THE WICKED KING WICKER-Michael Benson

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Mobsters disassembled one another nightly and dropped hefty bags of mixed parts off the carnesi. Peer gangs rumbled in the city's playgrounds and ghost towns, each battle busted up by the sound of gunfire or police siren. Co Eds were raped and sent home shattered. Wide swaths of real estate

former ghettos were abandoned and left to the squatters. Times Square, once seemingly the center of the universe, had sunk into an odorous septic tank, a choice of porn loops in a booth of somdulant live sex shows continuous New York had crumbled into a city of ancient ruins. When city tough blades of sharp breasts poked through each crack in a pavement. A city undergoing a so called fiscal crisis,

but more a crisis of the soul. A city of routine muggings, vacant lots turned dump sight parked, and abandoned roads to nowhere. A city that President Gerald Ford told to drop dead. A city in which four murders a

night was the norm. A city of scary shadows, vacant lots, sewer gas from a cracked manhole, a stinging rain of rust from tenement fire escapes where pedestrians routinely dodged bell Bottom angel dust, time bombs, where young savage baby boomers washed down black beauties with Ryan bowled out of a can. Where each glance into the shadows was an assault upon civilized sensibilities. A derelict big apple, rotten at the core,

with no signs of hope. In the South Bronx ten square blocks per year, five thousand housing units were lost to arson. Owners abandoned properties rather than pay the tax, often torching them at night to collect insurance, leaving block after block of charred hulks forward Apache. They called it after the old Western movie where it looked like the bomb had gone off, nothing but steamy, bricked streets and

smoldering rubble. It was a ghost town inhabited only by clawnleishly uniformed soldiers of vague cause, who moved like insects, who fought for worthless turf and and dignity through the smoke of despair.

And I know because I was going to school at the time on Long Island and I used to go into the city all the time, and that a lot of times it was just terrifying. You could you're afraid to go down a street for fear that somebody would jump you. A crime was out of control. Part of it, I think had to do with the fact that the baby Bloomer generation was in its late teens and early twenties at that time, so people in there at the rowdiest and most to commit crimes were plentiful. Also, the

mafia was having wars. They were knocking each other off every night. There was gunfire in the streets. And considering the fact that between July of nineteen seventy six and July nineteen seventy seven, there were maybe fifteen hundred murders in New York City. The Son of Sam committed six murders, wounded seven in eight attacks. And yet the Son of Sam, and I will sometimes referred to him as he, although it's a day, was on the front pages of the

newspapers for much of that time. And that's because although there were many places in New York City that were considered to be highly dangerous at that time, the Sun of Sam attacks occurred only in the pockets of perceived safety.

Son of Sam made everyone, even the beautiful kids of successful parents, feel like targets, and kids who were used to doing pretty much what they pleased when they pleased, all of a sudden realized that the boogeyman was real and he was going to get them if they didn't look out. I've always felt the close association with these crimes. Like I said, I went to Hofst University at that time, I was only six miles away from the closest Son

of Sam shooting in Bordo Park. And for the kids my age in New York City, the summer of nineteen seventy seven was a wasted summer. Everyone in the Bronx and Queens and later in Brooklyn were afraid to go out because there was a psycho out there shooting kids.

They had boriled Jody's car. Tell us a little bit about what happens in the car at the end of this evening on Burer Avenue.

safe in that section. And Donna opens the door to go in, and she sees a man approaching, and she goes, Oh, what the heck is this? And she slams the door and gets bagging off back inside the car, and then a gunman fires four shots through the passenger side window, strikes Donna in the right temple, killing her instantly, and shoots Jody in the thigh. Jody gets out of the

car and starts screaming. She opens the passenger side door and Donnah falls out of the car, And this happens just as Donna's dad emerges from the front door of the apartment building, and he immediately recognizes what he's seeing and bursts into tears. Jody describes the shooter as five nine, about one hundred sixty pounds, with curly black hair, clean shaven, fair complexion, wearing a white striped polo shirt, black or dark pants. Could not have looked any more regular or

less scary, but he had a scary gun. Police come in. They because Donna and Jody are Italian girls, they assumed that this is part of a mafia vendetta, and that just really steams Donna's dead because there's nothing to do with organized crime. Yea profiling at its worst. And the most unusual thing about the murder is that, unlike the pocket guns that mobsters use, the bullets are forty four caliber and that is very rare.

to the next level. They called him dart Man. It's interesting here because soon after the dart Man attacks stop, the Son of Sam attacks begin.

psycho out there. There's another house is also there's an attempted arson. You're on an apartment in a large apartment building in Yonkers as a fire started just outside the door. So there's firebug going on. And also you know somebody's out there shooting dogs. So there's trouble in Yonkers, and there are weird attacks starting up in New York. But nobody's going to make that connection for quite a while yet.

long brown hair. Rosemary is the daughter of a police detective, and they're sitting in a Volkswagen Beetle parked on a residential street in the murray Hill section of Queens sometimes referred to as Easternmost Flushing, but it's murray Hill. Rosemary, for reasons that probably don't matter to us, is sitting behind the wheel and Carl is in the passenger seat, even though he's thee who borrowed the car. And at two thirty am, passenger side window explodes and Carl is

shot in the head. Rosemary is unharmed. She managed to get the car in gear despite you know, must must been panic and drives back to the bar that the two had just left, and Carl's taken the Flushing hospital where he has to stay for a month. They put a plate in his head and the bullets are forty four caliber. Nobody makes any connection between this attack and

the one in the Bronx. They're miles apart, right, And person who takes the most interest, of course, is Detective Red Keenan, whose daughter was in a car that was shot at. And you know, nobody's saying anything about the mafia this time, but later on it would be assumed that the shooter at dark at night, when the fellow with long dark hair thought that he was shooting a girl, when he was shooting a guy.

It was probably up in Rochester home for the holiday, right, And they got back from the movies and they're walking from the bus stop and they see a man hiding behind a telephone poll which is both terrifying and ridiculous because you can see him sticking out the sides it. You know, it's it's almost comical, but why is it the bizarre behavior and that translates into fear. So the girls hurry home and they are right in front of Joanne's house when they see the guy walking on the

other side of the street and he's slender. It's a skinny guy, one hundred and fifty pounds soaking wet, five eight with his dirty blonde hair long parted on the side, and older is between twenty five and thirty years old. It's not a kid. This is a man wearing a brown three quarter length coat over what appears to be

army fatigues. Now they stop in front of the house, and then Joann doesn't want to go in because she doesn't want the guy to know where she lives, so that there's they're pausing there in front of the house and he crosses the street and he starts to say something which they interpret as do you know where? And then he starts to mumble. They back away from him, and they're now up on the porch of Joan's house when he pulls a gun and fires wildly. He hits

them both, but one shot hits the house. It's a bizarre miss, and a forty four has quite a kick, so it's not unusual for it to be less than accurate. But I mean horrible things, you know. The donna's shot in the neck and Joanne is shot in the spine and is paralyzed. From the waist down to this day. The shooter is seen fleeing holding a gun in his left hand again by witnesses. Long light colored hair and forty four shellcas things are found at the crime scene.

So police are starting to make the connection now that perhaps these are connected shootings, but they haven't released any information to that effect to the public yet. After the next shooting, that's when there would really be no no holding it back anymore.

Tennis tournament. Away in this almost a fairyland neighborhood, all these Tudor style homes and tiny, curving, skinny roads, so they couldn't have felt more safe. And they'd just been to a wine and cheese place, and they're warming up the car before heading home and a shoot he approaches and fires through the passenger side window. Fires three times.

Christine is struck twice, first in the shoulder and then just as she let out a short scream in the head, a third bullet ricochets off the windshield and John Deele is uninjured now for what seemed to him forever but probably only a matter of seconds. He tries to keep her sitting up in the seat because he thinks that that will help, and every time he lets go over, she falls over into his lap. He pushes her back up, and she falls into his lap again. Eventually he realizes

this is not doing any good. He gets out of the car and starts to scream for help, and he sees a man standing there staring at him, seemingly relaxed, So help me, help me, And the man just turns around slowly and walks away. And John runs around the neighborhood chicken with his head cut off and screaming for help. He's diving on the hood of cars and nobody is stopping. Nobody wants to get involved, especially somebody inside a house.

Here's the ruckus and calls for the police, and the police show up, and it's not that much time has gone by, but you know, to John, it just seems forever. He's been all around the neighborhood. And Captain Joseph Brelli, who's chief of the Queen's Homicide Squad, shows up, and he finds a slug at the scene that's only slightly deformed. And from this piece of metal, they could not just determine that the gun was a forty four, but that it was a Charter Arms Bulldog forty four, a fact

that was not immediately released to the public. Now, the Bulldog forty four is pretty rare. At that time, there were only fifty six of them registered in the New York metropolitan area, and they were designed for a specific purpose. I don't know if you remember, but back in those days, there was a problem with skyjackings. People were hijacking commercial airplanes and having them fly to Cuba. So the gun was designed to shoot a hijacker without piercing the fuselage

of the plane. So the bullet lost speed muzzle velocity very quickly and was wildly inaccurate at anything, you know, more than five feet. So now they know the weapon that's doing these shootings, But again they don't inform the public. They wait, They wait for one more shooting place a few weeks later, in March eighth, tenteen seventy, but only about one hundred yards away. And this one is different.

It's seven point thirty in the evening on a Tuesday nights, not a weekends, not the middle of the night that the sun has just set. It's recently dark, and it's right around the corner from where Christine was murdered in the previous attack. Now I've walked this, I've gotten out of the subway where the victim got out and walked it.

You walk right by where Christine was shot, through the well lighted plaza underneath the railroad station, and then you take a right hand turn onto Dartmouth Street and it is pitch black, and I can still remember the start of turning that corner and realizing that my eyes were going to have to dilate before I was gonna be able to see anything at all. And that's what Virginia

of Oscar Ycian had just done. And she was a college girl, twenty years old, and she lived in Forest Hills, you know, one of the prettiest and most beautiful and certainly considered the safest neighborhood in all of New York City. And as she was walking down Dartneth Street, a small person gender uncertain thought you know, later described as a teenage boy but possibly a girl, walks right up to Virginia,

sticks the gun at her. Virginia, who's carrying books because she's coming home from school, puts the books over her face. The shooter presses the gun against the books and pulls the trigger. One shot only through the books and through Virginia's mouth, and unfortunately, you know, through her brain, lodging near her spine, and she falls down across the sidewalk with her head awkwardly angled in a clump of bush is in front of for Dartmouth Street, and there are

multiple witnesses. This is not a deserted area at seven thirty in the evening, and two distinctly different suspects are seen fleeing, and one is the young teenager teenage boy or girl in a dark ski cap sixteen to eighteen

years old estimate and fleeing the scene running west. And running in the other direction is a white adult male twenty five to thirty years old, clean shaven, clear skinned, medium built five ten to six foot, well groomed, with dark hair combed straight back, which resembles the man seen at the first shooting by Jody Valenti. Now after this, there's really no secrets from the public anymore. The two shootings, you know, in closeness in time and geography, really I

paste it up. There are one hundred yards apart. And on Thursday, March tenth, Mayor Abraham Beam, who's the mayor of this sinking ship, called New York City and Police Commissioner Michael cod decided they have to inform the public of what's going on. They hold a press conference at the Forest Hills Precinct station and they announced that the man who killed Virginia also killed Christine and also killed

Donal Laurie in the Bronx previous summer. They said that the weapon was a Charter Arms Bulldog forty four and if anybody knew anyone that had such a weapon, please let them know. And then they did something that still strikes me as I because New York City does not have as many blonde people as the rest of the country or Canada, I suppose we are a dark haired people and we tend to be ethnic in New York.

But they said that the killer seems to prefer girls with long, dark hair, and that the male victim also had long dark hair and was sitting in the passenger's seat and probably was mistaken for a girl. Now this is the first fuor this is just the beginning of the real craze. It's a forty four killer. He's known as He's going to be on the front page from now on. And beauty parlors are doing unbelievable business because every young woman in New York is getting her haircut

and having a dyed blonde. As it turns out, you know, as we now know, Son and Sam didn't care what color your hair works.

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It looks like they have descriptions from two or about two different suspects with colored hair and size, and so what do they do with that information?

trying to get the heck away from there. I know, you know I wrote about the uh, the whacking of Albert Anastasia in a barbershop in New York City and the only reason, the only way they could tell who the shooters from the other people in the barbershop who were trying to get away, was which ones had the shaving cream on their face. So they're thinking that the adult man with the dark hair is the shooter and the shorter teenager is probably an eyewitness who is just

trying to get away. And it's part of consolidated thinking. You know that they have one gun, there's one shooter, and the thought that this may be a pack of creepy kids, I mean, it doesn't occurs. It occurs to them, and certainly, you know, Detective Marlon Hopkins, you know, says it out loud because you know, this might be a bunch of kids passing a gun around. And but that kind of thinking is not encouraged because it tends to open doors when police like to closed doors. The problem with multi.

And you know, as we now know, it never works, and I mean it becomes the next shooting. We have two police officers who are watching the building in Pelham Bay section of the Bronx where Donal Laurie was killed previous July. And the shooting is around the corner on Hutchinson's of the Parkway more than hundred yards but by a bit, you no more than five hundred yards and it's only one turn. And again I've walked it and they were that close. Still they didn't catch the guy,

so and it was very frustrating. And then the it's just eating cops alive. There is this forty four fatigue is already setting in. Guys aren't sleeping and the detectives hate these kind of cases. The victims don't deserve to be shot. You know, there's a certain comfort in covering like mob cases, where you know, a mobster from one family shoots a mobster from another family. As long as it's no collateral damage. We'll still try to figure out

who's doing it, but we'll sleep at night. But I mean, you know, poor poor Joanne Romino who's in a wheelchair, trying to deal with the dad of Donal Lauria who's in her grave, and trying to apologize to her dad for thinking it was a mob thing when now they realize it's a psycho killer thing. But yeah, things been change is drastically in sineteen seventy seven, when the killer returns to the Bronx.

the car and shoots from the driver's side window. Valentine is struck in the mouth a bullet that went through her neck and exited behind her right ear. Another bullet hit her behind her left ear and went through her brain and came to a rest against the inside of her skull near the base of her neck. She's killed instantly. Alexander is shot twice in the top of his head, and he's rendered unconscious by the shots, but he somehow clings to life. A neighbor recognizes the sound of gunfire

and calls police. Alexander's rushed to the hospital and he dies a few hours later. And you know, we know that they plan to go to a movie and they plan to do this, but we we really don't know

because there are no witnesses. But as they're investigating the crime scene on Hutchison Park Unison River Parkway, open the car door and an envelope falls out into the street, and inside the envelope is a letter and it's addressed to Captain Joseph BURRELLI, and it starts like this, I am deeply hurt by calling me a wee mown hater. That's w e m o n. It's woman misspelled to rhyme with demon. I am not, but I am a monster. I am the son of Sam. I am a little brack.

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 a command's father Sam. Well, that's how it starts, and it continues in its creepy way, and the writer refers to himself in a number of ways. His little brat son of Sam beyels above mister monster, chubby behemoth. But the one that sticks, as we all know now, is son

of Sam. And the letter ends I'll be back. I'll be back. Bang bang bang bang yours in murder, mister monster.

they took. And then things got worse because a couple of days later, Jimmy Breslin, who is the columnist for the New York Daily News, he gets a letter also from quote son of Sam unquote, and this one, you know, there's a lifelong writer. I just got to say, it's really well written. If you took it out of context, you could pass sit off as a poem by Allen Ginsburg, or lyrics by Bob Dylan or something ts Elliot's The Wasteland. And again, let me just read the beginning of it

for you. It starts out, Hello from the gutters of New York City, which are filled with dog manure, vomit, stale wine, urine, and blood. Hello from the sewers of New York City, which swallow up these delicacies when they are washed away by the sweeper trucks. Glow from the cracks in the sidewalks of New York City and from the ants dwell in these cracks and feed in the dried blood of the dead that has settled into the cracks.

Now again, the writer gives a series of things that he may be called, and they sort of it's almost a list that Sam's creation forty four, the do of Death, the title of this book, The Wicked King Wicker, the twenty two Disciples of Hell, which turns out to be a real thing. John Wheatie's rapist and suffocator of young girls, who turns out to be a real person. And then the the on the back of the envelope, there's like a little high coup and it goes blood and family,

darkness and death, absolute depravity. Now, Holy count, I mean this letter because it's sent to a journalist, gets printed, you know, in its entirety in the newspaper, and that's it. It's just it. Everybody is terrified. Kids stop going out, especially kids in the Bronx and Queens. And then you know that the lure is still. There are still blondes who are saying, wow, he doesn't like my type. That's okay, But uh, there's it's a it's a city where the

economy is already hanging on by a thread. And now nobody's going out at night. You know the places they we're doing okay business on the outer areas of the city, the discotheques and the bars, they're empty. You know, nobody's going out. They they're they're offering specials that they're uh offering valet parking if you if you're a woman and you want to go out, we're never going to allow you to be alone. You know, you don't have to walk from the parking lot to the bar. You'll be escorted.

So it's I mean, it's it's it's amazing. And uh so by the time there the next shooting, Uh, we have a poor teenage girl who has just graduated from high school. She's got friends in Religi tives over to her house after the graduation ceremony who are afraid to go out, and she says, well, you know, darn you all, I'm going to go out because I just graduated and I'm going to party. And they said, don't do it.

You know, the son of Sam's out there, said well, you know, I'll go to a place I'm familiar with, you know, in the place, the place that says they're going to keep me safe. But she didn't stay safe.

over it. And the kids said that they met They had met once before at the elefice and she went there because she felt safe and Sal was there and she trusted Sam. Say said, hey, you know, don't worry about it. I'll give you a ride home. You're good with me. And at three ten am, he borrows the keys from the bouncer of the club. The guy runs,

drives a Cadillac and takes her to the car. You know, just smooching make out a little bit before she goes home, and because he's unfamiliar with the car, he has to turn on the inside light to find the cigarette lighter. It's only on for a second, but they later think that's probably when they were spotted by the shooter, who creeps up on the car unnoticed and fires four shot

some quick succession through the passenger side window. The first shot strikes Judy in the neck, the second grazes Judy in the head and fails to penetrate her skull, thank evans stopped behind her eyebrow, and a third shot struck Sail in the wrist and ended up embedded in the front seat cushion. A Sail's aware of pain in his arm and Judy's making a little whimpering noises in her throat, so Sall runs back to the club, which is a block and a half away, and Judy manages to get

out of the car. Amazingly, she manages to get out of the car and stagger down the street. It's a light rain. She's standing down the street screaming before she collapses in the middle of the street, and sal and Judy are taken by amulance. To a Flushing hospital who're both are listed in fair condition, and one witness sees a stocky white male running south from the scene one

two hundred and eleventh Street. Second witness sees a well dressed blonde with a mustache get into a yellow compact car, possibly as Chevy Nova, which then drives away with its headlights out. Police are also looking for a black haired man who annoyed Judy inside the club and was hurt, muttering that she was a snob. So now police Omega Force is looking for patterns and they hit on two. Valentina Siani was a graduate of Saint Catharine's where Judy

Placido had just graduated from. Jody Valenti and Donna Lauria had also been out dancing in a discotheque the night they were shot, as were sal and Judy. All but two of the shootings occurred on the weekend, meant the killer probably had a job. All but one took place between midnight and three in the morning. Eight of the eleven shooting victims were women, and all the three of

the victims were shot inside parked cars. Judy Placido in the shadow of a mental hospital and that pushed the buttons of several detectives who were convinced that some lunatic had been looking out the window and it'd seen Judy Preps sunbathing down below and had become fixated with her. And of course twice now the killers had returned to the same neighborhood, Forest Hills and Pelham Bay in the Bronx. So, I mean, the next thing that happens in New York,

it doesn't anything to do with shooting. On July fourteenth, during a heat wave, nine thirty four pm, the lights go out. There's a blackout in New York City. And there had been a blackout in nineteen sixty five in New York which was remembered nostalgically. People made friends, they drank and candle at bars. It became a symbol of New York's resiliency. There was a movie in a book called Where Were You? And the Lights Went Out? But this seventy seven blackout wasn't like that at all. It's

more like pouring gasoline on the fire. More than sixteen hundred stores were looted, thirty seven fires were set, seventeen hundred false alarms were called in thousands were arrested. Cops called it the Night of the animals. Many New Yorkers remembered a time when they were proud of being a New Yorker because New York was smart and strong overcame hardship. But this behavior was the sign of a city of

bad character, a town with a personality disorder. You know, the lower class, normally powerless, saw a way to seize power in the dark, and chaos reigned. But as far as we know, during all of that madness, the son of Sam stayed inside. There was only one attack left. And because of what he had written in the Jimmy Breslam letter, what are you going to have for for

July twenty ninth. Yeah, they were convinced. The police were convinced that the first anniversary of the Donald Laurie Joey Balenti shootings was going to be a knight that he would attack. And they they were out. You know, nobody, nobody had the night off. Every cop in New York was out, and they were concentrating on the areas where they thought that they most likely to hit, and in that way didn't happen until the next night. You know, the Omega had been covering the Bronx and Queens that

their traps were set. You know, the ready to shout code forty four. There's no way he can get away this time. Well, it turned out all this it's not the same had a dude to get away with it. This time was to switch burrows and the next shooting occurred in the Bath Beach section of Brooklyn, South Brooklyn, fifteen miles from the nearest other attack. I'm the closest one to where I live now. I walk by there

all the time. The location was a lover's lane with the Belt Parkway on one side in a playground.

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the beautiful view of if. There's Coney Island on the left and the Verrizanto Bridge on the right. So it's pretty little area. But while they're playing on the swings, they walk right past a creepy guy who's sort of hanging out. He's leaning against the building that has the restrooms with his arms folded on his chest. It's hard to say exactly what made him so creepy. He was rough looking, he seemed weird, piercing, dark eyes, so un kempt, unshaven, grubby.

He wore a blue shirt with the sleeves rolled up. It's a hot summer, so having your shirt sleeves rolled up is pretty normal. And Stacy says, that guy makes me nervous. So they go back to the car, and you know, they start to get to know each other better,

and the shooter strikes at two thirty five am. It's July thirty first, I mean technically two nights after the first shooting, but really only one because it's after midnight, and fires four times at Robert and Stacy through the open passenger window of Robert's nineteen sixty nine four door Buick Skylock. Now the couple in the car in front of Violente's car, they're not getting along that night and have nothing better doing than to watch everybody else, so

they see the shooting. They're watching when the shooting takes place, and they see the man crouching into a shooter's squat power shooters stands low center of gravity, balanced taking the bulldogs kick written the core, and after the shooting they saw the man flee. They described him as twenty five to thirty years old stocky last scene, calmly walking away from the scene, across the street and into the playground, where he disappeared. Now, Stacy is shot twice in the head.

One bullet merely grazed her scalp, while the other entered the left side of her head, tore a path through her brain, and came to arrest at the base of her neck. Robert had been shot once, the bullet going through one eye and severely damaging the other. His ears were harmed by the explosive sound of the weapon, and for a time he could only hear a humming noise. Blacked out for a moment. They had no idea how long,

but probably just a matter of seconds. He came to and he was blind, and he could tell that he was soaked in his own blood. And he knew he was conscious because he could here Stacy moaning. He reached with his hands and found the car horn, which he pressed and kept pressing and started yell, helped me, don't let me die. Robert had been blinded. Stacy lingered in

the hospital for days before she died. Now, this is not a deserted area, it's you know, not as many people back then had air conditioning as they do now, and on a hot summer night, people stayed outside where there was at least a little bit of breeze. So I mean, the sounds of the horns and the screaming drew a crowd right away, and people ran to get towels. And you know, Robert's lying on his back next to

the car and they're putting towels over his face. And a woman one street over earlier in the evening had watched as a man who didn't match the description of the man in the in the playground at all, who was wearing a denim jack with the sleeves rolled down hot attire for a night that hot and holding one arm stiff as if he was hiding something up his sleeve, walked by, and she watched as the guy's car was ticketed for parking too close to a fire hydrant, and

the man walked over to the car, pulled the ticket out from underneath the wind show wiper, and threw it into the car and got into the car and drove off. So as it happened multiple times. Excuse me, there had been more than one suspect scene at the scene, and the blonde escaped in a yellow VW Volkswagon with its lights out, which makes me thinking maybe the same car as that the baside Queen's shooting were a yellow compact car. Maybe a Chevy Nova with its lights out was seen.

Sounds like the same m Now yellow car is driving off with their lights out. Doesn't happen very often. And the husky man seen by the lady walking a dog gets into a for galaxy and because he's been ticketed. As we now know, the dark haired man was David Berkowitz. The identity of the blond man remains officially unknown, and assuming that Burkoitz was part of a gang of young people passing around to forty four, he was also the

fall guy. He took the rap. He was arrested in possession of the forty four ballistically matched all the crimes. He did not implicate others in the crimes until after he was in prison for life. He took a crack at an infanity defense. He told police that a neighbor's dog, Sam Carr's dog Harvey, was ordering him to kill. Now David Burkoitz at once shot Sam Carr's dog Harvey. Harvey survived.

His apartment was found bare and well graffeited, but Birkwood later said that he wrote crazy Things on the wall only shortly before he was arrested, and took a lot of his possessions to Goodwill so that it would look more like a crazy person's apartment, setting the groundwork for an insanity defense that he didn't end up using. And when crunch time came, he pleaded guilty to all of

the Son of Sam attacks. Did a special courtroom set up with three judges at a king's county, Queen's county, and bronx judges so that they could take care of it all at once, and he was sentenced to many life sentences, and his guilty plea went against his defense team's wishes. They spent months trying to stabi plush a case that Burkwitz was insane, and at the last second

Burkowitz pulls the rug out and pleads guilty. Now. He later says that he belongs to a Satanic cult and that he was only the shooter and three of the Son of Sam attacks. And on July tenth, nineteen seventy nine, little less than a year after the last Son of Sam attack, Berkowitz himself was attacked in his cell block, a cell block that was supposed to offer additional security

for high risk inmates. The attacker, whom Burkewitz has refused the name, used a razor to cut the left side of Berkowitz's throat, a wound that required fifty six stitches to close. Now there wasn't already enough evidence of a conspiracy soon after his arrest, before the trials or anything.

An employee of the MA Marineck Animal Hospital the MA marinaksa town in Westchester County north of Jonkers, where burkletsved, tells a reporter from the New York Daily News that on the day before burke Wit is arrested, he and another man come into her shelter, and the two men are clearly together because they're wearing matching yellow baseball caps

with NAPA stitch across the front. Could have signified a place in California, could have been an autoparts store, but the matching hats, and they're both wearing matching jogging shoes, so they looked like a team. And they looked at a German shepherd that was available for adoption, and they talked about it for a little while. The guy who was with Berkowitz looked just like some of those Son of sam'sus big drawings that the dirty blonde hair parted

on the side. Longish police refuse to speculate and assured the public that any and all friends of burkoitz Is were going to be thoroughly investigated. Well, you know that didn't happen. The NYPD was suffering not only from having to deal with a crime written in New York City, but from Son of Sam burnout. I mean, they were just suffering from battle fatigue. There were cops that felt like they hadn't slept during the entire year of the Son of Sam siege, and the last thing they wanted

to do was investigate all of Burkwood's friend. Burkewitz had the murder weapon for all of the crimes in his possession. When he was caught, he confessed all of the crimes. Case closed. Now. The employee at the animal house recalled that the man with Burkowitz did all the talking, that Berkelets just seemed like a big doofy guy and stood there in grinned stroking the dog while his friend talked. And when the friend found out that there was a

background check involved. Before you could adopt a dog. They said, well, I'll have to think about it and left. This is even more interesting because bad things are happening to dogs. I mean a dog featured in Burke Woz's attempt to create an insanity offense. He'd shot at least two dogs in additions to the young people of New York. He shot the other dog he killed. It was born to the Nedo family and they lived on Wicker Street, a

Wicked King Wicker good name for a book. And that was right around the corner from the carhouse where when the dog Harvey was shot and wounded. Now there is evidence that a systemic campaign against dogs is going on in Orange County, which is the county on the other side of the Hudson River. At the time of the Son of Samitex in the walled in New York Area

eighty five. Again, the German shepherds and Doberman's are discovered between October nineteen seventy six and October nineteen seventy seven.

by just about everyone to be lumoney Tunes. They claimed to base his entire persona on a neighbor named Sam Carr, who's an old man that he'd never met. And the first letter in particular, you know, I'm locked into the attic by my father Sam. I'm you know, my father Sam drinks blood. He needs to have sacrifice, but you know Sam is basically Satan mm hm. So so he decides to look more into the car family and he finds that well, first of all, you can see the

cars home from Burgoitz's apartment window. And uh, Sam's daughter Wheat, she'd already showed up in the story at the Younker's police dispatcher she was. She was the youngres police to dispatcher who took the n y call after Burkowitz's galaxy was ticketed. Cop called and said, we're interested in a guy named David Burklett's and she says, hey, that's the guy we think shot our dog. He shot our dog with a forty four caliber weapon, which turned out not

to be true. So it's interesting that she made that mistake. But she was putting together Son of Sam with David Burkoitz before the New York Police Department was now Terry found out that wheat had two brothers, John and Michael. John had been in the Air Force. Michael was a freelance advertising stylist. John Terry couldn't help, but notice had been, at the time of the Son of Sam shootings, a hippie type with stringy, dirty blonde hair. It got better.

John and Michael, who are actual sons of Sam by all accounts, you know, didn't care for their father. And John's nickname was Wheaty's John Wheaty's, as mentioned in the in the Jimmy Breadwane letter. Now it's odd to have a nickname that mimics your sister's actual name. His sister's name is wheat and he's John Wheaty's. Yeah, I have no explanation for that. But John Wheaties is named in the letter. It's his actual nickname. So it's got confirmation

that Burkwitz doesn't just know of John Carr. He knows John Carr, he knows his nickname. Terry noted that killing animals was known to provide the blood letting its satanic masses and that there was satanic symbolism mixed into the Son of Sam letters, as well as some of the locations of the shootings. The Lfas Disco in particular, had Burkewit's a part of a satanic cult. Well, there was

more evidence that he had been. A tour of Untermeyer Park, in the northern section of Yonkers, where Brooklets lived in Westaster County, revealed graffiti indicating that it hosted satanic rituals. There were animal carcasses found in that area, upside down crosses, pentagrams had been spray painted onto concrete surfaces there. So Terry investigates John Carr. Next stop, let's talk to John Wheaty's because it's starting to look like you might be

onto something here now. Unfortunately, for his investigation by the time and it's it's autumn of nineteen seventy eight at this point. By the time he starts looking for John Wheaty's, John Wheedy's is dead. Finds out that from nineteen seventy two to seventy six, John Carr was stationed in North Dakota. In nineteen seventy six, the year that the Son of Sam attacks began, John Carr was discharged from the Air Force,

allegedly because of drug addiction. He was said to have been in New York for many of the Son of Sam attacks and greatly resembled the hippie with stringy hair seen at some of the attacks. And he's thirty years old at this point, which would also fit in with

the description we're not dealing with a kid. In January nineteen seventy eight, he called his girlfriend in North Dakota, complaining that the police were after him, although he didn't say why, and as far as we know, the police were not after him, so why was he feeling paranoid?

In the fall of nineteen seventy eight, just around the time when Maury Terry decides to go looking for him, he returns to North Dakota and he's only there for two days when he's found shot in the head and written near the body was in blood was sixt' six' Six member of The beast and SS, nyc which could have Meant son Of Sam New York. City now the SS nyc is written on the wall and the sixty

six six is written On John carr's. Hand now the death has ruled a, suicide which leaves open the question of who wrote the messages in his, blood but, which, however that. Happened John carr has met his end And terry is now convinced That berkleitz And John carr were part of A satanic cult that had read The satanic teachings of devil Worshiper Alister. Crowley So cherry turns his

attention To Michael. Carr he learned that in nineteen seventy, five the year before the sam shooting, started While burkoitz was just Before burkewitz moved to the apartment house that looked down in the car, house is living in an apartment On Barnes. Avenue in The, bronx he Met Michael, carr and he's got corroboration for, this And Michael carr is known as an occult obsessed drug, addt A satan.

Worshiper Michael carr Invites burkowitz to a party Where burkwitz meets members of a witch's, coven one to Which Michael carr belongs apparently considers himself a. Warlock and these were the twenty two disciples Of hell referred to in The breslen. Letter, again you have human intelligence matching up with things that are written in the letters by The son Of, sam

and we're heading down the rabbit. Hole. Now terry comes to believe that it's because Of burkewitz's friendship With Michael carr that he moves to an apartment only two hundred yards from the car home in The. Yarkers terry's next order of business is to Interview Michael, carr but again he's too. Late On october, fourth nineteen seventy, Nine Michael carr is killed in a one car accident when he

hit a street lamp at seventy five miles per. Hour there are no skid, marks And michael's Sister, wheat insists that he was killed that he was run off the road by another car that's. Ciar from, There terry's conspiracy theory becomes. Expansive he goes goes coast to, coast includes affiliations with long standing and well funded organization such as The Processed, church which is a spinoff Of scientology and it includes among its Members Bruce, davis who is still

in prison for Killing Gary hinman as part of The manson. Family, right and that The son Of sam killings were not just the serial killer out doing his. Thing but they were a terror campaign designed to bring about a social, armageddon and, boy it came close to working if it hadn't been For berkewitz's traffic tickets for parking next to a fire. Hydrant there's no telling how long it had gone on and what damage it would have done to the city Of New.

to be a ritualistic. Murder David, berkowitz in one of his first interviews with With Maury, terry says that you should look into, that and gives them some details about, it which leads to the obvious conclusion That berkowitz is in touch with somebody in prison who knows about The you, know that's the epidemic of weird and horrible murders taking place in Northern california during the nineteen sixty, nine in

the early part of nineteen. Seventies you know, that you know in, REALITY i Wrote The Wicked King wicker BEFORE i Wrote The age Of. Zodiac they've released in opposite directions for reasons that probably aren't that, Interesting and for a WHILE i wanted to to Release The Wicked King

wicker with an academic press and eventually decided against. It but it did move the books out of, order and there are certainly a lot of connections Between zodiac And son Of sam even Without bergerwitz talking About Arles perry in prison to an investigative, journalist you know The zodiac killer was in Northern, california killed between nineteen sixty and nineteen.

Seventy theorized that there was a team of killers using The zodiac as an avatar to take the credit for them all, right which is considered, controversial even though With son Of sam that's exactly what. Happened, now this Is son Of sam is Not David. Berkowitz The son Of sam is these people who may or may not be associated with The Processed, church who were taking turns using the same weapon and going out in packs looking for. Victims, now The son Of sam attacks seem to be imitative

in some ways to The. Zodiac zodiac certainly provided a. Template there's a gunman firing into part cars containing two young people making. Out both feature terrifying letters sent both the local newspapers and left at crime. Scene both attacking areas where young people tended to feel. Safe but there are differences as. WELL i, Mean zodiac killed with a variety of guns and a. Knife but there's more reason to think that The zodiac is more than one person

than Than son Of. Sam son Of sam cases all featured the same. Weapon zodiac seemed dyslexic and like coded, messages while The son Of sam knew the proper use of a semi colon and could be highly. Poetic and obviously the biggest difference of all, is you, know The zodiac case never resulted in an, arrest and the letters from The zodiac continued for years after the last Known zodiac. Murder and among the crimes that seemed to have come out of that that rash of murders started by The

zodiac is the murder Of Atlas. Perry and Here's David burke who it's talking about it to an investigative reporter after being arrested for The son Of sam.

were under suspicion by a desperate police. Force but you, know If berkowitz has ever been asked, to you, know write me something in that, funt, YEAH i don't know about, it BECAUSE i don't think he. Can i'm pretty sure there's this conclusive proof that you, know Burke wood's not only wasn't he wasn't even just taking this you, know. Dictation he didn't write the letters.

the camera would have to be inside the. Car and maybe Maybe i'm not thinking it through or, properly but it seemed to me like a snuff film would have as its center of attention the, victim.

KNOW i don't know much about the snuff theyll. MARKET i know that it probably is even further underground than you, know child, pornography And i'm sure the people who are into that sort of thing know how to keep secrets and know each other because they need to share and. Swap but, yeah the guy who was supposed to be

directing the movie was a producer Named Roy. Raiden and we do know that That Roy raiden was was himself murdered and found partially buried in the deaths are in In california by by a man who went to prison for the for the murder Named William, menzer who was referred to As manson too In Morey terry's, book which

is long sent out of. Print but uh an interesting, Note William menzer the uh the killer Of Roy raiden stuff, filmmaker alleged stuff filmmaker was also alone with one Of Carol king's husbands at the time That Carrol king's husband died of a drug. Overdose there these these aren't nice, guys and they're into some really scary. Stuff AND i know, that you, Know Robert maplethorp has been mentioned as a person who is into this. Stuff and you don't know

what to believe the one not to. BELIEVE i do know that the argument that you know we'd murders stopped When berkwitz was arrested in The New york area is not. True that you know there were no more forty four murders because they police had the. Gun but there is the horrible murder Of Howard green who was fifty one years old And Carol myron thirty three In, brooklyn and

they were, found you, know murdered in a ritualistic. Way their eyeballs had been blown, out the tips of their ears were cut, off they had almost all of their blood drained through approximately thirty puncture marks made in identical places on the two. Bodies the two corpses were bound in canvas and rugs and. Dumped they were dumped In West, Patterson New. Jersey and nothing good ever happens In West, Patterson New. Jersey and they were discovered discovered by a

boy walking his. Dog SO i, mean if they if they lived on the Coalb avenue here In, brooklyn right where the last, uh the Last son Of sam attack took. Place so the creepy kids stopped passing around the forty. Four but it doesn't mean they stopped doing creepy.

little shy. Smile h you, know you, know THE fbi says that the serial killers tend to be uh tend to be. Adopted That's. Burkolitz burkolitz was adopted by by The matt And Pearl berkowitz because his actual mother had a boyfriend who didn't want a baby in the, house so he was given. Away you had a girl hating club when he was a little, boy like in The Little.

time you. KNOW i thought of a book that really captured the psychology of, fear that this, uh this pack of weirdos you, know brought down On New York city And New York city that really deserved. Better it's a miracle That New york recovered and, became you, know safe again after all of, that but it.