Letters from Hell

‘Son of Sam' stalked the streets of New York City

By David Cocksedge

‘HELLO FROM the gutters of New York City which are filled with dog manure, vomit, stale wine, urine and blood. Hello from the sewers of New York City which swallow up these delicacies when they are washed away by the sweeper trucks. Hello from the cracks in the sidewalks of New York City and from the ants that dwell in these cracks and feed on the dried blood of the dead that has seeped into these cracks.'

Thus began a letter sent to columnist Jimmy Breslin of the New York Daily News dated 30 May 1977 . The letter concluded, ‘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. Thirsty, hungry, seldom stopping to rest.' It was signed, ‘Son of Sam' and came from a serial killer New York Police had named ‘The .44 killer' because he used a .44 calibre handgun to shoot his victims in the areas of the Bronx and Queens in this vast, teeming city. Breslin called it a letter from hell.

Post Office worker David Berkowitz was a man of letters. He even may have personally overseen, through the city's mail system, the chilling notes he wrote and sent to police and media giving tantalising clues to one of the USA 's most wanted serial killers during the 1970's.

Berkowitz was a stalker of young women who prowled the streets of NYC at night searching out his prey. No one who worked alongside him by day could ever have guessed at the deadly double-life that this loner was leading. The plump, angel-faced bachelor brought terror throughout his year-long reign, and as he got bolder, he could not resist taunting the police with a series of letters bragging about his deeds.

Between 29 July 1976 and 1 August 1977 , Berkowitz killed six women and badly wounded another seven. Pressure grew on the New York City Police Department crime division to capture the gun-toting killer. It was a pressure that Berkowitz noted with glee. So he took to his tiny suburban apartment to pen letters bragging about his murders. One of his ‘epics' read: ‘And huge drops of lead poured down upon her head until she was dead. Yet, the cats still come out at night to mate, and the sparrows still sing in the morning.'

David Richard Berkowitz was born in Brooklyn , New York City on 1 June 1953 . His given name was Richard David Falco and Berkowitz was the name of his adoptive parents. His birth parents were Betty Broder, who grew up into a poor Jewish family and Joseph Kleinman, with whom Broder whilst had an affair whilst still married to her husband, Tony Falco. The ‘Son of Sam' nickname came from his neighbour Sam Carr. According to Berkowitz, Carr was a ‘high demon' who sent his evil Labrador retriever named Harvey to command Berkowitz to go out and kill. He later shot the dog following one of his murders, but it survived. Berkowitz now asserts that he made up the whole crazy story to reinforce a defence that he was legally mad.

Criminal psychologists are divided on just what drove Berkowitz to become a murderer, but his case file perfectly fits the classic profile of a serial killer: a loner with no friends, seemingly harmless to all that know him, but a man harbouring a hidden obsessive streak. Berkowitz enlisted in the army at the age of 18 in 1971 and before he left three years later, he converted from Judaism to fundamentalist Christianity.

He became a fanatic, often trying to convert fellow troopers and local residents of Louisville , Kentucky , where he was stationed. He would preach to them from a street-corner pulpit, warning of “the burning fires of Hell” that lay in wait for all sinners. “Repent before it is too late!” he would shout.

In the spring of 1974 Berkowitz returned to New York City and rented an apartment in the Bronx . After a spell as a security guard, he joined the postal service where he sorted mail. By now he kept largely to himself, nursing perverted fantasies which he put into practice two years later.

Berkowitz struck first near his home in the early hours of 29 July 1976 . Donna Lauria, a pretty dark-haired 18-year-old was just getting out of a car belonging to her friend Jody Valente outside an apartment belonging to Donna's parents. Suddenly a man ran from the shadows, stood on the footpath and pulled a handgun from a brown paper bag. From a crouching position, he fired five rounds. Donna was hit by three bullets and died instantly; Jody caught the other two and fell badly wounded. In a city over-run with murder, it was just another senseless shooting as far as the New York City Police Homicide Division was concerned. Donna's parents were left to grieve as their daughter's death became yesterday's news.

The killer opened fire again on 23 October 1976 . This time the target was a courting couple in a parked car at Flushing in Queens . Carl Denaro (20) had his plans to enlist in the US Air Force shattered as he was struck in the head by a .44 calibre round. His girlfriend, Rosemary Keenan (18) remarkably was not hit as Berkowitz fired three shots at the parked vehicle. Again, the crime had no special significance for New York 's finest who in fairness were dealing with an average of thirty murders a week.

Even when two other young women were shot and seriously wounded just over a month later in the Bronx, detectives still did not realise that the city was in the grip of a serial killer, shooting citizens at random. It was not until Christine Wheeler (18) was shot to death in Queens in February 1977 that police became alerted to the possibility that a maniac with a .44 handgun and a grudge against pretty girls was on the loose.

The ‘0.44 killer Task Force' (‘Operation Omega') was organised in March 1977, following the death of Virginia Voskerichian, a Bulgarian resident in NYC. Hundreds of leads were followed up by a special squad of over 300 men, but no motive could be found. The only common links were that young women were being targeted and ballistics tests confirmed that the same weapon was used on all the victims.

NYPD murder squad detectives were called to a bloody scene in Queens on 17 April 1977 where Valentina Suriana (19) and her boyfriend Alexander Esau (21) had both been shot dead. This time the killer had left more than bodies and .44 calibre cartridges in his wake. Under the woman's body was a letter from ‘Son of Sam'. He wrote that he was ‘deeply hurt' that newspapers were calling him a women-hater. ‘I am not', wrote Berkowitz, ‘but I am a monster. I am the Son of Sam. I am a little brat. Sam loves to drink blood. Go out and kill! Commands father Sam. I am on a different wavelength to everybody else – I am programmed to kill. To stop me, you must kill me. Attention all police: shoot me first. Shoot to kill or else! Keep out of my way or you will die! I am the monster – Beelzebub, the chubby behemoth. I love to hunt; prowling the streets looking for fair game – tasty meat. I live for the hunt; this is my life. I don't belong on this earth. I'll be back! I'll be back. Yours in murder, Mr Monster, Son of Sam.'

Police felt sure that Son of Sam would strike again on 29 July 1977 , the anniversary of his first attack. Berkowitz instead used his gun the very next night, killing Stacy Moskowitz and injuring her boyfriend, Robert Violante as they sat in the latter's car parked in a Brooklyn street.

By now the Son of Sam murders were getting maximum publicity worldwide, and citizens of New York City walked the nights in terror. Berkowitz was writing his twisted letters to Breslin, who published them, along with his replies, urging the maniac to give himself up. Circulation of the New York Daily News soared. But by August 1977 the reign of terror inflicted by Son of Sam was about to end.

Ten days after the Moskowitz murder Yonkers police received a call from Detective James Justus at the 10 th Precinct in Brooklyn . Justus had been calling the owners of several cars which had been given parking tickets around the vicinity of the murder scene, hoping that one of them might have seen something of relevance to the investigation. It was boring, routine police work, and no-one seriously expected anything to come of it. But Justus was an experienced cop, and he knew that such mundane tasks had to be done.

Justus noted that his repeated calls to the owner of a 1970 Ford Galaxie were never answered. The vehicle had been ticketed for parking too close to a fire hydrant just thirty minutes before the murder of Ms Moskowitz. He recommended to Yonkers police that the driver be tracked down and interviewed. On 10 August, two detectives, (Ed Zigo and John Longo) duly went up to Yonkers to meet this latest suspect: a certain Mr David Berkowitz.

After locating his apartment building on Pine Street , the detectives spotted his vehicle, licence plate 561XLB, parked thirty yards away and strolled over to investigate it. Through the windows, they noticed a rifle butt protruding from a duffel bag and decided to probe further. They radioed for a search warrant, citing ‘probable cause' and broke into the car. In the glove box was an envelope addressed to Timothy Dowd, the deputy inspector who led the Operation Omega Task Force. Zigo carefully opened it and read the enclosed letter in shocked amazement. Berkowitz had intended to leave the letter by his next victim, writing it in advance. Son of Sam promised more attacks, including a bloody massacre at a night club on the eastern tip of Long Island . This was to be his chance to ‘go out in a blaze of glory.' He planned to execute as many people as possible and then die by his own hands.

The Task Force at last had their ‘smoking gun' in the Son of Sam case. In answer to further calls, more police swiftly arrived at the scene and put a ‘trigger' on the car. Whilst Zigo and Longo waited for a search warrant for Berkowitz's apartment, the night stalker himself walked out of the building and headed for his car just before 10pm. He was dressed in a white shirt, jeans and brown boots, and carried a brown paper bag in his right hand which contained a .44 calibre handgun.

Berkowitz sauntered casually to his car, opened the driver's door, got in and switched on the ignition. But he never got to drive his car again. Suddenly, he was looking at the business ends of handguns and shotguns being leveled through the car windows. Son of Sam looked amazingly relaxed as he smiled at the police officers pointing weapons at him. “Okay, you got me,” he said. “What took you guys so long?”

Berkowitz was handcuffed, read his Miranda rights and then ferried to Manhattan police headquarters. Senior police alerted Mayor Abe Beame with the blockbuster news: we finally got ‘Son of Sam'! Waiting newsmen at Manhattan Police HQ expected to see a chained, wild-eyed monster snarling at them. Instead they stared at a meek, smiling postal worker, looking about as dangerous as a cherub.

Berkowitz was grilled for almost two hours, confessed to all the murders, and the news was spread over the front pages of newspapers the next morning. New Yorkers in general felt relief mixed with anger towards this cowardly killer who had stalked their streets. When Berkowitz was arraigned at the Brooklyn Courthouse, a mob of several hundred angry citizens tried to rush the police cordon and summarily lynch the prisoner. Numerous death threats were phoned in to the switchboard at the King's County Hospital , where he was subsequently taken for psychiatric evaluation. Berkowitz was still blurting out obscure threats. “I am one of the devils of Satan; a force beyond the wildest imaginations of people,” he declared. “Sam is not human. When I killed, I really saved many lives. You will understand this later. People want my blood but they don't want to listen to what I have to say. There are other Sons out there. God help the world!”

After a brief trial where he pleaded guilty to all charges, he was sentenced on 12 June 1978 to six life terms in prison. Effectively these concurrent terms meant that he would serve at least thirty years in gaol.

In 1997, Berkowitz said that he did not act alone in the killings. He claimed to have met people who convinced him to join an occult group which routinely sacrificed animals to Satan. He said that he was not the ‘Son of Sam' shooter, but merely one of the many ‘lookout men'. His neighbour John Carr owned a black Labrador named Harvey that Berkowitz said was a ‘high demon' which spoke to him and ordered him to go out and kill young women.

The oddball Berkowitz became a born-again Christian and now works as a prison chaplain. In March 2002, he wrote to New York governor George Pataki asking that his parole hearing be cancelled, stating, “I can give you no good reason as to why I should even be considered.” In June 2004, he was denied a second parole hearing after stating that he did not want one. The parole board noted that Berkowitz had a good record in the prison programme, but decided that the brutality of his crimes called for him to stay behind bars.

As in England 's ‘Yorkshire Ripper' case, cheque book journalism surfaced soon after Berkowitz was sent to prison. This led to ‘Son of Sam laws' enacted by the state of New York after editors offered Berkowitz large sums of money for his story. Publishers surmised that Berkowitz's bizarre literary bent combined with his notoriety virtually ensured that he was capable of writing a chilling, offbeat best seller. The new law authorised the state to seize all money earned from such a deal for five years, and use the seized funds to compensate victims (and victims' families) of the crimes. (The US Supreme Court however overturned the ‘Son of Sam laws' in 1991, declaring them to be ‘unconstitutional.')

Berkowitz is currently writing his memoirs, which he plans to publish despite outrage from the families of his victims and victims' rights advocates. When he finally goes to print, we can expect further litigation on this issue.

Psychiatrist Dr David Abrahamsen, who examined Berkowitz in 1978 and judged him sane, said, “He found sexual gratification in killing women. He could not approach a woman as any man would do and date her and perhaps have sex with her later. That was not for him. He developed a great deal of contempt for women that he kept well hidden.”

It seems that in spite of all his Christian preaching, David Berkowitz remains a very dangerous man.

(Research, wikipedia.org. Son_of_Sam)

IF YOU need a check on my True Crime series of stories, published in the Hua Hin Observer, here is a complete list to date:
April 2002 -The Green Bicycle case, 1921. May 2002 - The Craig/Bentley Case, 1952. June 2002 - The A6 Murder Case, 1961. July 2002 - Murder of the Earl of Errol, 1941. August 2002 - The O J Simpson murder trial, 1995. September 2002 - The Aileen Wuornos case, 1989. October 2002 - The Ronald Opus case, 1993. November 2002 - Madame X, 1929. December 2002 - The Spree Killer, 1984. January 2003 - Shootout at Smiths' Club, 1966. February 2003 - The Christine Dryland case, 1991. March 2003 - Poisoned Pie in Essex, 1982. April 2003 - The Heydrich assassination, 1943. May 2003 - The Diana Davidson Murder case, 1969. June 2003 - The death of Alkibiades, 404 BC. July 2003 - The headsman of Colmar, 1780. August 2003 - The Ruth Ellis case, 1955. September 2003 - The Mel Jones Murder case, 1975. October 2003 - The Bluebeard of the bath, 1915. November 2003 - Murder in a combat zone, 1966. December 2003 - The Barn Restaurant murder case, 1972. January 2004 - The assassination of JFK, 1963. February 2004 - Judge Falcone and the Mafia, 1992. March 2004 - Gilles de Rais/Bluebeard, 1404-1440. April 2004 - The hand in the sand case, 1885. May 2004 - The body in the bag, 1979

The Khmer Rouge, and a region, on trial – Asia Times Online

By Yin Soeum

Whether the half-foreign, half-Cambodian court will arrive at a credible verdict is very much open to question, however.

International prosecutors are expected to unearth compelling new evidence against former senior Khmer Rouge cadres, some of whom now serve in Prime Minister Hun Sen's government. Hun Sen - himself a former junior-level Khmer Rouge cadre - has repeatedly warned that the proceedings could generate panic among Khmer Rouge supporters and reignite the civil war that ravaged the country throughout the 1980s and into the 1990s.

The tough-talking premier has more recently presided over a fractious yet largely peaceful political period attended by strong economic growth. And considering the geriatric state of most surviving Khmer Rouge leaders, most doddering in their late 70s and early 80s, as well as the relative calm that has settled over the territories they formerly controlled, the prospect of a renewed civil war seems distant.

There is still a palpable sense of injustice among the Cambodian people, nearly all of whom lost at least one family member to the murderous regime. Hun Sen has on numerous occasions condemned the Khmer Rouge for their past atrocities, yet at the same time provided sanctuary for its former leaders in his government.

The highly anticipated tribunal, where preliminary procedures are scheduled to commence in June and the actual trials by early next year, will put Cambodia's court system to the test. The Supreme Council of the Magistracy, under the auspices of newly crowned King Norodom Sihamoni, last week approved 30 judicial officials for the trial, 13 of whom are UN-appointed foreign nationals.

The make-up and format of the tribunal have been points of heated contention between Hun Sen and the UN since the idea of bringing Khmer Rouge leaders to trial was first broached in 1997. A UN Group of Experts expressed its concerns in 1999 that decisions on whom to investigate and indict, and whom to convict or acquit, would be based on a political agenda rather than the hard evidence in Cambodia's politically pliant courts.

Hun Sen had insisted that the trial take place in Cambodia, presided over by Cambodian judges, and be limited to the period under examination to the Khmer Rouge's Communist Party of Kampuchea (CPK) rule from 1975-79. After years of bickering, the UN has largely acquiesced to Hun Sen's demands in hopes of achieving some measure of accountability for Khmer Rouge leaders.

The five-member trial chambers and seven-member Supreme Court chamber will sit more Cambodian judges than foreign ones, while the Cambodian government and the UN will each provide one prosecutor and one investigating judge. The courts will act on a “super-majority” basis, where judgments must be agreed by at least one foreign judge. However, the same is not true for the co-prosecutors, and the Cambodian prosecutor may veto contested indictments.

That will quickly bring into question who will and will not be targeted for prosecution. The UN Group of Experts had earlier recommended that between 20 and 30 Khmer Rouge leaders stand trial. Hun Sen has balked at the suggestion and has insisted that the royal amnesty granted to former Khmer Rouge foreign minister Ieng Sary in 1996 should make him immune to prosecution.

Significantly, the UN first started negotiating about the tribunal with Hun Sen's government in 1997, coincident with the mass Khmer Rouge defections into his government. Since, Hun Sen had repeatedly backtracked on earlier commitments to establish the tribunal, most recently reneging on providing Cambodia's US$13.3 million share of the $56.3 million total budget for the trial.

Western donors, including the United States, who contribute more than half of his government's annual budget and have applied pressure in support of the tribunal, have recently agreed to $9.6 million for Phnom Penh's share. Donor pressure seems to be the main motivating force behind Hun Sen's decision to move ahead with the trial.

ATROCITY ALIBI The evidence presented at the tribunal is bound to be contentious. Nuon Chea, 80, known as Khmer Rouge “Brother Number Two”, has in interviews with the press denied any knowledge or responsibility for the execution, torture, forced labor or starvation during the CPK's four-year rule. Instead, he has claimed that “foreigners” - a veiled reference to the Vietnamese - were behind a large share of the killings.

“I will answer in front of the court if they need me. I just want to be clear and not just accuse the [Khmer Rouge] alone for genocide,” he recently said in an interview with Asia Times Online from his home in the northwestern town of Pailin.

Khieu Samphan, 74, the CPK's former head of state, has similarly denied any knowledge or culpability for alleged genocide and crimes against humanity. Ieng Sary, who is politically protected against prosecution through his 1996 royal amnesty, suffers from a debilitating heart condition and nowadays spends more time in a Bangkok hospital than at his posh Phnom Penh villa. Pol Pot, the regime's infamous leader, died in the jungle along Thailand's border in 1998; Kae Pok, a senior CPK central committee member, died in 2002.

Former junior-level Khmer Rouge officials, including Heng Samrin, now a senior member of Hun Sen's Cambodia People Party, and Hor Nam Hong, currently foreign minister, have remained tight-lipped about their past association with the CPK. Like Hun Sen, they will likely escape prosecution because they fled to Vietnam after the Khmer Rouge began its murderous internal purges and apparently were not involved in the CPK's mass-execution policies.

Initial indications are that Hun Sen hopes that UN-appointed judges are willing to compromise and pin the majority of the blame on two senior Khmer Rouge cadres - Ta Mok, 75, alias “The Butcher”, and the less influential but just as brutal Kang Kech Eav, widely known as Duch, who infamously administered the S-21 prison where many of the executions occurred - both of whom are now imprisoned on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

It's unclear that that will be the case, however. The Documentation Center of Cambodia, led by United Kingdom-based academic Stephen Hader, has recently gathered unprecedented documentary evidence that claims to implicate seven senior Khmer Rouge officials for devising and implementing policies of mass execution, torture and other crimes.

The 153-page volume, Seven Candidates for Prosecution, widely available inside Cambodia, uses archival evidence to dissect Khmer Rouge command and control structures and claims to draw clear lines of authority for the policies to top Khmer Rouge officials. The book makes the case for prosecuting seven major Khmer Rouge cadres, including Nuon Chea, Ieng Sary, Khieu Samphan, Ta Mok, Sou Met, Meah Mut and the recently deceased Kae Pok.

As archival evidence is presented at the tribunal, legal analysts predict that the political pressure on Cambodian judges and the local prosecutor for acquittal will likely be immense. There are concomitant fears that a lack of judicial independence among Cambodian judges could result in a UN-endorsed historical whitewash, where many former senior Khmer Rouge leaders are absolved of responsibility for what appears to be their well-documented role in mass executions.

GREAT POWER SCARS The tribune is also likely to dredge up unpleasant episodes from the region's violence-marred past, including hard evidence of US, Chinese and Thai material support for the Khmer Rouge after they were chased from power and into the jungle by Vietnamese invaders in 1979.

The United States famously funneled “non-lethal” supplies to the Khmer Rouge to establish a buffer against Vietnam continuing its march into Phnom Penh across Southeast Asia and potentially into Thailand, which had dutifully provided the US access to its airfields to bomb Vietnam.

China, currently in the midst of a diplomatic charm offensive in the region that has included large dollops of aid and assistance for Cambodia, then famously took sides with the Khmer Rogue in pursuit of its regional campaign to arm and support communist insurgencies. Underground elements in Thailand's military, meanwhile, profited hugely from supplying arms, ammunition and sanctuary to the Khmer Rouge throughout the 1980s. Pol Pot maintained a residence in Thailand's Trad province, from where he orchestrated many of his military strategies.

Former Khmer Rouge cadres have repeatedly suggested that the tribunal should also take into account the events that led up to the Khmer Rouge's rise to power in 1975 and hold former US leaders, including former national security adviser Henry Kissinger, accountable for their role in the illegal carpet-bombing of Cambodia during Washington's conflict with Vietnam in the 1960s and 1970s. Those suggestions have been batted back out of hand, however.

Some Cambodians question the desirability of dredging up the painful past during a period of relative peace and robust economic growth. On the ground, there is still a palpable fear that the trial could lead to local-level revenge killings.

“Most of us have lived through war for over 20 years,” said Lath Lyna, a villager who lives in Pailin, the Khmer Rouge's former stronghold town. “We've all had enough fighting and we certainly don't want more people to die because of the trial.”

Some suggest that the more generalized approach of the “Truth and Reconciliation” process employed in South Africa may have been a better model for Cambodia, where local suspicions and resentments still boil under the surface, particularly in areas where former Khmer Rouge officials still have local power.

Many Cambodians wonder whether the UN-led tribunal isn't yet another instance of outside interference in their country's internal affairs, staged more in the interest of superpower politics than real reconciliation. Truth and justice, they fear, will only be a small part of the tribunal's final verdict.

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