Original subtitles

[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]