "Hello from the gutters of New York City, which are filled with dog manure, vomit, stale wine, urine and blood. Hello from the sewers of New York City, which swallow up these delicacies when they are washed away by the sweeper trucks. Hello from the cracks of the sidewalk of New York City, and from the ansa dwell in these cracks and feed in the dried blood of the dead that has settled into the cracks. JB, I'm just dropping you a line to let you know I appreciate your interest in those recent and horrendous 44 caliber killings. I also want to tell you that I read your column daily and I find it quite informative, tell me Jim. What will you have for July 29th? You can forget about me if you like, because I don't like publicity. However, you must not forget Donna Laaria, and you cannot let the people forget her either. She was a very, very sweet girl, but Sam's a thirsty lad, and you won't let me stop killing until he gets his fill of blood. Mr. Breastlancer, don't think because you haven't heard from me for a while that I went to sleep. No, rather I'm still here. Just a spirit roaming the night, thirsty, hungry, stalled them, stopping to rest, anxious to please Sam. I love my work. Now the void has been filled. Perhaps we shall meet face-to-face someday, or perhaps. I will be blown away by cops with smoking 38 calibers, whatever. If I shall be fortunate enough to meet you, I will tell you all about Sam if you like, and I will introduce you to him. His name is Sam, the terrible. Not knowing what the future holds, I shall say for well, and I will see you at the next job. Or should I say, you will see my handiwork at the next job. Remember Ms. Lauria, thank you. In their blood, and from the gutter, Sam's creation, 44 caliber. Here are some names to help you along. Forward them to the inspector for use by NCIC, the Duke of Death, the wicked King Wicker, the 22 disciples of hell, John Whedys, Rhys and suffocator of young girls. PS, please inform all the detectives working the slings or remain. PS, JB, please inform all the detectives working the case that I wish them the best of luck. Keep them digging, keep on, think positive, get off your butts, knock on coffins, etc. Upon my capture, I promise to buy all the guys working the case a new pair of shoes if I can get up the money. Signed, the son of Sam. A redacted version of this letter was published by the New York Daily News a week later. They also urged the son of Sam to come forward and turn himself in. That issue of the New York Daily News ended up being the highest selling edition ever, even to this day, selling over 1.1 million copies. This note, son of Sam included more strange cryptic clues and more strange nicknames, the Duke of Death, the wicked King Wicker, 22 disciples of hell, John Whedys. He also referred to Don Allaria, the first victim, the son of Sam killed, and July 29th, the first anniversary of her murder. The city became terrified, but the son of Sam had something big planned to celebrate. And while the NYPD and the Omega Task Force were busy trying to make sense of the two notes, there was another shooting. About a month to the day before July 29th on June 26th, 1977, 17-year-old Jody Placido and her 20-year-old boyfriend, Sal Lupa, were at a disco together in Queens. The disco was a ghost town, because everyone was still too terrified of the son of Sam to leave their house at night. Around 3am, the couple was heading back to their car to go home. As Jody was opening her car door, she said to her boyfriend, Sal, that the son of Sam was really scared. How he just came out of nowhere, and you never knew where he was going to hit next. It was at that exact moment that Jody heard the sound of four gunshots. She had no idea what happened. She never saw it coming. Her boyfriend, Sal, ran back to the disco to get help. Jody was now sitting in the car. She looked in the rear-view mirror at the reflection of herself and saw blood gushing from her head. She tried to get out of the car to run for help, to run after her boyfriend, but she fell to the ground. Placido left the car which had been parked by that tree and staggered up to 111st Street, here to 45th Road, where she fell just about here. Sal had been shot in the arm. Jody was shot three times in the back, shoulder, and head. She was inches away from having a bullet hit her spine, which would have left her permanently paralyzed. Both of them survived, but neither of them saw the shooter, but two witnesses did, and described him as a very tall man with dark straight hair. The Omega Task Force still believed that the son of Sam was planning to strike on July 29th, and on that day they had hundreds and hundreds of officers patrolling the streets from son up to way after sundown. Many of the officers were in unmarked cars. Some even went undercover, and bravely sat in parked cars wearing long dark wigs to try and bait the son of Sam to approach them. Anyone out after midnight was stopped by the police, and one of these men that was stopped actually tried to flee, and within seconds was surrounded by six unmarked police cars, and 12 NYPD officers, which really shows you how serious the NYPD was taking this, and how many of them were actually out on every single street all over the city. There was no son of Sam shooting at night, but two days later there was. 20-year-old Stacey Moskovitz and 20-year-old Robert Valenti were out on their first date. Robert's parents were terrified of him going out with the son of Sam shooting still in the loose. So Robert assured his parents that he would stay in Brooklyn because the son of Sam had yet to attack there. And as an added level of security, Robert's date was blonde, and the media reported that the son of Sam only targeted brunettes. For their first date they went to the movies, and then they had an evening stroll in the park. They went back to their car, and almost immediately once they were inside a man approached the car. He got within feet of their vehicle before firing into the car four times. Stacey and Robert were both shot two times. 20-year-old Robert survived. Bo was left nearly completely blind. He lost his left eye, and he was left with only 20% of vision in his right. And tragically, after eight hours of surgery, 20-year-old Stacey Moskovitz died. Making her the son of Sam's sixth murder victim, and her date, Robert, was the son of Sam's 11th victim to be left injured. Multiple witnesses saw the shooter flee. Many also reported seeing the same yellow Volkswagen beetle from the first son of Sam shooting. A new composite sketch was released, but very quickly the media and the public noticed that with each composite sketch of the son of Sam being released, they all looked very different. In all three or four that had been released up to this point, his hair was different either in color, cut, or texture. And many claimed that all the men looked completely different in the face. And this is when the media really began reporting that the son of Sam's shooter might actually be a team of shooters. But at this point, the NYPD completely dismisses theory and continued to report that they were looking for a lone gunman. The public was really outraged with the NYPD for not catching the son of Sam's shooter yet. This had been going on for over a year at this point. Their city still wasn't safe, and this killer, using young men and women as target practice, was still on the loose. And then four days after Stacey was killed, another witness came forward. A woman named Cecilia Davis, who lived in the same neighborhood that Stacey and Robert were shot in, said that that night while walking her dog, she saw a strange man appear out of nowhere. And he was holding something dark in his hand, something that looked like a gun. Cecilia said that this man was just staring at her. So she quickly ran home, and luckily she lived really close by. But as soon as she got home, she heard the sound of the gunshots, and she believed that the man that she saw was the son of Sam. She also remembered that moments before she saw the son of Sam, she noticed that there was a police officer riding parking tickets on the same street. This was the break that the Omega Task Force had been hoping for. It's always some tiny detail like that that really breaks cases wide open. They began frantically searching through all the parking tickets that were written in that neighborhood that night hoping to find one for a yellow car like so many witnesses claimed to see at the son of Sam shootings. And then they found one. A yellow Ford Galaxy, registered to David Berkowitz. On August 10, 1977, four NYPD detectives staked out outside David Berkowitz's apartment. They had no clue what he looked like, just where his apartment was and what his car looked like. They saw his car parked on the street. They peered in through the windows and they saw that there was a gun on the floor of the back seat. And then without a warrant, which at the time it was actually legal in the state to store your firearm in your car like this. So this was not against the law. But without a search warrant, the officers made the very stupid decision to break in to David Berkowitz's car. They found several maps of different son of Sam crime scenes, a duffle bag of ammunition, and several letters that were all signed, the son of Sam. As they waited on their search warrant for David Berkowitz's apartment, a neighbor of his actually saw the officers staking out outside and approached them. This man just so happened to be an off duty deputy sheriff. So when he found out what the detectives were doing there, he agreed to wait outside with them so he could help point out David Berkowitz to them. They waited outside of David Berkowitz's apartment building for hours, and then finally around 9 p.m., he finally walked outside, holding a brown paper bag. As he walked to his car, he was surrounded by officers who asked him, "Are you David Berkowitz?" Instead of looking scared or angry, David Berkowitz smiled and said, "No, I'm the son of Sam. You got me." Like what? his hands up, he opened the door, got out of the car, put his hands up, he was then cuffed by New York City, we then put him in the unmarked car and took him down to Yonkers PD. David Berkowitz, 24 years old, a postal worker, walked out of his Yonkers apartment last night, turned the ignition key in his car and found himself surrounded by police. Well, he said, "You got me." Police say those words ended the biggest manhunt in New York City history, with a capture of son of Sam. And this is what they say, tripped up the 44 caliber killer, a parking ticket. David Berkowitz was arrested and he seemed oddly calm, happy, even, like he was excited that he was caught. In the brown paper bag was the 44 caliber Bulldog revolver, the signature weapon of the son of Sam. It's very likely that David Berkowitz was actually on his way to commit the 9th son of Sam shooting, and that the officers got there in the nick of time to prevent it. As the officers brought David Berkowitz down to the station, other officers went inside his apartment this time with a search warrant. And David Berkowitz's apartment was like a huge mess. Stuff was thrown all around. There was satanic symbols written on all the walls. The officers also found detailed records that David Berkowitz had kept for years, detailing all the fires that he started all over the entire city. In total, there were 1,488 fires longed that David Berkowitz started. The 44 caliber revolver that was in David Berkowitz's possession when he was arrested was officially matched to the murder weapon used in the son of Sam shootings. At the station, it took David Berkowitz less than 30 minutes to confess to everything, the stabbing, the eight shootings, the six murders, all of it. He was excited as he talked about it. At 1am that night, the mayor of the city made an announcement that the son of Sam was finally in police custody. That really just shows you how big of a deal this crime spree was to the city of New York. That they couldn't even wait until office hours to make this announcement. They got the mayor out of bed at 1am to make the announcement. The city finally celebrated their streets were safe once again, and the NYPD was praised all over the entire world. Praise the Lord. No, man. It's over. We're very, very happy. My daughter called me up last night. Her husband is in a band and one of the band members was playing in a disco tech. And in the middle of his act, the police came in and announced that the son of Sam was captured, and the whole place was in an uproar. Everybody was screaming, crying, laughing. They were so happy. They told me about 1 o'clock in the morning, and I just wanted to tell you, we didn't sleep last night. We were so excited and so happy. But still, there were some people that felt like this wasn't over yet. That David Berkowitz had accomplices. They pointed to the composite sketches made from witness testimonies that claimed to see the son of Sam that all looked like different men. Many even argued that none of the composite sketches looked like David. Some of his neighbors and coworkers even spoke to the media that they felt like the police got the wrong man. But the police dismissed all the public's concerns and theories. There were also a lot of questions on what the son of Sam moniker meant to David Berkowitz. Was this a reference to Satan or like a play on words of Uncle Sam? Because David Berkowitz was the biological son of Joseph, and the adopted son of Nathan. So who was Sam? David Berkowitz actually had a neighbor named Sam, Sam Carr, who ended up being a pretty important part of this entire case. David Berkowitz's neighbor, Sam, had a black lab named Harvey. When David Berkowitz was arrested, he claimed he was being controlled by a 6,000 year old demon that possessed his neighbor's dog Harvey. So because he thought he was being controlled by a demon dog, David Berkowitz had 3 really intense psychological evaluations to see if he was mentally competent to stay on trial. He had these 3 psyche vowels at a psychiatric ward of a hospital. And while he was there, hospital staff said that David Berkowitz was not in touch with the reality in the slightest. Eventually David Berkowitz was deemed competent to stay on trial, and his defense team began building an insanity defense. David Berkowitz's defense team felt like they had a pretty good case. Plus the police officers that arrested him had broken into his car without a search warrant. So all that evidence could not be used during the trial. So it was actually looking like David Berkowitz might just get away with everything, but David Berkowitz ignored his defense attorney's advice to plead not guilty by a reason of insanity. And instead, on May 8, 1978, David pled guilty to all six murders. And the 1,488 are sins. Two weeks later was David's sentencing hearing, but during the hearing David attacked some of the officers kicking and biting them. He also tried to throw himself from a seven story window. He was pulled back in, all while screaming some pretty bolder things directed at Stacey, his last murder victim, and really all of his murder victims. David screamed in court, quote, "Stacey was a whore. I'd kill her again. I'd kill all of them again." And Stacey's mother was in the courtroom. She heard her daughter's killer scream those things about her daughter. David's sentencing was delayed, pending another psychiatric evaluation, but ultimately he was sentenced to six consecutive life sentences, with a possibility of parole after 25 years. And while in the maximum security prison system, David Berkowitz has converted to Christianity, he actually leads Bible studies for other inmates, and also helps counsel other inmates. Following his arrest and the entire media circus surrounding the son of Sam, David Berkowitz Saga, there were actually talks that he was offered and weighing multiple book deals, which outraged the city of New York. So much so that the state actually passed a law. It was the first law of its kind, known as the Son of Sam Law, which prevents criminals and their family from profiting off of their crimes. And since almost every single state has passed similar laws. Even after his arrest, confession, and guilty plea, since, even the mid-1970s, there have been people that believe that there were multiple sons of Sam. At theory that seemed only more plausible a few weeks after his arrest. When David Berkowitz sent a letter to the media and detectives from the NYPD, letting them know that there were more sons out there. So is this really the end? Is this the end of the story, the end of the case? But apparently there's actually some maybe credible evidence that supports the idea that David Berkowitz had accomplices. Or maybe that he was a small piece in a much larger puzzle. This theory has been around since the very beginning of this case, but it first really blew up online after the 2020 Netflix docu-series on this case called The Sons of Sam, a descent into darkness. Now, obviously the very first big thing that really started this theory was that the descriptions of the son of Sam Shooter, given by eyewitnesses, changed very drastically from one shooting to the next. In some shootings, he was a white man in his mid-sixies, average height 200 pounds of curly dark hair, and drove a yellow Volkswagen Beetle. In another shooting, he was a blonde man in his early twenties. In another, he was a very tall man with dark hair, and in another, he was a thin man with really long hair, and in another, he was a very thin man with dark straight hair driving a yellow Volkswagen Beetle. Seems that the only thing that the witnesses can agree on was that he was a man, and even in the descriptions that include a yellow Volkswagen, in one shooting, he's an overweight man with curly hair, and in another, he's a very thin man with straight hair. Some of these witnesses even were asked after David Berkowitz was arrested if he was a killer, and they said that David Berkowitz was not the man that they saw pull the trigger in the son of Sam Shootings. It's a known thing that eyewitness testimony can be a really thick thing, and they can, a lot of the times, get things wrong. But how likely is it that in each shooting eyewitnesses remember a completely different man pulling the trigger? It really does seem like they can't agree on anything. Was he very thin or for weight? Average or below average height or very tall? Was he in his early 20s or mid 30s? Some remember the son of Sam having a very sharp jawline. Some say it was pointy, some say that it was square, and some say that he didn't have a jawline at all. And how does the son of Sam's hair go from being long to short, to blonde, to dark, to curly to straight between shootings? the only. detail that any of them can agree on was seeing a yellow Volkswagen Beetle at some of the shootings. But David Berkowitz drove a yellow Ford Galaxy, a very different car. Well, this starts to get really strange when you look at an acquaintance of David Berkowitz named John Carr. John Carr was the son of David Berkowitz's neighbor, Sam, who, if you remember, was the same guy that owned the demon dog. Sam's son, John, was literally the son of Sam. And John actually had a striking resemblance to one of the composite sketches of the son of Sam. And that wasn't John Carr's only connection to the son of Sam either. The son of Sam letters actually have a lot of references to the car family, with the most notable being the other nicknames that the son of Sam referred to himself as. Like John Wheaties. John Carr's middle name was Wheat, and John Wheaties was actually a known nickname that John went by. Or the wicked King Wicker. John Carr lived on Wicker Street. Well, after David Berkowitz was arrested, John Carr, like, immediately moved with his girlfriend to a different state. He picked it up and he went to North Dakota. In North Dakota, he immediately began seeing a therapist because he was very terrified because he felt like someone was after him, someone wanted to kill him. He also told his therapist that he knew some pretty big information on the son of Sam shootings, but he couldn't go to the police because he would get in trouble with the police. Shortly after this, John Carr was found dead, shot in the head. This was reported to be a very suspicious death, but was officially ruled a suicide. And then a year and a half later, John Carr's younger brother Michael Carr, another literal son of Sam, also died under mysterious circumstances on October 4th, 1978, when he died in a single car accident. The official police report on this car accident actually wrote down that this was a very suspicious death. And so that looked like someone had purposefully tried to drive Michael Carr off the road. Michael Carr also had a striking resemblance to one of the son of Sam composite sketches, just like his brother. So what does this all mean? Well, it's a very dark and sometimes confusing conspiracy, so please bear with me. I'm gonna try and make this make as much sense as possible and do it as quickly as possible. There were rumors that the Carr brothers and David Berkowitz were members of a cult that had some satanic qualities called the children. These rumors were cooperated by multiple individual people including David Berkowitz himself. The first few people to talk about the Carr brothers being in a satanic cult were some of John Carr's friends that said that John was in a cult, doing blood rituals and drinking the blood of German shepherds that he was sacrificing, which aligns with a quote from the first son of Sam Letter, quote, "Sam loves to drink blood," unquote. Friends of John Carr also claim that John Carr would draw the son of Sam symbol four months before the symbol was even released to the public. Another reference in the son of Sam Letter says, quote, "Go out and kill command father Sam, behind our house some rests, mostly young and slaughtered, their blood drained just bones now, behind our house." Well, behind the house of John and Michael Carr's father Sam was this area rumored to be known for satanic rituals and sacrifices. This area was covered in satanic graffiti and also allegedly had the son of Sam symbol graffiti as well. Dogs were also very clearly killed here quite often. In this area there were also two reported drive-by shootings where someone killed neighborhood dogs. This area was known as the devil's cave or it was also called the gutters or the sewers by locals, which again is a reference in the son of Sam Letter's. Quote, "Hello from the gutters of New York City, which are filled with dog manure, vomit, still wine, urine and blood. Hello from the sewers of New York City, which swallow up all of these delicacies when they are washed away by the sweeper trucks." Friends of John Carr also claimed that John would try to initiate them into his cult, the children, that his brother, Michael and David Berkwitz were also a part of. So there's so many individual people and these aren't like random people off the street. These are like known people that are all saying the same thing that David, Michael and John were in this cult. And David Berkwitz has also claimed many different things. He has told many different stories over the years like the demon dog story and then he later came out and said that that was a lie. He was not possessed by his neighbor's demon dog and instead he killed as revenge against the world and revenge against women. Well another story that David Berkwitz told he said multiple times during the court depositions. He said that him and the car brothers were in a cult together called the children and it was the cult that killed the car brothers. There's also a very interesting connection to the cult or church of Scientology and the children cult. It's actually been 100% confirmed that Michael Carr was a high ranking member of the Church of Scientology. It's also confirmed that members of the Church of Scientology left to form their own religion called the process Church of the Final Judgment. This church cult believed that it was their mission to expedite the apocalypse by spreading violence across the entire world. Now allegedly to do this, this church sent smaller groups of their church cult to different major cities across the country which included New York City and allegedly the children was the group sent to New York City ordered to commit violent crimes which included murder. David Berkwitz has changed his story many times over the years and one of his stories was that he was not the lone son of Sam Shooter that he was guilty but none of all of it. He claimed that it was his cult, the children behind all of the shootings. One member would pull the trigger and two to four other members would be, you know, doing look out or they would be the getaway driver. David claims that he was at every single son of Sam shooting but he only pulled the trigger twice. He shot and killed Don Allaria in the first shooting. He also killed Alexander Asau and Valentina Serrani in April of 1977. He also claimed that the only reason that Carl D'Anero and Rosemary Keenan both survived was because they were shot by a female member of the children and that both Carl Brothers pulled the trigger during different son of Sam shootings which lines up the fact that they both resemble son of Sam composite sketches. Like it's almost uncanny. Now this theory goes much deeper and so much darker than I've already explained. This is a very surface level explanation of this theory and there's parts that I haven't even touched yet. If you're interested in hearing me do a much deeper dive on all of this, maybe one day I can do like a three hour long hot in the case episode because honestly that's like the bare minimum of what I think this entire thing would need. But until then it is actually almost 6 am and I've been recording for like almost two hours so I'm gonna close the book on this investigation. David Berkowitz was up for parole for the first time in 2002. Before his parole hearing he sent a letter to the state's governor asking him begging him to remove his possibility of parole because he felt like he deserved to be in prison for the rest of his life. The governor denied the request. Every two years David Berkowitz is up for parole and every single time he begs them not to release him. Eventually David Berkowitz has just stopped showing up to these parole hearings altogether. I'm extremely interested to hear all your thoughts theories and opinions on this one. When I chose that I wanted to do with the son of Sam for this week's episode of hot in the case I did not expect that I was going to fall so deep down the rabbit hole that is this case I was not aware of all of it. But it's like once I you know start finding things I just cannot stop because then I feel like I'm not doing as thorough research and as thorough hot in the case episodes that you guys deserve. So please let me know on your thoughts theories and opinions. If you made it to the end of this extremely long episode it honestly wouldn't surprise me if this is the longest hot in the case episode yet. Please make sure that you are subscribed on YouTube like right and review the show and you're following the show on Spotify and Apple podcasts because all of that is what really helps me be able to make these episodes for you every single week and that kind of stuff also really helps push these cases and these victim stories out to even more people and that's all I have. For this week's episode and I will see you guys all next Friday when we are hot in the case once again