Netflix Revives Fear of ‘Son of Sam’ in Haunting Documentary

The urban landscape of New York in the 1970s was fraught with anxiety and tension. An economic turbulence was imminent, the city was engulfed in filth, and crime rates were skyrocketing. However, a more ominous danger was inconspicuously lurking. Over a period of 13 months, an unidentified gunman was on an attacking spree, randomly targeting young women and couples often while they relaxed in their vehicles. The murderer would occasionally leave scribbled missives at the location of his crimes, ridiculing the New York police force, and media agencies. Identifying himself as the ‘Son of Sam’, the killer promised to keep the trail of bloodshed ongoing.

Revealed to be David Berkowitz, the criminal was not merely a perpetrator of six murders and the inflictor of injuries on seven others. His actions disrupted the city’s sentiment of security, leaving a deep-rooted legacy of dread and a media frenzy that New York hadn’t experienced before. Close to five decades later, a chilling Netflix documentary series titled ‘Conversations with a Killer: The Son of Sam Tapes’ provides a fresh perspective to the case featuring unheard prison audio records of Berkowitz’s confessions, archival clips, and raw testimonials of firsthand experiences.

Between the period of July 1976 and August 1977, Berkowitz, who held a job as a mailman in Yonkers, would haunt the working-class districts of Bronx, Queens, and Brooklyn, in search of potential victims to his heinous crime of shooting indiscriminately. His initial victims were 19-year-old Jody Valenti and 18-year-old Donna Lauria. On one July evening in 1976, they were seated in Valenti’s illegally parked Oldsmobile in the residential zone of Pelham Bay in Bronx when they were confronted by a man who proceeded to open fire at them. Lauria’s life was terminated instantly in this attack, while Valenti survived a bullet injury to the leg and managed to provide a description of the assailant.

Despite these heinous crimes, it was not until the fifth assault that occurred in March 1977 that law enforcement agencies could piece together the common pattern. On her return to her home in Floral Park, which is situated on the boundary of Queens and Long Island, Murphy would literally hurl herself out of her vehicle and race to the fortified sanctity of her dwelling.

In November of 1976, two teenagers, 16-year-old Donna DeMasi and 18-year-old Joanne Lomino, were nearing Lomino’s residence in Queens when a gunman approached them on their way home. Both women fell victims to the shooting. DeMasi was fortunate enough to recover from her wounds, while a shot to Lomino’s back caused permanent paralysis. Amidst this horrifying period, Murphy’s recollections of the fear prevalent at that time, remain vivid.

There is one particular memory that Murphy cannot escape from – a newspaper photograph of one of the victims, 19-year-old Virginia Voskerichian, lying lifeless on the pavement. A few days subsequent to the heartbreaking account of Voskerichian being shot dead on her way back from college classes in March 1977, police officials held a press conference. They declared their strong suspicion that the same .44 Bulldog revolver had been used in all the violent assaults.

Murphy recalls feeling a palpable sense of relief when her senior prom, which was scheduled in May 1977, was shifted to the Rainbow Room located in Manhattan. Another episode related to the Son of Sam’s reign of terror involves the unfortunate Stacy Moskowitz and Robert Violante who were shot while on their first date in Bath Beach. Moskowitz succumbed to her injuries, while Violante lost sight in one of his eyes.

Shortly after this incident, Murphy and her family visited a restaurant in Ireland. During their meal, the news of Berkowitz’s arrest came to light. The infamous assailant was apprehended outside his residence in Yonkers on August 10, 1977. Police uncovered maps, ammunition, and a firearm in his vehicle and eventually got a confession from Berkowitz for his killings.

Berkowitz implicated that he was responding to the commands of an evil entity that communicated with him through his neighbor’s dog. For his series of grisly crimes, Berkowitz was sentenced to six life terms, each 25 years long, in 1978. He later professed to having found faith as a born-again Christian and has shown regret over his past criminal activities. Nonetheless, his petitions for parole have been consistently rejected.

Berkowitz, now 72 years old, is presently serving his term at the Shawangunk Correctional Facility located in upstate New York. The ruthless reign of terror of the ‘Son of Sam’ might have come to an end after Berkowitz’s capture, but it left an indelible mark on the city that was altered forever.

A documentary now rekindles the haunting memories of that infamous time, the fear that gripped New Yorkers, the desperate manhunt by the law enforcement agencies, and the shocking revelations made by the murderer himself. Berkowitz’s confessions and the victims’ experiences are a grim reminder of the dark period that New York experienced in the 1970s.

The aftermath of this reign of terror made an everlasting impact on the collective conscience of New York, and one can only hope for the strength and resilience of its people to prevail. As the city has undergone tremendous changes over the last five decades, the legacy of fear left behind by the ‘Son of Sam’ is still remembered.

In the end, an epoch of dread marked by ‘Son of Sam’ was stamped into New York City’s history. A city known for its resilience and unyielding spirit, New York, forever carries the scars of that turbulent time, embodying a poignant reminder and a lesson to never forget.