The Son of Sam, David Berkowitz: Serial Killer - Documentary

• Report rights infringement
• published: 17 Nov 2015
• views: 7261

David Richard Berkowitz (born June 1, 1953), better known by his nicknames Son of Sam or The .44 Caliber Killer, is an infamous serial killer who confessed to killing six people and wounding several others in New York City in the late 1970s. Though Berkowitz remains the only person charged or convicted in relation to the case, some law enforcement authorities suspect that there are unresolved questions about the crimes, and that others might have been involved: according to John Hockenberry of MSNBC the "Son of Sam" case was reopened in 1996, and as of 2004, was officially considered open. Berkowitz was born Richard David Falco in Brooklyn, New York, to Betty Broder and Joseph Kleinman. Broder was married to Tony Falco and had a daughter with him, although Falco abandoned her, they never divorced. She later had an affair with the married Kleinman. When Broder told Kleinman that she was pregnant, he told her to get rid of the baby. However, Broder had the baby and listed Falco as the father. A few days after his birth, the baby was adopted by Nathan and Pearl Berkowitz, a Jewish couple who reversed the order of the baby's first and middle names. John Vincent Sanders writes that "David's childhood was somewhat troubled. Although of above-average intelligence, he lost interest in learning at an early age and began an infatuation with petty larceny and pyromania." He was an avid baseball player, and earned a reputation as something of a bully in his neighborhood. Pearl died of breast cancer in 1967. Always closer to his mother, David's tense relationship with his father became even more strained, and he disliked the woman Nathan later married. Berkowitz joined the U.S. Army in 1971, and was active until 1974 (he managed to avoid service in the Vietnam War, instead serving in both the U.S. and South Korea). Afterwards, he toyed with Christianity and located his birth mother, but after a few visits, Berkowitz learned the details of his conception and birth, and they fell out of contact with one another. Berkowitz worked at several jobs (including as a security guard), and was employed by the U.S. Postal Service at the time of his arrest.