David Berkowitz Biography

David Berkowitz was born on June 1, 1953 in Brooklyn New York. His parents were Betty Broder and Joseph Kleinman. They weren’t his parents for very long though; he was given up for adoption shortly after his birth. He was later adopted by Nathan and Pearl Berkowitz. As a child Berkowitz was a bit overweight and unhappy with himself, so in order to combat this self hatred he became very secluded and was considered a loner. After a while he even began to pick on other kids just to feel better about himself. As a teenager he lost his adoptive mother to cancer which was a very traumatic event to him.

As for his adult life, he joined the military and had his only sexual encounter there with a prostitute who left him with a venereal disease causing

him to be angry and frustrated with women. Berkowitz was given an IQ test where he scored a 110 which placed him on the certified genius scale. He then led the rest of his life becoming a serial killer where he gained the nicknames “the son of Sam” and “the .44 caliber killer.”
The first time David struck was the morning of July 29, 1976. Little did New York know that a serial killer was making his debut. His first victims were two young woman an eighteen year old named Donna Lauria and Jody Valenti her nineteen year old friend. The two friends were sitting in their car talking when Donna’s father came out and said one in the morning you guys should come in since it’s the “dangerous hour.” The girls agreed and said they will be in shortly, but not too long after a man approached the passenger side of the car when the asked what he was doing they didn’t receive an answer. That is when Berkowitz opened fire using a .44 caliber bulldog handgun and shot them killing Donna instantly and leaving Jody shot in the thigh. Although Jody lived she was unable to give a good description of the attacker to the police.
Another attempted murder by Berkowitz occurred on November 26, 1976 Donna DeMasi and Joanne Lomino were on their way back from seeing a movie when a man came up to them and started asking for directions and before he even finished his sentence he pulled out the gun and shot them both. They both survived though Joanne ended up paralyzed since the bullet shattered her spine.
After some of his murders he left behind letters to the police Captain Joseph Borelli.

These letters would allude to more murders he was going to commit to satisfy “Sam” who is basically a demon that is making him commit the crimes.

On August 10, 1977 he was finally captured. His capture happened because a woman saw a suspicious man who looked like he could be the .44 caliber killer. She then saw the police writing a parking ticket on his car which the police were able to use to track him down and arrest him before he commit any other heinous crimes. Once he was captured the first words out of his mouth were “you got me. What took you so long?” For his sentencing he decided to do a plea bargain which in his case was he would plead guilty if he did not receive the death penalty. The courts agreed and he was sentenced to 25 years-to-life making his sentence a total of 365 years all for the murder of six and the injuring of seven.

Later on he was psychoanalyzed and diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. This conclusion was mainly due to the fact that he said he commit the murders because a demon who took the place of his neighbors dog told him to.

Presently, Berkowitz is still alive and well at 63 years old. He is being held at the Sullivan Correctional Facility in New York and has also been denied parole five

times.