Chapters
Shownotes Transcript
Love this podcast? Support this show through the ACAST supporter feature. It's up to you how much you give, and there's no regular commitment. Just click the link in the show description to support now.
Hey, I'm Ryan Reynolds. Recently, I asked Mint Mobile's legal team if big wireless companies are allowed to raise prices due to inflation. They said yes. And then when I asked if raising prices technically violates those onerous two-year contracts, they said, what the f*** are you talking about, you insane Hollywood a**hole?
So to recap, we're cutting the price of Mint Unlimited from $30 a month to just $15 a month. Give it a try at mintmobile.com slash switch. $45 upfront payment equivalent to $15 per month. New customers on first three-month plan only. Taxes and fees extra. Speeds lower above 40 gigabytes per detail. I have a secret. I wore the wrong foundation for years. Then I discovered Il Makiage. Their AI-powered quiz makes it so easy to find a perfect match.
customized for your unique skin tone, undertone, and coverage needs. With 600,000 five-star reviews and 50 shades of flawless natural coverage, this foundation is going viral for a reason. And with Try Before You Buy, you can try your full size at home for 14 days. Take the quiz at ilmakiage.com slash quiz.
That's I-L-M-A-K-I-A-G-E dot com slash quiz. It took a lifetime to find the person you want to marry. Finding the perfect engagement ring is a lot easier. At BlueNile.com, you can find or design the ring you've always dreamed of with help from Blue Nile's jewelry experts who are on hand 24-7 to answer questions and the ease and convenience of shopping online. For a limited time, get $50 off your purchase of $500 or more with code LISTENY.
Welcome to the Serial Killer Podcast. The podcast dedicated to serial killers. Who they were, what they did, and how. I am your Norwegian host, Thomas Vyborg Thunberg. And he asked him, What is thy name? And he saith unto him,
My name is Legion, for we are many. Mark, chapter 5, verse 9. We continue our journey through David Berkowitz's personal hellscape, fraught with demonic commanders demanding blood, hellhounds baying for sacrificial meat, and absolute isolation from everyone surrounding him in the Big Apple.
Tonight, we start looking into how David Berkowitz got his nickname of the .44 caliber killer, his escalation into serial murder, and how he started to communicate with the general public. This episode is brought to you by my loyal patrons. Without your support, I would not be able to provide my dear listeners with weekly episodes.
Regarding my Patreon, I have bonus episodes and exclusive content for patrons that donate $10 or more. Also, please contact me on Facebook or Patreon if you have requests for bonus content.
For example, right now there is a really interesting interview with me, your humble host, by an American radio station available to those patrons. So, please do not hesitate to contact me on facebook.com forward slash theskpodcast or send me a PM on patreon.com forward slash theserialkillarpodcast.
So, go to theserialkillerpodcast.com forward slash donate to join the exclusive $10 plus club now. On the 6th of July, 1976, the New York summer was swelteringly hot.
Kids played in the water spray from opened fire hydrants. People sat outside enjoying the sun, perhaps drinking cool beers, while listening to Kiki D and Elton John's summer hit Don't Go Breaking My Heart that you just heard a snippet of.
David Berkowitz sat screaming inside his messy apartment, his inner demons finally overtaking his last shred of sanity, urging him to finally take his firearms outside for a proper asphalt jungle hunt for human sacrifice. He began what would become a grisly ritual, stuffing his .44 caliber revolver into a paper bag,
He got into his car to cruise the streets. He was hunting, according to himself, looking for another victim while waiting for the proper signal from one of his demon masters. This particular night he caught sight of two women in a car, and somehow he knew they were the ones
He followed them, watching as they pulled into a driveway in a hilly residential neighborhood in the Bronx. He parked his car and walked back in their direction, clutching the paper bag. By the time he reached the driveway, he was at a full run, but the women had disappeared.
By his own account, Berkowitz spent much of July this way, driving around, waiting for a signal to kill. And so it was, at one o'clock a.m. on the 29th of July, that David was cruising in the Bronx when he spotted two young women sitting in a parked blue Oldsmobile.
He swung around a corner and abandoned his car, pushing the bag-covered revolver into the waistband of his trousers. With his characteristic gait, he shuffled towards the women. They were medical technician Donna Lauria, 18 years old, and a student nurse, Jody Valenti, 19 years old.
The young women were parked in front of Loria's home. Her parents had just returned from a restaurant and had spoken to their daughter before going into the house. Donna had promised to follow in a minute. At ten past one a.m., Berkowitz walked up to the passenger side of the Oldsmobile Cutlass, pulled his revolver from the paper bag, and assumed a semi-crouch.
He pulled the trigger five times. As the car windows shattered, Donna raised her hands to protect herself. David had not been a very accurate shooter, with only two of the five slugs hitting home. One of the .44 caliber bullets struck Donna in the right side of the neck, severing her artery, causing her to bleed out relatively quickly. Another bullet hit Jody in the left thigh,
She screamed out in pain before falling forward, landing on the car horn. Berkowitz dashed back to his car and drove away. He didn't know if he had succeeded in killing the young women until the next day, when he read the morning newspaper. He was elated to know that Donna had been killed. Berkowitz said in later interviews the following, It just happens to be satisfying to get the source of the blood.
I felt that Sam was relieved. I came through." Down in Florida, Nat Berkowitz was growing more and more concerned. His son's letters were increasingly strange and disjointed. Nat urged David to see a psychiatrist, but the son refused. Thinking that perhaps David's half-sister would have more luck, Nat enlisted her to press the matter.
but to no avail. Her brother's visits had all but stopped. David claimed he had gotten a new job that kept him far too busy to visit his family. It is not unlikely that the job David was referring to was his imagined assignment from the demon commander called Sam.
and that he had to spend all his time preparing for and carrying out murdering young women to satisfy the demons' bloodlust. On the 12th of August, 1976, the demons in his head broke a period of relative quiet, prompting David to place an anonymous call to the police. In the call, he complained about the noise from someone called Joquin,
A dispatcher at Yonkers Police Headquarters took the call at 4 a.m. and sent a local squad car to investigate. The officers, of course, found nothing. But if the police did not find the clamoring Joaquin, David was certain he was there, taunting him and torturing his mind.
On the 23rd of October, after yet another long sleepless night filled with the harangues from Joaquin and a demon called the Blood Monster, David Berkowitz went out and performed his second murder. At 1.45 a.m., he dressed, tucked his .44 caliber revolver in his waistband, and drove to the borough of Queens.
At the corner of 159th Street and 33rd Avenue, he glimpsed a red Volkswagen occupied by two people. Inside were 18-year-old Rosemary Keenan, a daughter of a New York City police detective, and 20-year-old Carl DeNaro, who was four days away from reporting for duty in the Air Force. The pair had known each other at Queens College,
and had met each other earlier that evening in a bar. De Niro escorted the policeman's daughter home, and they had tarried in the car for a while, reluctant to end such a pleasant and romantic night. Berkowitz crept up on foot, approaching them from the passenger side of the Volkswagen. He could see that one of the car's occupants had long, wavy hair,
He raised the .44 revolver and squeezed off five noisy rounds. As the echoes from his shots died away, screams rose from inside the car. But this time, David did not run away. He stayed behind for about a minute to observe the effect of his fusillade. Rosemary Keenan was unharmed in the driver's seat.
But Carl DeNaro had a bullet in the back of his head. Terrified, Rosemary started the car and sped away. Luckily, DeNaro managed to survive David Berkowitz's clumsy attack. After two months of treatment, he recovered. But a metal plate that had replaced a portion of his shattered skull ruled out any hopes of a career in the Air Force.
On the 25th of November, just over a month after his attack on the couple in the VW, David made what would be his last visit to his mother and her family, joining them for Thanksgiving dinner. At the end of the evening, his kin prevailed on him to spend the night at his half-sister's home. He was terribly restless, however.
His sister Roslyn remembers that he seemed like a wild animal. He told her he would never hurt her, but she had no idea what he was talking about. She would later probably be glad she didn't know, because just the next night, David would attack again. Sixteen-year-old Donna DeMasi, a beautiful, slender girl with long, wavy, dark hair, was walking with her friend,
Eighteen-year-old Joanne Lomino. She was also a very attractive girl, but with long blonde hair. The girls were walking towards Lomino's house in Queens after an evening in Manhattan. Shortly after midnight, Damacy noticed a strange man standing behind a nearby streetlamp.
She nudged her friend, and the two of them walked quickly to Lomino's house, where they climbed the steps to the door. At that moment, David stepped into view and started to ask them a question, saying, "'Do you know where?' But as he spoke, he reached under his jacket and produced a .44-caliber revolver. Firing twice, he hit both girls."
Temasi was struck at the intersection of her neck and shoulder, and Lomino in the lower spine. They screamed out in shock and pain before collapsing to the opposite sides of the stoop. Berkowitz, now more accustomed to his attacks and confident in his abilities, stood by and watched in fascination. Then he fired three shots at the Lomino house before running away.
Next door, off-duty police officer Ben Taormina heard a noise and peered out of his front window. He saw the stricken girls and rushed out to give artificial respiration as the first police car arrived. The bullet that hit Donna caused no permanent damage. Joanne Lomino was not so fortunate. Her spine was crushed and she became paralyzed for life.
If there's one thing that my family and friends know me for, it's being an amazing gift giver. I owe it all to Celebrations Passport from 1-800-Flowers.com, my one-stop shopping site that has amazing gifts for every occasion. With Celebrations Passport, I get free shipping on thousands of amazing gifts. And the more gifts I give, the more perks and rewards I earn.
To learn more and take your gift giving to the next level, visit 1-800-Flowers.com slash ACAST. That's 1-800-Flowers.com slash ACAST. Millions of people have lost weight with personalized plans from Noom, like Evan, who can't stand salads and still lost 50 pounds. Salads generally for most people are the easy button, right? For me, that wasn't an option. I never really was a salad guy. That's just not who I am. But Noom worked for me.
Get your personalized plan today at Noom.com. Real Noom user compensated to provide their story. In four weeks, the typical Noom user can expect to lose one to two pounds per week. Individual results may vary. This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. As a family man with three kids, I know firsthand how extremely difficult it is to make time for self-care. But it's good to have some things that are non-negotiable.
For some, that could be a night out with the boys, chugging beers and having a laugh. For others, it might be an eating night. For me, one non-negotiable activity is researching psychopathic serial killers and making this podcast. Even when we know what makes us happy, it's often near impossible to make time for it.
But when you feel like you have no time for yourself, non-negotiables like therapy are more important than ever. If you're thinking of starting therapy, give BetterHelp a try. It's entirely online, designed to be convenient, flexible, and suited to your schedule. Everyone needs someone to talk to, even psychopaths, even your humble host.
Never skip therapy day with BetterHelp. Visit betterhelp.com slash serialkiller today to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash serialkiller. Following the attacks, David enjoyed no howling voices in his head for two whole months. But this was not to last.
Under just a month after New York had celebrated the entrance into 1977, on the 29th of January, the forces of hell emerged in David's head once again. At 10 p.m., he climbed out of his filthy bed. He once again loaded his trusty .44-caliber revolver, went down to the dark streets outside his dingy apartment building, and got into his car.
He made his way cautiously out of Yonkers, to the Bronx Whitestone Bridge, and crossed, yet again, into Queens. Heeding his inner demons, he proceeded to the Forest Hills section of the borough, and parked at a corner in a prosperous neighborhood, not far from the Long Island commuter tracks. He got out of his car and started to walk. Just after midnight, at twelve-fifteen a.m., a couple hurried past him.
and Berkowitz got a glimpse of a woman's long, dark hair. He turned around and followed them to a blue Pontiac Firebird and watched them get in. The driver switched on the ignition, turned and kissed the woman as they waited for the engine to warm up. From his hiding place behind a tree, Berkowitz shuffled over to the car.
Inside were thirty-year-old John Deal, a bartender and his fiancée, the beautiful twenty-six-year-old Austrian Emmy Gray named Christine Freund. As the lovers broke their embrace and John turned to put the Pontiac in gear, the right front window exploded in a hail of glass.
Christine screamed out in pain as two bullets tore into her right temple and neck, and a third struck the dashboard of the car. She almost immediately lost consciousness from the head wound. In shock and panic, John leaned on the horn, then scrambled out of the car and raced down the street, screaming for help.
Someone who heard the shots alerted the police, and within just four minutes a squad car arrived. Not ten minutes after the shooting, Christine Freund was at a nearby hospital, but at 4 a.m. she was pronounced dead. Thus far in his career as a serial killer, David Berkowitz had been very lucky.
His crimes had taken place in different police jurisdictions, and with police cooperation in New York in the 1970s, being more competitive than cooperative, cross-referencing of reports and ballistics analysis was unlikely to happen very quickly. Moreover, the big bullets he used mostly shattered on impact, so the ballistics experts had very little to work with.
As a result, the authorities of New York City did not yet know they had an active serial killer on the loose. This changed with the murder of Christine Freund. The following day, Bronx detectives called their counterparts in Queens and pointed out the shooting of Donna Lauria in their jurisdiction.
The common denominators were the mode of attack and the large caliber of the weapon used. Further checking turned up another similar case, the double shooting of Lomino and De Masi. And so it was that on the 2nd of February, a dedicated task force under the direction of Police Captain Joseph Borelli was put together.
But police were far from catching the scent of their prey, David Berkowitz. His inner demons did not care that the police were organizing, and as so many other serial killers, he thought himself far superior and cleverer than any police force. On the 8th of March, the imaginary hellhounds in David's world began to howl for blood yet again.
Although spring was in the air, he donned a heavy ski jacket and a stocking cap and set out again for Forest Hills. This time he parked near the stadium that was in those days the site of the U.S. Open tennis tournament. It was early evening, but quite dark. As he strolled along a street near the edge of a gated community called Forest Hills Gardens, he saw a young woman walking toward him.
She had long, dark hair and carried an armload of schoolbooks. Twenty-one-year-old Virginia Voskerichian was the daughter of an Armenian emigre. She was a student at Columbia University, majoring in Russian language studies, and had been a naturalized United States citizen for less than two years. When the very attractive young woman was nearly face to face with Berkowitz,
He pulled the .44 revolver out of his pocket. She raised her books in a vain effort to protect herself. But a single shot struck her in the mouth and into her brain. She was hurled backwards into some bushes, where she died almost instantly. Berkowitz shuffled back to his car. On the way, he passed the first person ever to get a good look at him, at the sight of a son-of-Sam murder.
The man who saw him was fifty-nine-year-old civil engineer, whose name has never been released by the police. "'Hi, mister,' David said to him. Seconds later, David was almost caught. A carload of police detectives spotted him from a distance, noting that he had slowed to a walk when he saw them coming.
Unfortunately, the detectives were on routine street crime detail and not looking in particular for a serial murderer. They pulled up alongside Berkowitz and were on the verge of questioning him when the radio announced the shooting of Virginia. The cops, unaware they had the killer right in front of them, sped away and David walked calmly away, got in his car and drove home.
His demons silenced once again. The next morning, the Special Task Force met at Queen's 112th Precinct. I think we got a psycho here, Captain Joseph Borelli told his crew. The ballistics had finally made a match between the bullet used to slay Virginia and the ones used to end Donna's life. Borelli requested an additional fourteen men,
And a day later, the New York Police Commissioner Michael Codd announced at a Manhattan press conference that there was not only a link between those two killings, but among others as well. A borough-level task force was not sufficient for this level of crime, and 37-year-old Deputy Inspector Timothy Doade was given charge of an expanded investigation.
All of this was reported in the New York City newspapers, and David Berkowitz sat at home reading about it with great interest, gleefully reveling in the attention given to the mysterious .44-caliber killer.
This podcast is presented by Bobby Brown Cosmetics. Bobby Brown Cosmetics is known for their complexion products and their new weightless skin foundation is turning non-foundation wearers into foundation wearers. The Bobby Brown team tested on over 7,000 faces to perfect the formula and color range to deliver on what women seek out most in a foundation. The result?
you see your best skin, not makeup. With 24-hour moisture and 24-hour wear, the smart skin balancing technology adapts to what your skin needs. Bobbi Brown's ultra lightweight formula feels like nothing on your skin. It even stays put while on the move, even in humid climates.
See more of the campaign and discover your perfect shade of weightless skin foundation at bobbybrown.com. Need new glasses or want a fresh new style? Warby Parker has you covered. Glasses start at just $95, including anti-reflective, scratch-resistant prescription lenses that block 100% of UV rays. Every frame's designed in-house, with a huge selection of styles for every face shape.
And with Warby Parker's free home try-on program, you can order five pairs to try at home for free. Shipping is free both ways, too. Go to warbyparker.com slash covered to try five pairs of frames at home for free. warbyparker.com slash covered.
At Ashley, you'll find colorful furniture that brings your home to life. Ashley makes it easier than ever to express your personal style with an array of looks in fun trending hues to choose from, from earth tones to vibrant colors to calming blues and greens. Ashley has pieces for every room in the house in the season's most sought after shades. A more colorful life starts at Ashley. Shop in store online today. Ashley, for the love of home.
And so ends part four of my special expose into the life and crimes of David Berkowitz. Next week I will give you part five, where we will take a closer look at the letters penned by Son of Sam, as well as his further murderous activities. So, as they say in the land of radio, stay tuned. I have been your host, Thomas Weyborg Thun.
And this podcast would not be possible if it had not been for my dear patrons, who pledge their hard-earned money every month. There are especially a few of those patrons I would like to thank in person. These patrons are my 18 most loyal patrons. They have contributed for at least the last 24 episodes, and their names are Sandy, Maud,
You really helped produce this show and you have my deepest gratitude. Thank you.
If you wish to join this exclusive club of TSK producers, go to theserialkillerpodcast.com forward slash donate and pledge $15 or more to have your name read live on this show. As always, I thank you, dear listener, for listening. Please feel free to leave a review on your favorite podcast app, my Facebook page,
at facebook.com slash theskpodcast or Reddit. And please do subscribe to the show if you enjoy it. Thank you, good night, and good luck.