All language subtitles for the.sons.of.sam.a.descent.into.darkness.s01e01.1080p.web.h264-stout_track4_[eng]

[ominous music playing]

[Joshua Zeman] In the summer of 2017,

I received three boxes

from an investigative journalist
named Maury Terry.

Maury spent his life delving
into the darkest corners of true crime.

[woman] One man has been able to piece
together a new version of the slayings,

reporter Maury Terry.

-[man 1] Crime reporter Maury Terry…
-[man 2] Please welcome Maury Terry.

[applause]

Yet one case continued to haunt him.

It was one of the most terrifying crimes
in New York City history.

[siren wailing]

[Brokaw] In New York, the search continues
for the .44 Caliber Killer

the object of one of the biggest manhunts
in this city's history.

[male reporter] In a reign of terror,
he shot 13 and murdered six.

The killer has taunted authorities
by writing two letters.

Both were signed "Son of Sam."

Police know people are angry.

They're afraid.

This is the man police believe
to be the Son of Sam.

He is David Berkowitz.

[Zeman] For many New Yorkers,
the nightmare was over.

But for Maury, it was just beginning.

[Lawrence Klausner] Maury saw something
that no one else did.

[Sarah Wallace] This became much more
than a story about a confessed killer.

[Maury Terry] Son of Sam is not over.

Son of Sam still exists.

[Don Mounts] I believe Maury was on
to a greater thing than what anybody knew.

These people performed rituals.
They were drinking the blood.

[Dick Belsky] This organization was big…

[male reporter] Their theology
is to cause as much havoc as possible.

…and, even more important, was real.

Is there a link between the Manson
killings and the Son of Sam killings?

[Wallace] There were real questions
in this case,

but the response was,
"Shut it down. It's over."

[Belsky] He wanted the world to know
the truth, and it became an obsession.

[Marlin Hopkins] He was digging deeper
and deeper in until there was no way out.

[Wallace]
Maury went off the rails a bit.

From the beginning,
I knew something was very wrong

-with the case against Berkowitz.
-He was convinced he was right.

[Zeman] Can you prove he wasn't?

No. That's my point.

[Terry] It took many years,
many leads, many blind alleys…

We've arrived at a conclusion.

[Zeman] Maury's life work
was now in these boxes.

And the answer to this mystery

and his obsession
lay somewhere deep inside.

[suspenseful music playing]

[man] They totally ignored
the true story of this case.

[Terry] Yeah. But really, it's a road
that leads to death and destruction.

And once you step over that line,
sometimes you can't get out.

["Season of the Witch"
by Joan Jett playing]

♪ When I look out my window ♪

♪ Many sights to see ♪

♪ That it's strange ♪

♪ So strange ♪

♪ You've got to pick up every stitch ♪

♪ Oh, no ♪

♪ Must be the season of the witch ♪

♪ Must be the season of the witch ♪

♪ Must be the season of the witch ♪

Good evening.

Every night, across this country,

70 to 80 million Americans
sit down in front of the television,

and a large part
of their evening escapism is crime.

And in those endless police adventures,
even the most complicated crimes

tend to get neatly wrapped up
in 30 minutes or one hour.

It's not that way in real life.

[eerie music playing]

[Terry] It was the summer of 1977.

A summer I would remember
for the rest of my life.

[typewriter clacking]

I was nearly 31
and working in the suburbs of New York

as an editor for IBM's in-house magazine.

Outside, the city was in turmoil,
and a dark wind was blowing.

I was restless and wanted more.

Yet, little did I know,
my curiosity would soon lure me

into one of the most bizarre
and terrifying experiences I'd ever known,

a case of madness that would change
my career and my life…

forever.

[ominous music playing]

New York City has been hit by a tremendous
increase in the cost of borrowing,

in the unemployment, in the drop
in revenues by reason of the recession.

[male reporter] People in New York City
are constantly being told

that it is the dirtiest,
noisiest, crummiest,

most rat-and-crime-infested place
in the country.

If those of us who live here had brains,
we'd get out as soon as possible.

-[arguing]
-[reporter] Prostitutes, addicts,

just plain squatters,

all kinds of criminal activity go on here.

[Belsky] New York in that period
was in a bad shape on a lot of fronts.

[siren wailing]

The city was deteriorating.
Neighborhoods were deteriorating.

It just was not a good time
to be in New York City.

[train rattling]

[man] Last year, nearly 11,000…

-[shouting]
-…serious crimes were reported here.

-One for every 15 residents.
-[siren wailing]

Four thousand people were assaulted,
robbed, raped, or murdered.

I'm gonna kill some guy.
I'm gonna kill him. I'm gonna kill him.

-[man] Don't--
-Kill him.

For the police, it was… it was crazy.

[banging]

We had bank robberies.

-Homicides. Bodies showing up.
-[struggling, muttering]

We couldn't handle it.
It was just a matter of time.

[male reporter] Some people
once called New York "Fun City."

Now the police and the fireman's unions
in New York are calling it "Fear City."

Mayor Abraham Beame is planning
to lay off about 10,000 policemen,

firemen, and other safety officers

to help the city out
of its financial problems.

[male protestors] The cops must go!

The department had a hiring freeze.

There was layoffs. Cutting back on time.

There was a lot of things
working against us.

[Klausner] And then, suddenly,

in this atmosphere
of a city that's vulnerable,

someone starts shooting.

[indistinct radio chatter]

[male reporter] July 29, 1976.

18-year-old Donna Lauria

was in a car with Jody Valenti
in front of Donna's house.

Two shots blasted through the car window.
Donna was killed instantly.

My wife comes screaming down the hall.
"They were shot!"

When I got there,
she was dead in the street.

And that was it. There was nobody around.
My daughter was 18 years old.

That's what he took out of my heart,
18 years.

[Belsky] Somebody who shoots somebody
for no reason…

I mean, it's a story,
but in New York City, it happens a lot,

so nobody paid that much attention.

And then it kept happening.

[tense music rising]

[indistinct conversations]

[Denaro] It was Friday night.
No different than any other night.

The bar's hoppin'.

Drinkin', doin' shots, havin' fun.

Rosemary came in, walked into the bar.

Her and I have hooked up a few times,
so we decided to leave.

It's probably about quarter to two.

We get into her car, and we just pull
in front of this house on 159th Street.

I think we might have lit up a joint.

Next thing you know…

[man breathes deeply]

…it felt like the car exploded.

All the glass had broken. There was
little pieces embedded in my hands.

I yelled to Rosemary,
"Start the car. Get outta here!"

[siren wailing]

About 4:00 in the morning, I wake up,

and my head's wrapped
in a thousand feet of gauze.

Got a splitting headache.

Two detectives show up.

He goes, "Should I call your parents?"

I tell him, "As long as I'm home by 7:00,
my mother'll never know I'm out."

And his answer to me was, "Son, you were
shot in the head. You're not going home."

[Belsky] It was just random
shooting down people.

Not killing to rob you,
not for some specific reason,

but it's just random.

[reporter] Two days after
Thanksgiving, it was almost 1:00 a.m.

Donna DeMasi and Joanne Lomino
were on the stoop

of Lomino's home in Bellerose.

The killer began firing.

He hit Donna DeMasi in the neck,
Joanne Lomino in the back.

Both survived. Joanne Lomino is paralyzed.

[Clark] After that shooting,
the police department

get their artist to see
if he can do a composite sketch.

[officer] When we make sketches
and people are caught,

they usually resemble the person
that looks like 'em.

[interviewer] Is there ever something
which is completely different?

Not often. Not often.

Uh, I think that he'll look
something like this.

[Klausner] The young people
were the ones getting hurt.

They were out alone. Lovers' lanes.

And they were getting hurt
indiscriminately.

[indistinct police radio chatter]

[female reporter]
Christine Freund, 26 years old,

is dead in a shooting
that has no apparent motive.

-[siren wailing]
-[John Diel] An explosion came.

At the same second as I heard it,
I turned.

And Chris fell towards me with her head.

I grabbed her, and I started screaming,
"Chris! Chris! Chris!" You know?

[female reporter] Police say it's a
senseless killing, no suspect, no motive.

[Marlin Hopkins] I was working
in the 15th Homicide Zone in Queens,

and we were told that there was a shooting

outside the Forest Hills railroad station.

[indistinct police radio chatter]

[Hopkins] I saw the damage
from the gunshot.

The size of the lead bullet

on the dashboard of the car
was kind of unusual.

[siren wailing]

I've experienced
all types of rounds and so on,

and that's the first time
I saw one that large.

It took me back a little bit.

[reporter] This is the second time
in the last few months

an incident like this happened in Queens.

If there's any connection,
we can't really say at this time.

[atmospheric music playing]

It was pitch dark, and I saw
a number of people standing around,

and then noticed a body
on the, uh, ground, motionless.

[voice shaking] A beautiful young girl.
It just really broke you down.

[reporter] 19-year-old student
at Columbia University,

Virginia Voskerichian,
killed while walking home.

[male reporter 2] A shot was fired
at point-blank range.

Virginia Voskerichian fell to the pavement
with blood spurting from a face wound.

[male reporter 3] This is supposed to be
a very quiet, low-crime area.

I thought so too.

It's really a lovely area to live,
and I enjoy it here. I like the area.

-But when two incidents like this happen--
-Two incidents?

[woman] The other shooting
that happened over here a month ago.

Just, you know,
right around the corner from here.

There has been some speculation
tying this sort of a shooting,

this sort of a killing,

with that of Ms. Freund, January 30th.

At this point in our investigation,

we have no reason to believe
that the cases are connected.

[Joseph Borrelli] I became aware
of the situation

when the ballistics detective called,

and said he had a match.

[dramatic music playing]

The weapon that was being used
was a Charter Arms .44 caliber.

We had the same gun being used.

[Hopkins] When I heard that,
I says, "My God.

This is an unusual circumstance."

It raised a lot of eyebrows,
and the antennas went up.

-[camera shutters clicking]
-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 belief at that time was we were
dealing with maybe a serial killer.

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.

[male reporter 1] The killer's struck
five times since last summer.

[male reporter 2] His victims,
mostly young women

with shoulder-length dark hair.

Once it became obvious
that there was a serial killer,

you picked up the papers,
and that was what it was all about.

[male reporter]
Fear has spread in this city.

Streets and residential areas
are deserted late at night.

[James Justus] Lovers' lanes were emptied.

Spots where young people congregated.

The police department was given an order
to get them, basically, out of harm's way.

We used to stay
in front of my house and park,

and kiss goodnight,
but we can't do that no more.

[Klausner] The vulnerability
was not just in a lovers' lane.

It was walking down the street.

You were vulnerable any place.
That was the fear.

Fear became pervasive.

[reporter 1] Fear that the gunman's
waiting to strike

has unnerved young women
throughout Queens and The Bronx.

[reporter 2] By day, young women can be
seen wearing their hair in kerchiefs

or pinned up.

I'm afraid to go out in the car.
I'm afraid to do anything.

Never know where he'll be.

I thought of maybe dyeing it
a little redder or something, really.

To be honest, you know,
because just having short, brown hair…

[reporter 3] Do many women come in
who want their hair shortened?

[woman] Uh, yes, I do.

They get their hair cut short.
Even though it's not so becoming on them.

[car horns honking]

[Justus] The scope of what he was doing,

just nonchalantly walking up to cars
and blowing people's brains out…

There was no rhyme nor reason.

Were we looking for one person?
Were we looking for two?

We didn't know.

It's a big city.

And to find one little speck
in a big city is difficult.

[siren wailing]

[Brokaw] In New York, the search
continues for the .44 Caliber Killer,

one of the biggest manhunts
in this city's history.

[Terry] Like everyone in New York,

I was captivated by the unfolding drama
of the .44 Caliber Killer.

[Brokaw continues indistinctly]

[Terry] I had no special knowledge
of the case.

I was an outsider, like everyone else.

Yet, reading the newspaper
and watching television,

my mind was transfixed
on the mystery of who this killer was.

They don't know.

[Terry] And, most importantly,

exactly where he would strike next.

[Charlie Ott] Maury had a propensity
to be good at word games

and puzzles and cryptic messages.

He had a memory like a trap.

We'd listen to a lot of 45 records.

And Maury could tell you the artist,
the name of the song,

who the record company was,

and what number it was
on the charts at the current day.

I don't remember what I had for breakfast.

[Phil Amicone] Maury could rename
every statistic

about the sports teams that he followed,
like the Giants.

He had that kind of a memory.

His recall was pretty amazing.

[Ott] He was always questioning.

One day I said to him,

"You know,
I'm very uncomfortable around you."

He said, "What do you mean by that?"
And I said, "You're like a cop."

I said, "I feel like
I'm under an inquisition.

I'm being questioned."

And he said, "I do that?"
I said, "You do it all the time."

And it was his nature to be that way.

You have to have
a certain mind to do that.

[ominous music playing]

[reporter] Early yesterday,
the killer struck again in the Bronx,

two blocks from his first attack.

18-year-old Valentina Suriani

and her steady boyfriend,
20-year-old Alexander Esau,

were parked in his car on the Hutchinson
River Parkway service road.

At 3:00 a.m., three shots
tore through the side window of the car.

Valentina died,
a bullet wound in the head.

Alexander was hit twice in the head.
He died at nine o'clock last night.

At the scene of the Suriani-Esau homicide,
he left a letter.

It was addressed to me.

"Mr. Joe Borrelli, Queens Homicide."

"I'm deeply hurt
by you calling me a wemon hater.

I am not.

But I am a monster.

I am the Son of Sam.

When father Sam gets drunk, he gets mean.
He beats his family.

Sam loves to drink blood.

'Go out and kill,' commands father Sam.

I am the monster Beelzebub,
the chubby behemoth.

I love to hunt, prowling the streets,
looking for fair game.

Mr. Borrelli, sir
I don't want to kill anymore.

No, sir. No more.
But I must honor thy father.

Police, let me haunt you
with these words.

I'll be back. I'll be back.

Yours in murder, Mr. Monster."

[papers rustling]

[ominous music playing]

[Hopkins] The language in that letter,
I've never heard it or seen before.

It was unnerving.
Captain Borrelli had four daughters.

Unbeknownst to Captain Borrelli,

we set it up
to have surveillance on his house.

When a psychotic person
sends you a demonic letter

directed towards the police,
yeah, that's taunting.

[Belsky] It was huge.

Everybody is basically terrified.

And the police, they don't really know.
They're checking out everything.

But it's very hard
to get a handle on this killer.

[male reporter] The NYPD's
Dr. Harvey Schlossberg,

one of the nation's better-known
criminal psychologists,

believes the killer
has sexual inadequacies.

…killings, and the only way
he can act out his total inadequacy

is to go out and to kill.

To him, this is the equivalent of sex.

In an analytic sense, symbolic sense,
the shooting is the orgasm,

and the revolver itself,
the gun itself, of course,

is the symbolic phallus.

[reporter] In a letter,
he called himself "the Son of Sam."

What do you make of that name?

Well, we have had all kinds of guesses
as to what that designation means.

People in the Vietnam War
called themselves "sons of Sam,"

meaning sons of Uncle Sam.

Of course,
we have it also connected with Satanism.

"Son of Sam" being Sam the Devil.

We just don't know what he means.

[Klausner]
Why does a killer write the letter?

Number one, he wants to be heard.
"There's a reason I'm doing this.

You don't understand my reason.
Let me tell you my reason."

There was this interchange between killer,

police and, eventually, a reporter.

[reporter] You've covered lots
of police work in New York.

The cops who are working on this case…
Different? Special?

Yeah, no, it's one of those cases that
takes a piece of everybody's mind.

It's got them crazy.

[Klausner] Jimmy Breslin was
the visible voice of the Daily News.

People in the city
actually knew what Jimmy looked like.

And people bought that newspaper,
the Daily News, because of him.

[indistinct conversations, phones ringing]

[reporter] Breslin
of the New York Daily News,

wrote a column about the killer.

[Hopkins] Jimmy Breslin, he writes
an article telling the Son of Sam to stop.

[male reporter] And Son of Sam
responded with a letter.

[Klausner] When Jimmy Breslin
gets a letter,

he doesn't turn it over to the police
immediately

because there's an edition
that we can put this in.

[ominous music playing]

[Terry] The Breslin letter was a chilling
correspondence from the killer.

"Hello from the gutters of New York City,

which are filled with dog manure, vomit,
stale wine, urine, and blood.

Mr. Breslin, sir, don't think that

because you haven't heard from me
for a while that I went to sleep.

No, rather, I am still here,

like a spirit roaming the night.

Not knowing what the future holds,
I shall say farewell.

And I will see you at the next job.

In their blood and from the gutter,
'Sam's Creation' .44."

The letter included
a series of mysterious nicknames.

The Duke of Death. The Wicked King Wicker.

And John Wheaties,
rapist and suffocator of young girls…

all clues from a killer
playing a deadly game.

[Breslin] The letter was very eerie.

Then you know
that he read something that you wrote

and that, somewhere out there,
he's reading again.

[Klausner] By the time
the police get this letter,

Jimmy Breslin
has the journalistic world by the leg.

[reporter] Son of Sam was a big story
for all, but it was bigger for Breslin.

The killer chose Breslin
as his conduit to a larger public.

[Klausner] This was the first case

where the press took a hand
in not reporting the news necessarily,

but creating the news.

One of the most disgusting episodes
I've seen in journalism,

pandering to the series of murders--

You have problems
with publishing that letter?

Obviously,
you're not in the news business.

This was a time of massive change.

Probably the biggest transformation
that's ever taken place

in New York City, or any, journalism.

There were only three papers.

The New York Times, the New York
Daily News, the New York Post.

You have to remember,
there's no Internet, no social media.

There was no cable news shows.

Of course, this was a great get
for the Daily News. It was huge.

People that weren't so happy about it
were the people at the New York Post.

Yeah, at that time,
Murdoch was just building his empire.

[indistinct chatter]

He wanted those headlines

as big, crazy, and as fearmongering
as you could possibly get 'em.

That's what sold.

Terror sold.

[Terry] As much as I tried
to ignore the hysteria

being hawked from every street corner,

the panic was growing, all around me.

Of course,
the odds against a particular person

being shot by the Son of Sam were immense.

But facts don't sell newspapers.

That was one lesson I had learned
all too well.

[Georgiana Byrne] Maury was working
at IBM at that time.

He was the editor of their research
magazine out of Yorktown, New York.

And I remember him telling me
about how he first got into journalism.

It was in 1968 during
the Martin Luther King assassination.

[camera shutter clicking]

He was a cub reporter for a newspaper,
a local newspaper.

It was a very, very stressful time
in the United States.

[people clamoring]

[Terry] In the days following
the assassination of Martin Luther King,

-riots broke out across the country.
-[people chanting]

As I returned from covering a basketball
tournament in Port Chester, New York,

I found a two-block stretch of downtown
had turned into an urban battlefield.

[people shouting indistinctly]

The flames and the rioters ran wild

as the police and firefighters
ducked bricks and bottles.

I stood with them on the street
that night, all of 21 years of age,

before going back to the paper
to write the story as I had seen it.

There had been extensive property damage
and 19 arrests.

But the editors killed the story
and compiled their own.

[Byrne] They just said
that everything was quiet,

and everything was good, and no problems.

And that was a lie.

And he knew it.

And he was very,
very disheartened by that.

He wrote the facts.

He wrote the truth.

And they totally destroyed his story
and put out a false narrative.

It made him a little angry.

He never forgot it.

After that, he was determined
that when he wrote something,

it was gonna be published
the way it should be published.

A sense of justice,
I believe, was something that drove him.

I really do think so.

He always did have that drive to say,
"I'm gonna find out the truth."

[siren wailing]

[ominous music playing]

[reporter] For almost a year,
the NYPD's been looking

for a murderer
they call the .44 Caliber Killer.

Overnight, he hit again. This time,
wounding a young couple parked in a car.

[male reporter 1] It was his
seventh attack in 11 months.

Police found a familiar pattern.

This car, parked early in the morning,
not far from a nightspot.

A pretty girl with long, dark hair
and her date

hit by .44 caliber bullets fired
without warning through a side window.

[male reporter 2] Lupo and Placido
both survived,

although one shot missed Ms. Placido's
spinal cord by two centimeters.

[Murphy] I remember the shooting
near the Elephas disco.

This was in Bayside, Queens. It was maybe
about a mile or two from where I lived.

Judy Placido, her hair was long and dark.

Just when it happened so close,

that really set some fear into me
about going out.

[Belsky] People stopped going to clubs,
afraid to go out

because they they'd get shot
by Son of Sam.

[Ott] Boyfriends were in fear
of their girlfriends being next victim.

Husbands were worried about their wives.
They sold out of pepper spray.

People bought weapons.

And a lot of looking over your shoulder
was going on.

And that affected, what,
eight or nine million people.

[suspenseful music playing]

It was like a powder keg. You didn't know
when it was going to explode.

[siren wailing]

The New York City area

and its 10 million people
were blacked out last night

by an electrical power failure.

While most New Yorkers were coping,

thousands of others
seized a chance to loot.

[reporter 1] A night illuminated
by the flames of arsonists,

punctured by the laughter of looters,
shattered by the crying of their victims.

[reporter 2] Thousands took
to the streets, looting and burning,

shocking many of their neighbors.

The cover of total darkness

allowed the lowest qualities
of previously peaceful people to surface.

[Belsky] You've got a serial killer
running out there, in Son of Sam,

and you've got people
running around the streets looting

and neighborhoods literally burning.

It just all came together in this feeling

-that the city was just out of control.
-[helicopter blades whirring]

And it kept getting worse
and worse and worse.

[siren wailing]

We ready?

[reporter] A question New Yorkers
have been asking a lot lately.

Are we ready for another blackout
or a bus hijacking

or a bombing or another murder
by the .44 Caliber Killer?

There was a big feeling
among the investigators

that, on the anniversary
of the first shooting, he would hit again.

[reporter] "Tell me, Jim,
what will you have for July 29th?

You must not forget Donna Lauria.

She was a very, very sweet girl."

[Belsky]
It started with the Breslin letter.

Donna Lauria, the first shooting,
we now knew had been on the 29th.

So the idea is he's going to kill somebody
on the anniversary.

I think everybody, including the police,
was operating on that theory.

I think, at this point, his reason
for committing the crimes has changed.

I see it as kind of

becoming a cat-and-mouse thing.

I was gonna go to a party
Friday night, and I'm not goin'.

-How come?
-I'm scared.

He's crazy. He's killing all these people.
I'd be stupid to go out.

He's making it known that something's
gonna happen Friday night.

He strikes on a full moon,
and this Saturday night's a full moon,

and Friday's the 29th, and that's
the anniversary of Donna Lauria,

so, like, everybody better be cool.

[suspenseful music playing]

[Terry] For the past 12 months, a deranged
madman had been set loose upon the city,

shooting down young girls and couples
as they embraced in parked cars,

stood on porches,
or walked the night streets.

And tonight,
that anniversary of mayhem had arrived.

[Borrelli] We went all out.
Cover the bridges.

Cover all the parking places
where young kids may go.

Lovers' lanes.

We had an awful lot of cops on the street,

plus the entire task force,
which numbered over 300 at that time.

Everybody was workin'.

[Keenan] We're dealing with a cunning man,
who plans what he intends to do well.

And when he does it, he does it well.

He plans coming to the scene,

he plans his remaining at the scene,
and he plans his leaving the scene.

[Borrelli] We wound up putting wigs
on detectives,

one to be the counterpart
of a female in the car.

One of the detectives said to his partner,

"Now remember, tonight,
when you kiss me, keep your eyes open."

Sometimes you need
to break the tension.

[Terry] As the clock inched past midnight,
the great metropolis was in turmoil.

A task force larger
than most American police departments

was hunting the Son of Sam

in one of the deadliest scenarios
New York had ever seen.

[male reporter] By night, police saturate
neighborhoods where the killer has struck.

Disguised as regular neighborhood toughs,
they cruise in unmarked cars

and check people who are still out
long after midnight.

-[man] How are ya? You police officers?
-Nope.

-[man] You have some ID maybe?
-Yeah, here.

[male reporter] There was a brief chase

after a report of a driver
acting suspiciously,

trying to evade police.

Within moments, the driver was surrounded
by a half dozen unmarked police cars

and a dozen officers.

We have to do our job this way.

It's tough. We never did it this way.
We have to now.

-[man] I understand. I'm fine.
-Thanks.

[reporter] Another false alarm in a case
that's produced hundreds of false alarms.

But each has to be checked out

in the hope that the .44 Caliber Killer
can be stopped before he strikes again.

[tires squeal]

-[officer 1] Downtown on the map.
-[officer 2] What type of gun is that?

-That's a .38.
-A .38?

-To me, it looks like a service revolver.
-You don't know anybody carrying a .44?

[reporter] Worried about this anniversary?

[Keenan]
We're worried about every day and night.

But we also believe

that the boroughs of Bronx and Queens
are heavily covered with manpower.

I think we'll be successful.

You can't just hope to find…

You can't hope to be lucky.
You have to prepare to be lucky.

[tense music playing]

[birds chirping]

[Klausner] But it passed.

Nothing happened.

[Borrelli] Don't know how many cops
we had working that night.

We just thought, "Thank God he didn't
do anything, and no one was injured."

[male interviewer] Have you ever
run across a killer like this?

[Borrelli] 12, 14, 16, 18 hours.
Some nights not even going home.

You know, it bears on you. It really does.

[male reporter]
What'll it take to break this?

A lot of luck.

We'll have to be in the right place
at the right time, I feel.

[detective 1] It's frustrating.

Every night we go out,
all the detectives in this office,

we have high hopes
that we're gonna find the guy,

we're gonna spot him on the street, and,
after a while, you actually get weary.

[detective 2] He'll make a mistake.

-[interviewer] One mistake to get him?
-That's all. One mistake.

They'll get him. Somebody's gonna get him.

[siren wailing]

[woman] The four shots went off,
and we knew it was shots. It had to be.

And then this horn
started beeping incessantly.

And then this man started screaming,
"Help me, God, help me."

And the guy was slouched.

And he was covered with blood.

And the girl was covered with blood.

It was a horror.

[gasps]

[reporter 1] Stacy Moskowitz,
20 years old, blonde.

Robert Violante, also age 20,

both shot twice in the head

as they sat in their car
in Brooklyn, New York.

[reporter 2] A year and two days
after the first shooting,

Son of Sam
hit for the first time in Brooklyn.

The details cruelly familiar.

[reporter 1] During the past year,
police have worked with five sketches,

all different somehow.

Authorities may now have a break.
There were eyewitnesses Sunday morning.

[man] I seen a guy comin' out of the park.

He had, uh, light-colored, straggly hair,

and soon as he shot,
he put the gun down, and he ran.

He ran back where he came out of,
right out of the park.

[reporter 4] Police are clearly alarmed
the killer has moved into another borough.

Witnesses described a yellow Volkswagen
that had been cruising the area,

but it was not located.

It was actually a sigh of relief
when ballistics experts confirmed

that this attack was indeed made
by the Son of Sam

and not by some other madman
seeking his own moment of infamy.

As one cop told me, "We haven't been able
to catch one of them.

Just imagine if we were after two."

[man] As the condition of one
of the killer's latest victims worsened,

the parents of Stacy Moskowitz
were summoned to the hospital.

When a surgeon came out

and told the Violantes that the chances
were strong their son would be blind,

Mrs. Violante turned and punched the wall
and began to cry.

-[punches wall, sobs]
-[Pasquale Violante] Just praying for him.

[nurse] Okay, let's go.

I told him to stay out of Queens.
He said, "I'll do it for you and Mom.

I'll hang around in Brooklyn."
And that's where they found him.

[reporter 1] Officials say Miss Moskowitz
remains in critical condition

after eight hours of surgery.

She is given a 50/50 chance of living.

[reporter 2] Anthony Robinson, a friend
of Miss Moskowitz, addressed the gunman.

First of all, you're sick.

You're crazy.

You're going around
shooting the wrong people.

Police now theorize

that the man who calls himself
the Son of Sam may be wearing a wig.

Some witnesses say he had curly hair,
others, straight hair,

and the most recent, light hair.

But probably the best description
of the man

comes from the chief of detectives,
John Keenan,

who described the deranged killer

as a man who is clever, cunning,
and knows how to plan a murder.

[mysterious music playing]

[male reporter 1] The .44 Caliber Killer,

on the loose
in New York for a year and three days,

has claimed another victim.

[male reporter 2] Stacy Moskowitz,
a pretty, 20-year-old blonde,

became the sixth to die
in the killer's string of attacks.

-At the hospital, her father was stunned.
-How did this happen?

I still tell ya,
I lost somethin' very dear to me.

A great kid.

[sniffles]

That an animal
should snuff away a life of a young girl,

blind a young boy, and has killed others,

and will probably go on killing…

An animal like this has to be caught.

[woman] People in this neighborhood
won't stand for that.

A lot of 'em want to get the guy
because they know the people,

and I'd like to see him tortured!

Not arrested and put in jail. I'd like
to see him tortured for what he did.

They're trying to do everything
they can, but maybe it's not enough.

Maybe they have to call in help
from the federal government.

All the lovers' lane areas
in New York City,

the police should have had
someone staked out.

And it could be any one of us.

It's about time
we all started to do something

to see that the city should do
what they're supposed to do.

I don't think that any case could have had
any more pressure to solve it than this.

The most famous of all mass murderers,
the most infamous, was Jack the Ripper.

His name is synonymous with terror
and with sudden, violent death.

Yet Jack the Ripper assaulted
a total of five women, all prostitutes,

in the Whitechapel section of London,
in a three-month period in 1888.

The man who calls himself Son of Sam
has already outlasted Jack the Ripper

and outdone him.

[Borrelli] There's no way to describe
that task force office

after Moskowitz got shot.

[phones ringing]

Twenty-four hours,
the telephone did not stop ringing.

[Hopkins] Everywhere you went
at that time, people would question you.

Neighbors and friends would question you,
"What's going on?"

So, do you take that personal?
Sure, you take it personal.

[indistinct chatter]

-[Keenan] All right.
-[man] Quiet down.

[Keenan] We are distributing today
the new composite drawing

of the .44 Killer,

provided… Based on descriptions provided
by witnesses to the shooting on July 31st.

[reporter 1] How would you describe

the differences between
the old sketches and this one?

Well, uh, as you can probably see,
there are differences,

but we also see similarities
between the old sketches and this one.

We have more people this time who saw
the killer than at any time in the past,

and I feel that we're making progress.

[reporter 2]
Chief, has any serious thought

been given by the men
handling this investigation

to the possibility of two killers?

That there are two people
who are the Son of Sam,

who know each other
and who are working in concert?

[Keenan] No, there's no reason
we would have to conclude that.

None at all?

[Keenan] No.

[reporter 2] Okay.

[Terry] The hunt for the Son of Sam
had been thrown into chaos,

and the public was losing faith.

I feel they're not doing
the right job about finding the guy.

-[reporter] Police?
-Definitely. That's how I feel.

And if I ever had him in my hands,
that would be another story.

[Terry] The politicians
were under intense pressure.

Don't give him to the cops or these boys.
Give him to us mothers.

We wanna handle him the way we want to.

[Terry] While the police were chasing
ghosts all over the metropolitan area.

[reporter] One detective
from the special force

summed up the new situation.

"We know less now than we knew yesterday,"
he said.

[Terry] Those in charge
were desperate for a break.

[ominous music playing]

[Justus] After the Brooklyn shooting,

I was assigned to check

if I could find out anything
on the summons issued that night.

[dog barking]

So I went to the precinct,
looked through the summons receipt book,

and, sure enough, there was a summons.

Got the name and address of the owner,

David Berkowitz from Yonkers.

First thing I'm thinking is,

"What's a young Jewish guy from Yonkers
doing in this neighborhood?"

So I called Yonkers PD
to find out if they knew anything.

And, as luck would have it,
the dispatcher that particular night

who answered my phone call
was a girl called Wheat Carr.

And as soon as I mentioned the name
"David Berkowitz" to her,

she said, "Let me tell you about him.

I know him. He lives right behind me."

She also informed me that Berkowitz
had shot their black Labrador.

And that it was her father's, Sam's, dog.

Soon as I heard "Sam," I thought,

"Hmm!

Okay."

I had a very good feeling

that this is the guy we're looking for.

I went back to my inspector,
and he said, "How did it go?"

And I said, "I think we got him.
I really think we got him."

[indistinct police radio chatter]

[helicopter whirring]

[Klausner] Four detectives from Brooklyn
drive up out of New York City to Yonkers

and stake out the address on Pine Street.

You have to understand
that they're blind in this.

They have no idea
what David Berkowitz looks like.

But they find his car.

[Justus] They look
through the side window,

and they saw, in the rear floor,
the butt of a gun.

[Klausner] The police break in the car
without a search warrant.

They go into the glove compartment,

and there's a letter
that the Son of Sam has written,

talking about going out to Long Island
to shoot up a discotheque.

And then this deputy sheriff comes out,
and they say, "Do you live here?"

"Yes."

"Do you know this guy David Berkowitz?"

"I know who he is. I can identify him."

So they say, "Well, sit in the car.
If he comes out, let us know it's him."

[Glassman] About 8:45,
a subject came out of the building.

I looked out,
and I said to the two officers,

"I think this might be him
coming towards the car."

He stopped, opened the door. I said,
"This is him." I jumped out of the car.

I ran down the street,
pulled my revolver, pointed it at him.

We said, "Freeze. Police.
Turn the key off.

Get out of the car.
Put your hands on the roof."

[Justus] And he was asked,
"Are you David Berkowitz?"

And his answer was,

"No, I'm the Son of Sam. And you got me."

[dramatic music playing]

-[woman] Bobby!
-[man] Come on.

[man 2] Keep recording.

[woman] Bob!

-[man 1] With me.
-[man 2] Yep!

[woman] There he is.

-[officer] Take it easy.
-[man] Get outta here!

[photographer] Clear the way.

A picture, please.
Come on. Move this way, please.

Come on. Watch that. Watch it, now.

[officer] You're gonna get hurt.
Now, please.

Why didn't you set it up
to bring him in the back?

[woman] I don't think that was fair.

[people talking indistinctly]

-[man] Sneak him in the back?
-He walked in that door.

Don't gimme this shit.
It's all over. It's done.

[people talking indistinctly]

You interested in listening to me
or you wanna talk?

From the top of his head, he's 5'8".
From the top of his hair, he's 5'9".

He's now being strip searched.

And the rest of the details
will go on in time.

We'll tell you when he moves to court.

[man] Frank, you screwed up,
almost caused a riot out there.

-Which idiot thought that up?
-Fuck you! You wanna argue about idiots?

I'll argue personally with you,
you son of a bitch.

So don't put this shit on me.

We made more fuckin' opportunities tonight

-than you've had in a hundred years.
-[man] Whoo!

-[woman] Can you make your statement?
-Don't pull it again.

Last statement or another one?

[Coffey] From now on,
it's a district attorney's case.

It is no longer a police department case.
Okay?

The man has been captured.
The police department has done its job.

From now on, it's in the hands
of the district attorneys

of the respective counties
that have to prosecute him.

We cannot tell you any more than that.

If you want pictures of him coming out,
it may take six or seven hours.

Or five or six hours. Whatever.

Be there when it happens.
That's all I can tell you.

[reporter] This is the man
police believe is the Son of Sam.

He is David Berkowitz, a 24-year-old
postal worker who lived alone.

He was smiling as he was brought in.

It's a .44-caliber Bulldog.

[reporter] Detectives displayed a pistol
found in Berkowitz's car.

The police lab said this was the gun used
in the most recent Son of Sam slaying.

[man] Quiet!

I am very pleased to announce that the…

people of the city of New York
can rest easy this morning,

because of the fact
that the police have captured

a man whom they believe
to be the Son of Sam.

I feel great.

And I think the police
did a tremendous job.

They're the best police force
in the world.

[reporter] You saw the Son of Sam
as he was brought in.

What feelings did you have?

Well, I was a little surprised
that, uh, I saw a person of his stature.

He seemed to be
a very well-built and heavy person.

And he didn't resemble
the recent set of sketches.

When I walked in, he looked at me,
said, "I know who you are."

I says, "Who am I?" He said,
"You're Borrelli. I sent you a letter."

All the evidence pointed to him.
We had the confession.

We had the ballistics. All that matched.

And I felt pretty confident
we had our guy.

Mayor Beame walked into
the Chief of Detectives' office.

I walked over to him.

I says, "You know,
the police department has a rule.

No alcoholic beverages allowed
in police headquarters."

I says, "I think we're about
to break that rule tonight."

He reached in his pocket,
and he gave me two $100 bills.

He says, "Enjoy yourselves."

[Clark] Abe Beame had bought whisky, beer.
So they were all indulging in that.

And I sneak into the room.

I sit down across from Berkowitz and, uh…
I didn't know what to expect.

But he couldn't have been happier
to talk about what he'd done

and why he had done it.

"Sam" was a 6,000-year-old being
talking to him through this dog,

calling for blood.

And he used to drive around every night,

waiting for the… the sign.

[reporter] David Berkowitz, 24 years old,

a postal worker, walked out
of his apartment last night,

turned the ignition key in his car,
and found himself surrounded by police.

"Well," he said, "you've got me."

[Terry] The news that
the Son of Sam was caught,

reverberated around the world.

[reporter] It's all over. How do you feel?

Fantastic. We're so relieved,
the whole family.

My husband called me
this morning at 7:30 from Jersey.

"They caught him!" I really…
It's like a big load off our backs.

-Praise the Lord.
-No, we're happy.

It's over. We're very, very happy.

[Borrelli]
When that case was solved,

I never saw a reaction from the public
to the police like that.

There was adoration, respect, everything
for the police department after that case.

None of the detectives could buy a drink
at a bar for a long time.

It turned around a whole city.

[Terry] While the rest of New York
celebrated the capture,

there was something
about the arrest of David Berkowitz,

this mild-mannered postal worker,
that just didn't feel quite right.

[reporter] How'd you feel
when you heard he was the man?

I was shocked. I couldn't believe it.
I still don't believe it, you know.

'Cause he was such a quiet guy,
and he did his work.

[reporter] All the people I spoke to
said they never suspected Berkowitz.

[female reporter] 35 Pine Street, Yonkers,
a nice building in a nice neighborhood.

Apartment 7E was home to David Berkowitz.

No one here really knew him,
although almost everyone knew who he was.

Quiet, perhaps a little strange,
but certainly not murderous.

-[reporter] You saw him, knew him?
-Yes, he was a nice man.

He always said, "Hello,"
and, "How are you doing?"

I would never think
that he was the Son of Sam.

I may have seen him in the building.
A lot of people come in and out.

But I don't think that picture
looked anything like him.

[Terry] Like many of my neighbors,

I was shocked that the .44-Caliber Killer
was living in my own backyard,

in my hometown of Yonkers.

[Ott] Maury was in disbelief.

It was taking place in his hometown,
less than a mile away from where he lived.

Maury was the type of person
that was always questioning all the time.

[camera shutters clicking]

[Terry] As the press jockeyed
for that perfect picture,

I couldn't help but wonder
about this so-called Son of Sam.

Comparing his likeness to the sketches,
it didn't make sense.

How could all of those witnesses
and all of those sketches be wrong?

[Zuckerman] I think fairly early
after the arrest, Maury wondered,

"Now the police have arrested somebody,
um, but the sketches don't add up."

The police dismissed it, saying, you know,
"Oh, eyewitnesses are frequently wrong."

In my experience, eyewitnesses are wrong
within a certain range.

You're not going to mistake Berkowitz
for being, uh, six feet tall and blond.

I think Maury was onto something.

What else could be going on here?

[reporter 1]
Berkowitz reportedly told police

he'd taken his orders
from a dog named Sam.

A dog that belonged to a neighbor,
Sam Carr.

[reporter 2] This house in Yonkers
is owned by Sam Carr.

It is just up the hill
from the .44-Caliber Killer.

Hi. Hello, sir.
I'm Jimmy Walker with ABC News. Mr. Carr?

-[Carr] No.
-[reporter] Sorry to bother you.

It's all right. He's not here.

-He's not inside?
-No. Pardon me.

[Walker] Hey, ma'am?

Yonkers Police headquarters
will release any and all information,

and I understand
they'll issue a statement.

-[Walker] Can we talk to Mr. Carr?
-[woman] No.

[barks]

[Terry] My gut was telling me
there was more to this demon dog story.

But how, exactly,
did the Carrs fit into the puzzle?

Wondering whether I should go
talk to the family myself,

I looked up their number in the phone book
and saw the name "John Wheat Carr,"

who lived at the same address as Sam Carr.

The name rang a bell.

I looked back at the Son of Sam letter
sent to Jimmy Breslin, and there it was.

I was floored.

Could this John Wheat Carr

and the "John Wheaties" alias
in the letter be one and the same?

A few days later,
a friend gave me a photo of John Carr.

[dramatic music plays]

Putting the photo and the sketch together,
I couldn't believe what I was seeing.

[eerie music playing]

And what the police had missed.

[applause]

[Codd] The successful conclusion
of this investigation again

typifies the reason

why the New York City Police Department
has long been known as the finest.

[Terry]
Officially, the case was closed.

The hunt was over.

The police had their man.

To the world,
David Berkowitz was the Son of Sam.

[woman] I feel much safer
walking the streets of New York.

Much safer. I can go out at night,
go to the discotheques.

It's great. I feel so much safer
going out at night.

[Terry] But what if there was
more to the story?

[suspenseful music playing]

What if John Wheat Carr, the real-life son
of Sam Carr, was involved?

And what if this nightmare
was just beginning?

[closing theme music plays]