David Berkowitz and the psychology of the "Son of Sam"

David Berkowitz, known as "Son of Sam," is one of the most notorious serial killers in American history. He had a troubled life and he clearly had psychological problems, but his legacy is that of a cold blooded killer in New York City. This paper reflects on his biography and his life and crimes, and this paper offers some theories of criminality that are potentially linked to Berkowitz's behaviors.

The Literature on Berkowitz's Life and Crimes

David Berkowitz was born with the name Richard David Falco on the first of June in 1953 in New York City. His mother, Betty Falco, and her original husband were divorced but Betty Falco gave birth to a son with Joseph Klein, a married man who had an affair with Betty Falco. According to the World of Criminal Justice, Klein didn't want the child so he insisted that the son be given up for adoption and indeed the boy was adopted by a Jewish couple (Nathan and Pearl Berkowitz) in the Bronx. They reversed his middle and first names and he became David Berkowitz.

A lie early in Berkowitz's life got him started on the wrong foot; when Berkowitz was just 3 years old, Nathan and Pearl told him that in fact he was an adopted child but they falsified the reasons why he was adopted by saying his real mother died in childbirth. That was not a good idea because now the little boy carried around guilt that somehow he had caused his biological mother's death. By age 14, his adopted mother died from cancer, and when his adopted father re-married, Berkowitz joined the army. He earned an honorable discharge in 1974 after learning to be "proficient in shooting" (World of Criminal Justice).

Once out of the military service, the biography of David Berkowitz tells the story of a young man who was developing "mental and emotional problems"; he began "hearing voices" and when his adopted father admitted that he had lied to David, that he biological mother was in fact alive, he "…became obsessed with finding her, which he did in May 1975" (World of Criminal Justice). By this time (between 1974 and 1977) Berkowitz was setting fires (his journal entry later retrieved by police showed he had allegedly started 1,400 fires).

Apparently he was hearing voices telling him to kill people. After stabbing two women (both of whom lived) he bought a .44 caliber weapon in Texas in 1976 and began killing people in New York City on July 29. The Encyclopedia of Occultism and Parapsychology (EOP) explains that during his adolescence, in addition to the incidents mentioned earlier, Berkowitz was a bully and yet ironically he was a bully. The voices he said he heard were coming from "demons" -- and those demons were his neighbors, including their German shepherd dogs.

He shot and killed Donna Lauria on January 29, 1976, who was in a parked car with her boyfriend, and that would be his "trademark" style of homicide, the EOP points out. The literature on Berkowitz again and again reflects the fact that he wasn't interested in killing men, or in killing the boyfriends of the women he shot in parked cars -- or on the street.

On October 23, 1976, Berkowitz shot into a parked car again, this time only wounding the male (Carl Denaro, 19 years old) and not injuring the female (Rosemary Keenan); but on November 26 of that same year Berkowitz shot two women that were walking home from a movie (Donna DeMasi, 16, and Joanne Lomino, 18); both of them lived albeit Lomino was paralyzed from the waist down after the attack.

In January, 1977, another couple sitting in a parked car was shot; this time it was a couple that was engaged to be married. Christine Freund died from the injuries but her finance John Diel survived the assault.

The EOP reports that he killed Valentina Suriani and Alexander Esau on April 17, 1977; they were sitting in a parked car and he left a letter that was signed "Son of Sam" (EOP, p. 1). In the bizarre letter, Berkowitz said his father Sam was a "blood-thirsty blood drinker" and noted that he was "…the monster -- Beelzebub' -- the chubby behemoth" (EOP, p. 1). One of the constants in research about Berkowitz is his letter writing. For beginners, he sent letters to his neighbors complaining that the dog was barking too often. On the 19th of April, 1977, he sent his second letter to the neighbors and on April 29 Berkowitz shot the dog -- and later the killing of that dog would help the police solve the crime spree.

After the killing of Suriani, police discovered a hand-written letter that was full of spelling errors, but it was clearly from Berkowitz. He wrote:

"I am deeply hurt by your calling me a wemon hater. I am not. But I am a monster. I am the 'Son of Sam.' I am a little brat. 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,' commands father Sam. Behind our house some rest. Mostly young -- raped and slaughtered -- their blood drained -- just bones now. Papa Sam keeps me locked in the attic too. I can't get out but I look out the attic window and watch the world go by. I feel like an outsider. I am on a different wavelength then everybody else -- programmed to kill. However, to stop me you must kill me. Attention all police: shoot me first -- shoot to kill or else keep out of my way or you will die! Papa Sam is old now. He needs some blood to preserve his youth. He has had too many heart attacks

I want to make love to the world. I love people. I don't belong on earth.

Return me to the yahoos. To the people of Queens, I love you. And I want to wish all of you a happy Easter. May God bless you in this life and in the next.

And for now I say goodbye and goodnight. Police: Let me haunt you with these words: I'll be back! I'll be back! To be interpreted as -- bang bang, bank, ugh!! Yours in murder, Mr. Monster."

The Making of a Serial Killer - Theories

What theories are relevant to explain the behavior of Berkowitz? There are many theories and Dr. Berit Brogaard writes in the Superhuman Mind that psychopathy "…remains a mystery. We don't even have an answer to the question of whether psychopathy is a product of Mother Nature or a feature of upbringing." Brogaard references a study in Minnesota that showed that psychopathy is "…60% heritable," which means that the traits of a psychopath are more due to DNA than to the environment in which the person was raised (Brogaard, 2012).

Another study referenced by Brogaard took place in Madison, Wisconsin, at the University of Wisconsin. Brain scans revealed that "…psychopathy in criminals was associated with decreased connectivity between the amygdale," which is a part of the brain that processes "negative stimuli," and the "ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC), a cortical region in the front of the brain that interprets the response from the amygdale" (Brogaard, p. 1). When these two regions of the brain don't connect sufficiently, the necessarily processing of "negative stimuli in the amygdale does not translate into strongly felt negative emotions" (Brogaard, p. 1).

What does this mean for the psychopath? Brogaard explains that because negative emotions are not experienced by the killer, they don't feel "…nervous or embarrassed" when caught committing a crime, or doing something that is antisocial. These people with the above-mentioned lack of communication between key brain parts do feel physical pain when injured, but they do not suffer from sad or hurt emotions, Brogaard explains.

Why is Brogaard's theory not likely to fit into Berkowitz's case? As to Brogaard's view of psychopaths, he claims they do not have "hallucinations or delusions" and do not "…hear the voices of strangers in their heads or hold elaborate false theories about the world." If the literature is correct vis-a-vis Berkowitz's behaviors, Brogaard is wrong because Berkowitz said on more than one occasion that he was hearing things and he believed (or pretended to believe) that the neighbor's dog was a demon and was speaking to him.

Freudian Theory: In the book, the Age of Sex Crime (by professor Jane Caputi) the author quotes a psychotherapist that was making reference to Berkowitz: "When Berkowitz assumed the position he did, he was not simply shooting the women. He was symbolically copulating with them, fucking them if you will" (Caputi, 1987). When Berkowitz wrote in one of his twisted letters that he "…only shoot[s] pretty girls," a psychotherapist during a police conference on Berkowitz explained this to the press: "Gentlemen. Every time he shoots his gun, he's ejaculating" (Caputi, 134). This theory may not apply because while there may have been some deep psychological issues regarding women in his life (and there were female issues vis-a-vis his biological mother) he did not sexually molest any of the women he attacked.

Labeling Theory: this theory would seem to have a good fit with the Berkowitz case. The labeling theory analyses how a person's "self-concept" affects his decision to go out and commit criminal offenses. Berkowitz's self-image / self-concept were not a positive in his life. Studies show that crime and deviance result from "…the interaction of offenders and those who respond to social violations…and to the nature of categorization (or labeling) that is used to identify some individuals as criminal" and others as people who abide by the law (Flood, et al., 2007). In other words, one individual can label another a certain thing, and that power to simply give a person a label is considered a key to labeling theory. A boy's self-concept is formed when the boy acts out certain "socially accepted masculine roles," Flood writes (88). From acting out those roles, the boy is in essence defining himself; and if he is a bully, as Berkowitz apparently was, he will get that label. And moreover, he may accept that label and "…actually engage in the criminal behaviors that society is attempting to abate" (Flood, 88).

Ashley Crossman writes about W.I. Thomas in About.com (a subsidiary of the New York Times); regarding the labeling theory, Thomas said that "If men define situations as real, they are real in their consequences" (Crossman, 2013). One could argue that Berkowitz defined situations as real (notwithstanding that they were the imaginations of a demented person) and hence, he believed them to be real, making the labeling theory applicable to Berkowitz. Meanwhile the police labeled Berkowitz as a killer, so he certainly carried out that role to extremes. "The deviant individual….likely accepts that...he is deviant" and acts in a way to fulfill the expectations of that label" (Crossman, p. 1).

In some respects then, Berkowitz either labeled himself early on in his psychopathy or read the newspaper stories about his killings and bought into the label that police put on him. The city's newspapers were "…trumpeting each attack… as he terrorized New Yorkers as no lone criminal has even done (no one is safe from son of sam, said a Post headline at the time) (Fishman, 2006). In Fishman's essay in New York Magazine the journalist quotes from a letter Berkowitz wrote while in prison, which tends to corroborate the view that he accepted and cherished his label. "I may, one day, evolve into a humanoid or demon in a more complete state," he wrote; three of the four court-appointed psychiatrists found Berkowitz unfit to stand trial because he was mentally unbalanced. But a fourth psychiatrist, Dr. David Abrahamsen, disagreed and believed Berkowitz was quite sane and yet "profoundly troubled" (Fishman, p. 7). Indeed Berkowitz wrote to Abrahamsen saying "I guess you see me as I really am -- an animal and unhuman" (Fishman, p. 7).

Conflict Theory: Flood explains that the conflict theory is based on the writings of Karl Marx: the cause of crime is due to the "…conflict that stems from the inequalities produced by capitalist society" (89). The Criminology Department at Florida State University explains on a website that conflict theory is based on "social and economic forces" that operate in society. There are the rich and powerful, and the poor and others out of the power structure; in one of his letters to police, Berkowitz wrote that "I feel like an outsider. I am on a different wavelength then everybody else -- programmed to kill." By this he could be thinking that his socioeconomic level was in conflict with the power structure of society. In fact Berkowitz egged the police on, he taunted them, perhaps placing himself socially at odds with the "moral standards" that the criminal justice system attempts to impose on society. While this theory has some merit in the Berkowitz case, the labeling theory would appear to have more legitimacy vis-a-vis theories of criminality.

Victimization

It would appear that Berkowitz saw himself as a victim -- he learned later in life after finding his real mother that she had an affair with a married man and that he was the accidental result of that relationship -- because "He'd lost the love that should have been given him," Abrahamsen concluded (Fishman, p. 7). Abrahamsen believes that adoption was "the initial wound" and the second sense of victimization was when his mother died. "I first realized I was an accident, a mistake, never meant to be born -- unwanted," he wrote in a letter to Abrahamsen. This certainly sounds like he saw himself as a victim -- and so by killing women, he forced them to join him in his victimization. He wrote while in prison that he wanted to be a "lover" to women but he also wanted to "destroy them" because "I hate their sensuality, their moral laxity. I'm no saint myself but I blame them for everything"; hence he founds his victims in places where lovers make out in their parked cars and they unwittingly joined him in his pathetic role as a victim. Perhaps he visualized his mother in a parked car with the married man who was her lover and who sired David Berkowitz, and lashed out with that tormented image. Perhaps not, but clearly he felt the victim and wanted not only revenge; he wanted victims to join him in his emotional and psychological misery.

Berkowitz Today

Today Berkowitz is in prison in upstate New York. He has admitted to his crimes and has become a Christian, or at least that is his current ruse. Monica Rhor, a journalist with the Associated Press (whose article was published in the Guardian) has access to Berkowitz's snail mail missives to Andy Kahan, crime victim advocate in the city of Houston, Texas. He is apparently making an effort to "…put distance between the monster he once was and the person he says he has become" (Rhor, 2009). "The past is such a painful memory… it was all a terrible nightmare. I got into something so evil," he continued; "I would give my life if I could go back into the past to have prevented this from happening" (Rhor, p. 1).

In an interesting passage that attempts to shows he has feelings (albeit he is a clearly a con man), he wrote to Kahan saying that he is always accused of having "bad motives" but he can't do anything about it because "…people are biased and prejudiced toward me, and I do understand. After all, there is no way they can know my heart" (Rhor, p. 1). In one letter, a perfect conclusion to this paper, Berkowitz writes to Kahan thanking him for "the kind things you have said about me, although I feel so unworthy. I have a big debt to pay to society, and it is still a long uphill climb…I want to ask forgiveness from everyone who I hurt in my madness and wickedness" (Rhor, p. 4).

Will anyone ever know for sure why Berkowitz became a serial killer? The answer is probably not because so many years have passed by and so many theories and explanations have come and gone since those bloody moments in the life of New Yorkers. This paper suggests that the theory that comes the closest to linkage to Berkowitz is the labeling theory; that said, the trait theory and the conflict theory have some application to Berkowitz's behavior, but this paper has taken the position that whether or not a combination of several theories applies, the labeling theory strikes a chord closest to Berkowitz's personality and behavior. He labeled himself a victim, and therein lies the root of his disturbing behavior.