drew altman
DESCRIPTION
David Berkowitz (Son of Sam). Drew Altman. Murdered 3 people personally and aided in 3 more. Chose to kill with a .44 caliber bulldog. Claimed his neighbor’s dog was possessed by a demon that commanded him to kill when it barked. Berkowitz was part of a small satanic cult. - PowerPoint PPT PresentationTRANSCRIPT
Drew Altman
David Berkowitz(Son of Sam)
Murdered 3 people personally and aided in 3 more
Chose to kill with a .44 caliber bulldog
Claimed his neighbor’s dog was possessed by a demon that commanded him to kill when it barked
Berkowitz was part of a small
satanic cult
David was born through an
affair and the father wanted to abort him – but his mother put him up for
adoption
Lost interest in school early and engaged in pyromaniac behavior along with committing larcenies
His half-sister was involved in witchcraft, which greatly interested him
Joined the US Army at 16 and served for 3 years after which he had an honorable discharge
Psychologists identified David as a neurotic, paranoid schizophrenic
He believed he was
possessed and
commanded by demons
to kill
Berkowitz began his attacks by assaulting two women with a knife on Christmas Eve, 1975
He then followed with shootings in
July, October, and November
of 1976. He seemed to target two
people together in these attacks, mostly women.
4 More shootings followed in January, March, April, and June of 1977. All of these except the last followed the same modus
operandi and were located around the same area
Berkowitz left a couple of notes for the police department
explaining his killings and
creating public terror in New
York.
Suspicions arose of the Son of Sam David Berkowitz because of multiple
eyewitness sightings of his greasy dark hair and fair complexion. The 300 police assigned to find him were
catching up.
The Son of Sam’s final
shooting was 2 days after the anniversary of his first - July 31, 1977. He had left too
much of a trail to follow.
Police located Berkowitz’s car and waited for him to enter it.
He was arrested on the spot.
Maps and plans for his next
victims were found in the car, along with a rifle.
Berkowitz’s last words as a free man
were this. “You caught me. What
took you so long?” He was sentenced to 365 years in prison.
My Thoughts
David Berkowitz was quite a strange person. His satanic cult ties possibly sparked by his exposure to his half-sister’s witchcraft took hold of his spiraling social life and created a monster. The psychiatrists identified him with schizophrenia but the similarity in the killings doesn’t make that seem very likely to me. He seemed to feel no remorse and was particularly calm when being caught. The interesting thing is that he is currently a Christian convert that has apologized endlessly and accepts that his life imprisonment is what he deserves. He attempted to give money to his victim’s families and is currently authoring a memoir of his life. This seems totally against his entire life and I’m curious to see what he says about his time of cult following or if he recalls the experience at all. His rehabilitation really surprised me considering he once listened to orders from satan through his neighbor’s dog.