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- [00:00]
Vanessa Richardson
Foreign this is Crime House.
- [00:12]
Narrator
This week in Crime History, we're exploring the stories of two violent offenders who used the media to terrorize millions. On September 19, 1995, major newspapers published a 35,000 word manifesto written by a killer known only as the Unabomber. In return, they hoped he would end his decades long mail bombing campaign. On that same day in 1977, a New York City newspaper published the last letter they ever received from David Berkowitz, better known as the serial killer Son of Sam. After a year long killing spree, he'd finally been captured. But apparently his reign of terror wasn't over. In this letter, he claimed he had accomplices who would continue his work now that he was behind bars. Welcome to True Crime. This week part of Crime House Daily, I'm Vanessa Richardson. Every Sunday, we'll be revisiting notorious crimes from the coming week in history. From serial killers to mysterious disappearances or murders. Every episode will explore stories that share a common theme. Each week we'll cover two stories, one further in the past and one more rooted in the present. Here at Crime House. We know none of this would be possible without you, our community. Please support us by rating, reviewing and following Crime House Daily wherever you get your podcasts. And for ad free and early access to Crime House Daily. Plus exciting bonus content, subscribe to Crime House plus on Apple Podcasts. This week's theme is Media Murders. First, we'll start on September 19, 1995, when millions of Americans read an essay about the evils of technology. The author was a mysterious murderer called the Unabomber. Then we'll jump back 18 years to 1977, when serial killer Son of Sam wrote a letter of his own to the New York Post explaining that a demon had told him to do it and his work wasn't done done yet. Both of today's killers lived on the fringes of society and had a murderous hatred for the rest of the world. But deep down, they still wanted contact with the community they'd turned their backs on. And in the end, their desperation to be heard was their ultimate undoing.
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$45 for three month plan $15 per month equivalent required New customer offer first three months only, then full price plan options available. Taxes and fees extra. C mintmobile.com On September 19, 1995, subscribers to the Washington Post received some additional reading material with their morning paper titled Industrial Society and Its Future. It was a rambling 35,000-word essay written by the subject of one of the FBI's longest and most expensive man definitely not the sort of thing you'd typically see published in a major newspaper. The Post put a disclaimer at the top of the essay. It was written by a mysterious criminal known as the Unabomber, who'd been mailing explosive devices to college professors and business executives around the country. His bombs had severely injured and killed dozens of people. The Unabomber believed that modern technology was destroying the environment and that he could slow or stop that destruction by killing educated haters and leaders in technological fields. Now he'd contacted major newspapers with an offer to end his killing spree, but only if they published his manifesto. For months, editors had debated the ethics of distributing a terrorist's message. Ultimately, after consulting with Attorney General Janet Reno, the Washington Post published the manifesto, which ran as a special supplement. As a result, millions of people were exposed to the Unabomber's belief that the widespread use of machinery had enslaved humanity and the only way to save the planet was for humans to abandon technology and return to nature. The newspapers and federal authorities didn't really trust the Unabomber's promise to stop his killings now that his essay had been published. Instead, they hoped that somebody who knew him might recognize his writing and turn him in. And the investigators needed all the help they could get because the FBI, along with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and investigators from the US Postal Service, had been looking for the unaBomber for almost 20 years. The Unabomber's reign of terror started on May 25, 1978. When an employee at the University of Chicago found a package in the school's parking lot, it was addressed to E.J. smith, a professor of engineering at a college in New York. According to the return label, it had been sent by Buckley Crist, a fellow engineering professor at nearby Northwestern University. University staff assumed the package had been misplaced and contacted Professor Christ to see about returning it. Christ said he didn't remember mailing any packages recently, but he was curious, so he asked them to send him the mysterious parcel. The next day, May 26, Professor Crist received the package. He thought it was strange that the address was handwritten, but not by him. It was certainly strange, so he called campus police officer Terry Marker to come to his office and examine the package. When Officer Marker arrived, he and Krist joked that the strange parcel might be a bomb. Then Marker tried to open the package, and it exploded in his hand. Fortunately, neither of them was badly injured, and when agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms examined the remains of the explosive, it was immediately clear it was the work of an amateur. The bomb was a length of metal pipe full of gunpowder in a handmade wooden box. The trigger was six match heads bound together with a rubber band. Luckily, only three of them had ignited when the box was opened, so most of the gunpowder didn't explode. If it had, Marker, Krist and anybody else in the room would have been killed. Despite the bomb's shoddy construction, it was a chilling near miss. Somebody had wanted to kill either Professor Crist or Professor Smith, but the big question was why? Neither man had any enemies or rivals who would want them dead? After an investigation, the ATF was unable to figure out who'd sent the bomb. Tragically, this cycle would repeat itself many more times. Almost a year later, on May 9, 1979, a graduate student at Northwestern University's civil engineering department opened a taped cigar box that had been lying around a vacant classroom for a few days. The box exploded, but luckily the student escaped with a few cuts and minor burns. Six months after that, on November 15, an American Airlines flight had to make an emergency landing in Virginia after a bomb depressurized the cabin and filled it with smoke. No lives were lost, but a dozen passengers were treated for smoke inhalation. Both explosives were homemade, just like the bomb delivered to Professor Crist, and they were both poorly designed. Most of the gunpowder in them didn't ignite. If the explosives had been built more skillfully, the graduate student would have died along with everybody aboard the American Airlines flight. But even though these most recent Bombs were amateurish. They were less primitive than the earlier ones. Instead of match heads, they were ignited by flashlight batteries. Investigators could tell the designer was learning from their mistakes. And the next device was even more destructive. In June of 1980, United Airlines CEO Percy Wood was badly injured by a package bomb mailed to his home in Lake Forest, Illinois. It was only a matter of time until the culprit became skilled enough to kill someone. So the FBI, the ATF, and the US Postal Inspection Service ramped up their hunt for the suspect they called the university and airline bomber, or Unabomber. Throughout the early 1980s, the Unabomber's attacks intensified even as their identity and motives remained mysterious. They seemed to have a vendetta against people who worked in academia and high tech industries. Professors and staff at Berkeley, Vanderbilt, and the University of Michigan were maimed and partially blinded by three mail bombs between 1982 and 1985. Another explosive was delivered to the headquarters of the aerospace company Boeing in Washington state. A quick thinking mailroom clerk flagged it as a suspicious package, and the bomb was later defused by police. Although nobody had died yet, it was clear that the Unabomber had honed their craft. They were using more sophisticated chemical explosives and had begun packing their bombs with jagged shards of metal. Metal to inflict more damage. Their victims lost fingers, eyes, and the use of their limbs. And the bomber was always careful to cover their tracks. Federal agents carefully examined the remains of every device they found. But the Unabomber had carefully removed identifying information from the components, including serial numbers and manufacturer's logos. All the investigators could do was catalog evidence and wait for the Unabomber to make a mistake. But that possibility seemed increasingly unlikely, and they were about to reach a deadly new milestone. On December 11, 1985, in Sacramento, a man named Hugh Scrutton spotted a block of wood in the parking lot of his computer store. When he picked it up to throw it in the dumpster, it erupted in a powerful explosion. Scrutton was killed immediately when shrapnel from the bomb pierced his heart. After more than seven years, the Unabomber had finally committed their first murder. But to investigators, they were more mysterious than ever. When the investigators analyzed the remains of his latest deadly bomb, they found nothing that pointed to an identity or location. It would be another two years until they got their first break in the case. A witness who saw the Unabomber in action. On February 20, 1987, a secretary at a computer shop in Salt Lake City noticed a man in a hooded sweatshirt and aviator sunglasses leaving A burlap bag in the parking lot. She didn't think much of it until later in the day, when one of the company's employees investigated the object and it exploded, severely injuring his left hand, arms, throat, and face. In the aftermath, the secretary described the person she'd seen to an FBI sketch artist. This drawing of a hooded man with a mustache, wearing dark glasses went on to become an iconic image. Millions of Americans saw it on the news in every story about the Unabomber investigation. It's possible that the Unabomber was spooked, knowing that somebody had seen him. He didn't strike again for another six years. It's not clear what motivated him to resume his attacks, but in June 1993, he mailed bombs to a computer science professor at Yale and a geneticist in California. The first victim lost the use of his right hand and suffered significant damage to his right eye. The second suffered partial hearing loss, internal injuries, damage to his right hand, and burns to his hand, face, and abdomen. Over the next two years, the Unabomber sent out two more explosives, killing advertising executive Thomas Mosser and logging industry lobbyist Gilbert Murray. By the summer of 1995, the Unabomber had killed three people. But the next thing he sent through the mail was explosive in a different way. It was a lengthy explanation of what motivated his bombings and an offer to stop.
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On June 28, 1995, just over two months after the last bombing, the New York Times and the Washington Post received copies of the same letter from the Unabombered. He claimed to be a member of an anarchist group called freedom Club, or FC. He explained that FC's goal was to dismantle the worldwide industrial system by targeting specialists working in technical fields, engineering professors, computer experts, and geneticists. But the Unabomber proposed a deal. He would stop the killings if a major newspaper or magazine introduced their ideas into the mainstream dream by printing the group's 35,000 word manifesto. Working in conjunction with the American government, the newspapers agreed to his demands, hoping someone would recognize the Unabomber's writings. In collaboration with the Times, the Washington Post released the manifesto on September 19, 1995. Titled Industrial Society and Its Future, it was long and full of pseudo intellectual arguments and called for a mass rejection of modern technology in order to protect the environment and restore individual freedoms. The Unabomber acknowledged that abandoning all technological progress would have consequences. But he justified it by saying, quote, you can't eat your cake and have it too. To gain one thing, you have to sacrifice another. That line made a big impression on one reader. A social worker living in upstate New York named David Kaczynski noticed that the peculiar wording of you can't eat your cake and have it too was something his brother used to say. The phrasing of the manifesto wasn't the only clue. David's brother was a troubled soul. He hadn't had a job for nearly 30 years, and in the late 1960s he'd abandoned his career and moved into the wilderness. When his family asked why, he explained that he wanted to separate himself from industrial society, which he believed was destroying the world and enslaving humanity. It didn't take long for David to put all the pieces together. His brother was the Unabomber, and his name was Ted Kaczynski. Growing up, David and Ted had shared a deep bond. Ted, who was seven years older, was always kind, helpful and protective towards David. In return, David idolized him. But even as a boy, David could tell that there was something different about his brother. Ted had no friends at school and often shied away from human contact. He was also cold, old and indifferent to their parents. Besides David, nobody really seemed to understand him. Despite his social struggles, he went above and beyond in his studies. In 1958, when he was just 16 years old, Ted was accepted at Harvard to study mathematics. He then got a PhD at the University of Michigan and took a teaching position at Berkeley. He won prizes for his doctoral work and several of his professors called him the brightest student they ever worked with. Throughout his time in school, Ted and David kept in touch through the mail. Although David's love for his brother was as strong as ever, he noticed an angrier and more pessimistic tone to Ted's letters as he got older. This came to a head in 1969 when 27 year old Ted announced to his family that technology was destroying the natural world and that he had decided to turn his back on modern society. It's not clear what motivated this decision, but once Ted made up his mind, he never looked back. He quit his job At Berkeley, traveled deep into the Montana wilderness and built himself a one room shack to live in. Ted's family was mystified by his behavior, but they did their best to support his new lifestyle. Over the years, David and his parents sent Ted a total of $17,000 to help him buy supplies. Instead of being grateful, Ted only became more hostile. Starting in the mid-1970s, his letters to his parents grew angrier and angrier. He accused them of subjecting him to relentless emotional abuse throughout his childhood, Often referring to events that David didn't remember happening. Finally, in 1977, he cut off contact with his parents completely. Although David didn't understand why Ted had turned against their parents, he still kept in touch with his brother, exchanging long letters for years until David opened the newspaper in September 1995 and was conditioned. Confronted by the Unabomber's manifesto. David still loved his brother. But he couldn't look the other way while innocent people suffered and died at his hands. So he hired a lawyer and began gathering samples of Ted's letters and past essays. In February of 1996, he contacted the FBI and told them his theory. When the bureau's criminal profilers compared Ted's letters to the manifesto, they agreed. Ted was the Unabomber. And when David thought about his brother's history, it all made sense. Since the early 1970s, Ted Kaczynski had been living in a shack without electricity or running water outside the tiny village of Lincoln, Montana. Locals called him the hermit. He certainly looked the part. Ted had unkempt hair, A long, shaggy beard, and a standoffish attitude. People who lived near his property suspected him of poisoning their dogs when they got too close to his shack. About the only person in town who liked Ted was the local librarian, Sherry Wood. She said that Ted was always polite whenever he came to check out works of classic literature. In the spring of 1996, locals began to notice a lot of new faces in their small, sleepy town. There were mountain men on the street who looked too tidy to be real outdoorsmen, Postal workers who didn't seem to be delivering any mail, and tourists who were inexplicably in town during the off season. There was a reason they stood out. Because all these new faces were actually undercover FBI agents. They'd hoped that they could catch Ted on one of his infrequent trips into Lincoln rather than risking a confrontation at his shack in the woods. But Ted didn't show his face in town for days, and the clock was ticking. Someone had tipped off CBS that the authorities were closing in on the unabomber, and they had to move before the word got out. So on April 3, 1996, Fox, FBI scouts and sharpshooters Crept through the woods and took up positions around ted's cabin. Then a u. S. Forest service employee Was sent to knock on his door. When ted opened the door and stepped outside, Two FBI agents Swept around from the sides of the cabin, Grabbed him, and slapped a pair of handcuffs onto his wrists. It had taken almost 18 years. Years. But the unabomber's reign of terror was over. The FBI spent weeks carefully searching and cataloging more than 700 items from inside the one room shack, including explosives, Handmade firearms, and tens of thousands of pages of handwritten journals. Even though ted had promised to stop the attacks Once his manifesto was published in Agents found A newly assembled bomb under his bed and a hit list of executives and college professors. If david kaczynski and the FBI hadn't acted when they did, Somebody on that list Would have gotten ted's next deadly package. After the search was completed, the government loaded the entire shack Onto a flatbed truck and took it to a military base for storage. They planned to use it as evidence in ted's trial, but in the end, that wasn't necessary. After two years of legal wrangling, on January 22, 1998, Ted Kaczynski pleaded guilty to ten counts of mailbombing. His guilty plea had spared him from the death penalty and spared his victims the trauma of having to testify against him in court. In early 1998, Ted began his life sentence at ADX Florence, a Supermax prison in colorado. Although he'd always been a recluse, he actually developed an active social life behind bars. He became close friends with oklahoma city bomber Timothy mcveigh, and the two often discussed politics and religion until McVeigh's execution in 2001. He also befriended ramsay yousef, who planted a bomb in the world Trade center in 1993 that killed six people. On top of that, Ted wrote two books that expanded on the ideas from his manifesto, Technological slavery and anti tech revolution. Ted also exchanged letters with thousands of people all over the world who had written to him. But there was was one person he never responded to. His brother david kaczynski sent ted many letters during his time at adx florence, but ted never forgave david for turning him in. After his arrest, he never spoke to David again. In 2021, Ted was diagnosed with rectal cancer, which did not respond well to chemotherapy. Eventually, he chose to discontinue treatment and on June 10, 2023, he died by suicide. Once again, Ted Kaczynski had left the world behind. All of the death and pain he caused did nothing to save our environment or change how we interact with technology. He just contributed more suffering to a world that already he had plenty of it. Coming up, the story of another killer who manipulated the media.
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Eighteen years before newspapers published the Unabomber's manifesto, the New York Post published the writing of a different homicidal maniac. But this wasn't the first time this killer had written to the paper. By then, he was a regular contributor. On September 19, 19, 1977, New Yorkers were just starting to feel safe again. All summer long, a mysterious serial killer calling himself Son of Sam had stalked the streets of the Bronx. He'd murdered couples at close range with a.44 caliber pistol, then bragged about it in ghoulish letters that were published in the local papers. Sam's reign of terror had finally ended just over a month earlier, when police arrested the killer as he got into his car. But as the city tried to move on from their Summer of Sam, the killer had other ideas. From his heavily guarded cell in a Brooklyn mental hospital, he wrote a letter to a New York Post reporter, which the newspaper published. In the letter, written in Son of Sam's typical rambling style, the killer tried to justify why he'd murdered six people and seriously wounded 11 others. He explained that his neighbor's black Labrador was, quote, a demon from hell who had issued him irresistible commands to kill. The murderer went on to say, quote, when I killed, I really saved many lives. You will understand later. Son of Sam closed with a chilling message to a city still on edge after months of terror. There are other sons out there. God help the world. The mention of other suns threw the city back into a frenzy For a year, police had assumed that the crazed murderer terrorizing New York was working alone. Now they were questioning that theory. Everyone had assumed the Son of Sam was an old only child. But did he have brothers in arms this entire time? Son of Sam began his reign of terror on Christmas Eve 1975. In the month leading up to that moment, he'd been locked away in his apartment, tormented by messages from Satan. As he descended deeper into psychosis, he scribbled grim nonsensical notes onto the walls like in this hole lives the wicked king. Kill for my master. I turn children into killers. And on December 24, Sam's dark master ordered him to kill a woman. So he grabbed a hunting knife and left his apartment, driving around the Bronx in search of the perfect victim. Eventually he found her. 15 year old Michelle Foreman, who was walking alone on a small access road near Sam's apartment. Sam crept up behind her and attacked, even though she was caught off guard and seriously wounded. Michelle fought him off and ran screaming to the nearest apartment. However, Sam disappeared into the night before the police could find him. Later that night, he went out for a burger and fries to console himself over his unsuccessful attack. The next time his demons sent him out hunting, Son of Sam vowed to use a much deadlier weapon. Seven months later, on July 29, 1976, 18 year old Donna Lauria and her 19 year old friend Jody Valenti were sitting in Jody's parked car after a night out at a local disco. It was a little after 1am when they noticed a shadowy figure briskly walking up to them. Donna said, who is this guy? What does he want? It was Son of Sam and a moment later they found out what he wanted. Sam dropped into a crouch, pulled out a 44 caliber pistol and opened fire on the parked car. Jody was was wounded in the thigh, but Donna was killed instantly by a bullet to the neck. Jody screamed for help and leaned on the horn as the killer sprinted off into the darkness and disappeared. Three months later, he resurfaced. In October and November 1976, Sam attacked four more people. 20 year old Carl Dinaro and his 18 year old friend Rosemary Keenan. Then 16 year old Donna Damasi and her friend Joanne Lomino, age 18. In each case, the victims survived, but Joanne, who was shot in the back, was left paralyzed. Son of Sam's shooting spree was intensifying. Meanwhile, police hadn't even realized all these attacks were being committed by the same person. That's probably because they had their hands full. In 1976, there were over 1600 murders in New York City, and the NYPD was short staffed at the time. The department had lost thousands of Officers throughout the 1970s due to corruption scandals and citywide budget cuts. But Son of Sam's next attacks would make it clear to New York's overworked cops that they had a serial killer on their hands. Just after midnight on January 30, 1977, 26 year old Christine Friend and her fiance John Deal left a wine bar in Queens and got into John's car. As they sat and talked, they didn't notice Son of Sam as he walked up and started firing through the windshield. In a panic, John ducked, started the car and sped off up the street. He only had minor injuries, but Christine had been shot twice and died later that night at the hospital. Five weeks after Christine Fran's murder, on the evening of March 8, Barnard College honor student Virginia Voskarichian was walking back to her home in Queens. As she made her way up Dartmouth Street, a man began walking towards her from the opposite direction. Once he was within striking distance, Son of Sam pulled out his pistol and pointed it at her. Virginia lifted the textbook she was holding to try and shield herself. But the killer's bullet passed through and hit Virginia in the face, killing her instantly. As Son of Sam ran up the street to make his escape, he passed by a terrified man who had seen the whole thing. The killer looked at him and said, hi, mister, and continued on his way. The witness would later describe Son of Sam to police as a stocky white man in his 20s, 5 foot 7, wearing a jacket and a skier's hat. Unfortunately, this description was too vague for the police to identify the killer. But at least now they were starting to realize these attacks were connected. As detectives investigated the latest murder, they realized that Virginia Voskaritian had been killed with the same weapon used to shoot the first victim, Donna Lauria. After that, it didn't take long to connect the dots to the other unsolved shootings. All of the victims had been shot with.44 caliber rounds, and so far, they'd all been young women with long dark brown hair, either walking the streets alone or sitting in cars with friends. City officials didn't want to cause a panic, but they also knew they couldn't catch this killer without the community's help. So on March 10, New York City Mayor Abraham Beam held a press conference where he told reporters that a serial killer with a.44 caliber revolver was hunting young women on the streets. He urged New Yorkers to be on the lookout for A man matching the one who'd been spotted on the night Virginia was killed. And he announced the formation of a police task force to catch the killer called Operation Omega. The team was made up of over 200 homicide detectives. Many of them worked around the clock, chasing down leads and investigating tips to try and catch the killer before. Before he claimed his next victim. Reporters of the city's newspapers and TV stations were also hard at work interviewing witnesses and publishing theories about the man they dubbed the.44 caliber killer. The constant coverage put the whole city on edge. Son of Sam loved the publicity, but he wasn't a fan of the new nickname. So he set out to correct the record. Just over a month later, on April 17, 18 year old Valentina Suriani and her 20 year old boyfriend Alexander Esau were making out in his car. When Son of Sam pulled up beside them. He fired four shots from his car into theirs, killing both Valentina and Alexander. But before he fled the scene, he left something behind. A letter addressed to one of Operation Omega's lead detectives, Joseph Borelli. Police tried to keep the letter under wraps, but details leaked to the press almost immediately. In the rambling handwritten letter, which was full of spelling errors, the killer opened by saying, I am not a monster. I am the son of spirit Sam. He said he was programmed to kill and loved to hunt the women of Queens so he could give their blood to his father, Papa Sam. He signed off with the words, I'll be back yours in murder, Mr. Monster. Now people around the world knew the name of the killer. Stalking the streets of New York, the temperature was rising. The summer of Sam had begun.
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Vanessa Richardson
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In the summer of 1976, a serial killer started prowling the streets of New York City with a.44 caliber pistol, shooting women he found walking alone or sitting in cars with a friend. So far, he'd killed five people in six shootings. And after his most recent double murder In April of 1977, he left a note for the police. In his handwritten scrawl, he talked about demons, his love of hunting women for fun, and introduced himself by his preferred name, Son of Sam. After the Son of Sam letter was leaked to the press and published in local papers, detectives on the Operation Omega task force were flooded with tips. Thousands of people across the city thought the misogynistic antisocial ramblings sounded like their co workers or neighbors. For the next month, police had their hands full chasing down this wave of new leads, which gave Son of Sam time to write a follow up letter. This time, the killer took his message straight to the media. On May 30, 1977, he mailed his letter to New York Daily News columnist Jimmy Breslin. On the back of the envelope, Son of Sam wrote the words blood and family, darkness and death, absolute depravity. 44, neatly centered on four different lines. That was chilling enough, but what was inside the envelope was even darker. The letter began, hello from the gutters of nyc, which are filled with dog manure, vomit, stale wine, urine and blood. Son of Sam went on to tease that he was excited to kill more people, especially on July 29, the anniversary of his first murder. He said, quote, sam's a thirsty lad and he won't let me stop killing until he gets his fill of blood. Don't think that because you haven't heard from me for a while that I went to sleep, I am still here, like a spirit roaming the night. He then suggested a few new nicknames the press could give him, including the new Duke of Death and the wicked King Wicker. Finally, he wished the detectives working on his case luck and offered to buy them all a new pair of shoes if they ever caught him. He signed the letter Son of Sam and included a symbol made up of circles, serpents, and an inverted cross. Son of Sam's first letter had put New York on edge. This one sent the city into a full blown panic. New Yorkers knew that Son of Sam was targeting women with long dark hair. As a result, beauty shops across the city sold out of wigs and hair dye as tens of Thousands of women tried to change their appearance to stay out of his crosshairs. Meanwhile, other residents started trying to take the law into their own own hands. A good 20 miles outside the city in Westchester, two men were so convinced that they'd found Son of Sam that they dragged their unlucky suspect to a graveyard and beat him with baseball bats to try and get him to confess. When locals in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn heard that police were questioning a man caught with a.44 caliber revolver nearby, they formed an angry mob. They nearly killed the suspect before police got him out of the neighborhood. In both cases, the victims of this violent retribution weren't Son of Sam, just unlucky men who were in the wrong place at the wrong time. But soon enough, the real Son of Sam would make his presence known once again. At 3am on June 26 6, 1977, 20 year old Salvatore Lupo and his 17 year old girlfriend Judy Placido were sitting in his car outside a disco in Queens. Judy had long dark hair and she was aware of just how dangerous it was to be sitting in a car after dark. She told Sal to take her home before Son of Sam showed up. In her words, you never know where he'll hit next. Moments later, three bullets blasted into the car, hitting Salvatore in the forearm and Judy in the shoulder and back of the neck. Covered in blood, the couple ran back into the disco for help. Fortunately, both survived, but neither one had seen their attacker. Over the next month, as the one year anniversary of Son of Sam, Sam's first shooting approached, police stepped up their presence on the streets. They were so intent on keeping Sam from killing again that they even considered putting undercover cops in cars with dark haired mannequins. Ultimately, the massive show of force from the NYPD was effective and Son of Sam wasn't able to celebrate July 29 with another murder. Instead, he struck two days later. In the early morning hours of July 31, 1977, 19 year old Stacy Moskowitz and 20 year old Robert Violante were parked under a streetlight after their first date. Stacy had been concerned about going out while Son of Sam was on the loose. But Robert convinced her they were safe. They were in Brooklyn and Son of Sam mainly attacked couples in Queens and the Bronx. Plus, Stacy was a blonde. But as they sat kissing in the car, Son of Sam walked up and fired four shots through the passenger side window, then fled into a nearby park. Both victims were shot in the head. Robert was blinded by the attack and Stacy died at a hospital later that night. Son of Sam seemed unstoppable. He taunted the city in the newspaper. The police couldn't catch him. And now he changed up his targets and his hunting grounds. No one was safe. But as he fled the scene of his latest crime, Son of Sam didn't realize that his murder spree was at an end. Minutes before Stacy and Robert were shot, Brooklyn resident Cecilia Davis was walking her dog when she noticed a suspicious heavyset man lingering in her neighborhood. He was hanging around near a light colored car that was illegally parked in front of a fire hydrant about a block away from where the shooting occurred. Later, she saw a cop write a parking ticket and stick it on the car's windshield. The following day, after she heard about the shooting in her neighborhood, the Cecilia was convinced that the strange man she'd seen was the killer and that the light colored car was his. She contacted the NYPD with her theory that police had ticketed Son of Sam's car on the night of the murder. Over the next few days, detectives investigated several people who'd received parking tickets in Cecilia's neighborhood. One by one, the suspects came back clean. Finally, there was only one ticketed driver left to look into. David Berkowitz, who lived in the nearby suburb of Yonkers. On August 9, an NYPD detective phoned the Yonkers police department to ask them to set up an interview with Berkowitz. Incredibly, the Yonkers police dispatcher he spoke to, Wheat Carr, lived next door to him. She had a lot of stories to tell about David and none of them were good. 24 year old David Berkowitz grew up in the Bronx, the adopted son of a pair of middle class grocery store owners. He was a loner and an only child who didn't get along with other kids. His favorite hobby was starting small fires around the neighborhood. After a three year stay extent in the army, he returned to New York City in 1974 and worked dead end jobs as a security guard and a taxi driver. In 1976, David had moved to Yonkers for a few months. David rented a room from a man named Jack Casara. But he was tormented by Jack's German shepherd, which he claimed howled all the time when he was trying to sleep. In response response, David would howl back screaming for the dog to stop. It was a bad living situation for everybody involved and soon David moved to a new apartment in Yonkers at 35 Pine Street. But there was a dog at the new apartment too, a black Labrador named Harvey who belonged to the family next door. David Became became obsessed with the dog, believing it was possessed by a demon in league with his old landlords, the Casaras, David wrote several unhinged letters about this to Harvey's owner, whose name was Sam Carr. Gradually, David came to believe that Sam was Satan in disguise. Sam Carr's daughter was Wheat Carr, the Yonkers police dispatcher. As she talked on the phone to the NYPD detectives, she told them that earlier in the year somebody had shot and wounded their dog, Harvey. The family had always suspected David Berkowitz was responsible. With this information, the NYPD decided it was time to pay him a visit. On the evening of August 10, 1977, a squad of detectives and patrolmen from Operation Omega crept up on the apartment at 35 Pine St. A yellow Ford Galaxy was parked out front. Taking a page from Son of Sam's book, the police waited in the darkness until a heavyset man emerged from the apartment and got into the car. Then they pounced. The lead detective on the scene, John Fatico, ran up to the driver's side door and pointed his pistol at David Berkowitz's head. David just smiled and asked, what took you so long? After police pulled him out of the car, they found a paper bag on the passenger seat. Inside was the.44 caliber revolver used in every murder. When they searched his apartment, it was clear they'd found the right guy. David's apartment was in shambles. The walls were covered in satanic graffiti, shelves loaded with scribbled diaries. The Son of Sam had been captured in jail. Psychiatrists diagnosed David Berkowitz as a paranoid schizophrenic. Isolated from society, he'd created a fantasy world of demons and devils that eventually drove him to kill. He was still in the grips of that fantasy when he wrote his final letter to the New York Post on September 19, 1977, claiming that there were other sons on the street waiting to continue his work. Thankfully, this was just more deranged rambling. And there were no more Son of Sam killings after David was locked up. When his case went to trial in 1978, David pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 365 years in prison. David is incarcerated at Chawang Gunk Correctional Facility in upstate New York where he works as a volunteer chaplain and has received an associate's degree. He still speaks to the media, although his tone has changed. In a 2016 interview with the New York Post, he explained why he still attends his parole hearings even though he knows he'll never be released. Quote, to not attend can be viewed as being defiant towards authority. And that's not me. I attend in order to openly apologize for my past crimes and to express my remorse. It's rare to see a killer like this take responsibility for his actions, but no amount of contrition can bring back the six people David Berkowitz murdered. Looking back on this week in crime history, we can see that in some ways the pen is mightier than the sword or bomb or gun. Both the Unabomber and Son of Sam destroyed the lives of their victims with acts of brutal violence. But through their interactions with the media, they tried to control and intimidate millions more with radical ideology and unhinged ranting. In the end, this desperate need to communicate brought about both killers downfall. The Unabomber's manifesto did more to get him arrested than any of the investigators who spent nearly 20 years chasing him. And Son of Sam's letters, she showed that he was no criminal mastermind, just a deranged loner who thought he was taking orders from a talking dog. Thanks so much for listening. I'm Vanessa Richardson and this is True Crime Dish this week part of Crime House Daily. Crime House Daily is a Crime House original. Powered by Pave Studios. At Crime House, we want to express our gratitude to you, our community, for making this possible. Please support us by rating, reviewing and following Crime House Daily. Wherever you get your podcasts, your feedback truly matters. And for ad free and early access to Crime House Daily plus extension, exciting bonus content, subscribe to Crime House plus on Apple Podcasts. We'll be back tomorrow. True Crime this week is hosted by me, Vanessa Richardson, and is a Crime House original. Powered by Pave Studios. This episode was brought to life by the True Crime this Week team. Max Cutler, Ron Shapiro, Alex Benidon, Natalie Pertzovsky, Lori Marinelli, Sarah Sarah Camp, Truman Capps, Leah Roche and Michael Langsner. Thank you for listening.
- [54:07]
Vanessa Richardson
Mike and Alyssa are always trying to outdo each other. When Alyssa got a small water bottle, Mike showed up with a 4 liter jug. When Mike started gardening, Alyssa started beekeeping. They called it truth for their holiday and used Expedia trip planner to collaborate on all the details of their trip. Once there, Mike still did more laps around the pool.
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Liberty Mutual Advertiser
Whatever.
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Vanessa Richardson
You were made to outdo your holidays. We were made to help organize the competition. Expedia Made to travel.
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Kristen Bell
Hi, I'm Kristen Bell and if you know my husband Dax, then you also know he loves shopping for a car. Selling a car, not so much.
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Liberty Mutual Advertiser
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Kristen Bell
Thankfully, Carvana makes it easy answer a few questions. Put in your van or license and done. We sold ours in minutes this morning. And they'll come pick it up and pay us this afternoon.
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Liberty Mutual Advertiser
Goodbye, Truckee.
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Kristen Bell
Of course, we kept the favorite.
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Liberty Mutual Advertiser
Hello, other Truckee.
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Kristen Bell
Sell your car with Carvana today. Terms and conditions apply.