Serial killer David Berkowitz, known as the Son of Sam, terrorised New York for a year, killing six people and wounding seven others between the summer of 1976 and his arrest in August 1977. He fired at random in neighbourhoods across the city, prompting widespread fear among residents.
Berkowitz was caught after sending a series of bizarre letters to police and journalists, in which he mocked their failure to capture him. In one note, he claimed to be a 'monster' but insisted he was not in control, saying he was possessed by a demon that had infested the body of his neighbour's dog, Harvey. He said the dog belonged to a man named Sam, from whom he took his infamous nickname.
The killer wrote: 'I am deeply hurt by your calling me a woman 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. Sometimes he ties me up to the back of the house. Other times he locks me in the garage. Sam loves to drink blood. Go out and kill, commands father Sam.'
Berkowitz had been adopted as a child and experienced a troubled upbringing. He developed an obsession with starting fires, claiming in his diary to have ignited nearly 1,500 in New York. Relatives described him as a bully, and his adoptive father falsely told him his birth mother had died at his birth. After leaving the army, Berkowitz found his birth mother, which he described as 'wonderful', but he said he struggled with depression and thoughts of death as a child, believing he deserved to die.
His adoptive mother, to whom he was extremely close, died while he was still a teenager, leaving him unable to cope. Berkowitz later said: 'When you lose someone that you love is a sense of mourning.'
