The Encyclopedia of Serial Killers (7 page)

Chief Justice Theodosius Syrmiensis presiding over a panel of 20 lesser jurists. Eighty counts of murder were alleged in court, though most historical accounts place
BERKOWITZ, David Richard

Erzsebet’s final body count somewhere between 300

New Yorkers are accustomed to reports of violent death and 650 victims. Erzsebet herself was excused from in every form, from the mundane to the bizarre. They attending the trial, held in her apartment under heavy take it all in stride, accepting civic carnage as a price of living in the largest, richest city in America. But residents were unprepared for the commencement of an all-out reign of terror in July 1976. For 13 months, New York would be a city under siege, its female citizens afraid to venture out by night while an apparent homicidal maniac was waiting, seeking prey.

The terror came with darkness on July 29, 1976. Two young women, Donna Lauria and Jody Valenti, had parked their car on Buhre Avenue in Queens, remaining in the vehicle and passing time in conversation. If they saw the solitary male pedestrian at all, they didn’t take note of him. In any case, they never saw the pistol that he raised to pump five shots through the windshield.

Donna Lauria was killed immediately; her companion survived and got off “easy,” with a bullet in one thigh.

The shooting was a tragic incident, but in itself was not unusual for New York City. There was scattered One of Báthory’s several castles, where hundreds of girls sympathy but no alarm among the residents of New were tortured or killed (Author’s collection)

York’s urban combat zone . . . until the next attack.

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BERKOWITZ, David Richard

On October 23, Carl Denaro and Rosemary Keenan parked outside a bar in Flushing, Queens. Again, the gunman went unnoticed as he crouched to fire a single bullet through the car’s rear window. Wounded, Carl Denaro survived. A .44-caliber bullet was found on the floor of the car, and detectives matched it to slugs from the Lauria murder.

Just over one month later, on November 26, Donna DeMasi and Joanne Lomino were sitting together on the stoop of a house in the Floral Park section of Queens. A man approached them from the sidewalk, asking for directions, but before he could complete the question he had drawn a pistol, blasting at the startled women. Both were wounded, Joanne paralyzed forever with a bullet in her spine.

Again the slugs were readily identified, and now detectives knew they had a random killer on their hands. The gunman seemed to favor girls with long, dark hair, and there was speculation that the shooting of Denaro in October may have been an “accident.”

The young man’s hair was shoulder length; a gunman closing on him from behind might have mistaken Carl Denaro for a woman in the darkness.

Christmas season passed without another shooting, but the gunman had not given up his hunt. On January 30, 1977, John Diel and Christine Freund were parked and necking in the Ridgewood section of New York, David Berkowitz (Wide World API)

when bullets hammered out their windshield. Freund was killed on impact, while her date was physically unscathed.

Virginia Voskerichian, an Armenian exchange stu-hunting “tasty meat,” compelling him to kill. There dent, was walking toward her home in Forest Hills on would be other letters from the gunman, some

March 8, when a man approached and shot her in the addressed to newsman Jimmy Breslin, hinting at more face, killing her instantly. Detectives noted that she had crimes to come and fueling the hysteria that had already been slain within 300 yards of the January murder scene.

gripped New York. The writer was apparently irra-On April 17, Alexander Esau and his date, Valentina tional but no less dangerous for that, and homicide Suriani, were parked in the Bronx, a few blocks from investigators had no clue to his identity.

the site of the Lauria-Valenti shooting. Caught up in On June 26, Salvatore Lupo and girlfriend Judy each other, they may not have seen the gunman coming; Placido were parked in Bayside, Queens, when four certainly they had no time to dodge the fusillade of bul-shots pierced the windshield of their car. Both were lets that killed them both immediately, fired from point-wounded; both survived.

blank range.

On July 31, Robert Violante and Stacy Moskowitz Detectives found a crudely printed letter in the mid-parked near the Brooklyn shore. The killer found them dle of the street, near Esau’s car. Addressed to the cap-there and squeezed off four shots at their huddled sil-tain in charge of New York’s hottest manhunt, the note houettes, striking both young people in the head. Stacy contained a chilling message.

died instantly; her date survived, but damage from his wounds left Violante blind for life.

I am deeply hurt by your calling me a weman–hater
It was the last attack, but homicide detectives didn’t

[sic].
I am not. But I am a monster. I am the Son of
know that yet. A woman walking near the final murder
Sam. . . . I love to hunt. Prowling the streets looking for
scene recalled two traffic officers writing a ticket for a
fair game—tasty meat. The weman
[sic]
of Queens are
car parked close to a hydrant; moments later, she had
the prettyest
[sic]
of all. . . .

seen a man approach the car, climb in, and pull away with squealing tires. A check of parking ticket records The note described “Sam” as a drunken brute who traced an old Ford Galaxy belonging to one David beat the members of his family and sent his son out Berkowitz, of Pine Street, Yonkers. Staking out the
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BERKOWITZ, David Richard

address, officers discovered that the car was parked out-the killer cult that specialized in skinning dogs alive and side; a semiautomatic rifle lay in plain view on the seat, gunning victims down on darkened streets. One sus-together with a note written in the “Son of Sam’s” dispect, John Charles Carr, was said to be the same “John tinctive, awkward style. When Berkowitz emerged from Wheaties” mentioned in a letter penned by Berkowitz, his apartment, he was instantly arrested and confessed containing other clues that point to cult involvement in his role in New York’s reign of terror.

the random murders. Calling themselves “The Chil-The story told by Berkowitz seemed tailor-made dren,” the cultists operated from a base in Untermeyer for an INSANITY DEFENSE in court. The “Sam”

Park, where mutilated dogs were found from time to referred to in his letters was a neighbor, one Sam Carr, time. Cult members represented the “Twenty-Two Dis-whose Labrador retriever was allegedly possessed by ciples of Hell” mentioned in another “Son of Sam” let-ancient demons, beaming out commands for Berkoter. Suspect John Carr fled New York in February 1979

witz to kill and kill again. On one occasion he had and “committed suicide” under mysterious circum-tried to kill the dog, but it was useless; demons stances in Minot, North Dakota, two days later.

spoiled his aim, and when the dog recovered from its Brother Michael Carr died in a single-car crash in Octo-wounds, the nightly torment had redoubled in intenber 1979, and New York authorities reopened the sity. A number of psychiatrists described the suspect

“Sam” case after his death.

as a paranoid schizophrenic, suffering from delusions Newsman Maury Terry, after six years on the case, and therefore incompetent to stand trial. The lone believes there were at least five different gunmen in the exception was Dr. David Abrahamson, who found

“Son of Sam” attacks, including Berkowitz, John Carr, that Berkowitz was sane and capable of understand-and several suspects—one a woman—who have yet to ing that his actions had been criminal. The court be indicted. Terry also notes that six of the seven shoot-agreed with Abrahamson and ordered Berkowitz to ings fell in close proximity to recognized occult holi-trial. The gunman soon pled guilty and was sentenced days, the March 8 Voskerichian attack emerging as the to 365 years in prison.

sole exception to the pattern. In the journalist’s opinion, Ironically, Berkowitz seemed grateful to Dr. Abraham-Berkowitz was chosen as a scapegoat by the other son for his sanity ruling and later agreed to a series of cultists, who then defaced his apartment with weird interviews that Abrahamson published in his book
Con-graffiti, whipping up a bogus “arson ledger”—which fessions of Son of Sam (1985). The interviews revealed includes peculiar, out-of-order entries—to support a that Berkowitz had tried to kill two women during 1975, plea of innocent by reason of insanity.

attacking them with knives, but he turned squeamish Berkowitz himself confirmed the occult connection when they screamed and tried to fight him off. (“I didn’t in conversations with fellow inmates and letters mailed want to hurt them,” he explained, confused. “I only from prison. One such, posted in October 1979, reads: wanted to kill them.”) A virgin at the time of his arrest, Berkowitz was prone to fabricate elaborate lies about his I really don’t know how to begin this letter, but at one bedroom prowess, all the while intent upon revenge time I was a member of an occult group. Being sworn against the women who habitually rejected him. When to secrecy or face death I cannot reveal the name of the not engaged in stalking female victims, Berkowitz report-group, nor do I wish to. This group contained a mix-edly was an accomplished arsonist: a secret journal listed ture of satanic practices which included the teachings of details of 300 fires for which he was allegedly responsible Aleister Crowley and Eliphaz [sic] Levi. It was (still is) around New York. In his conclusion, Dr. Abrahamson totally blood oriented and I am certain you know just described his subject as a homicidal exhibitionist who what I mean. The Coven’s doctrine are a blend of meant his crimes to be a public spectacle and harbored Druidism, the teachings of the Secret Order of the fantasies of “dying for a cause.”

Golden Dawn, Black Magick and a host of other There is another side of David Berkowitz, however, unlawful and obnoxious practices.

and it surfaced shortly after his arrest, with allegations As I said, I have no interest in revealing the Coven, of his membership in a satanic cult. In letters mailed especially because I have almost met sudden death on from prison, Berkowitz described participation in a several occasions (once by half an inch) and several oth-New York cult affiliated with the lethal “Four P Move-ers have already perished under mysterious circum-ment,” based in California. He revealed persuasive stances. These people will stop at nothing, including inside knowledge of a California homicide, unsolved murder. They have no fear of man-made laws or the since 1974, and wrote that “There are other Sams out Ten Commandments.

there—God help the world.”

According to the story told by Berkowitz in prison, The latest near-death experience for Berkowitz had two of neighbor Sam Carr’s sons were also members of been a July 10 prison assault that left his throat slashed,
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BIANCHI, Kenneth Alessio, and BUONO, Angelo, Jr.

requiring fifty-six stitches to close the wound. Less talk-tain that police suspected him of involvement in ative following his narrow escape, Berkowitz still Rochester’s brutal “alphabet murders,” though in truth, agreed to a January 1982 meeting with attorney Harry it took six more years before detective realized his car Lipsig. In that conversation, he referred to the killer cult resembled one reported near the scene of one “alpha-as follows:

bet” slaying.

Meanwhile, in January 1976, Bianchi pulled up

Q: You had some connection with the Church of Scien-stakes and moved to Los Angeles, there teaming up tology, did you not?

with his adoptive cousin, Angelo Buono, in an amateur A: It wasn’t exactly that. But I can’t go into it. I really white-slave racket. Born at Rochester in October 1934, can’t.

Buono was a child of divorce, transported across coun-Q: Were you connected in any way or an adherent or try by his mother at age five. By 14, he was stealing cars convert of the Church of Scientology?