PART 2;THE ULTIMATE EVIL, "KNOCK ON COFFINS"&HER NAME WAS STACY

THE ULTIMATE EVIL

An Investigation into a 

Dangerous Satanic Cult

BY MAURY TERRY

PART 1

ON TERROR'S TRAIL

CHAPTER III 

"Knock on Coffins"  

March 8, 1977. A Tuesday. The first, faint scent of spring tantalized New York as temperatures crept to the high sixties, signaling the coming end of a long and bleary winter whose February blizzards piled deep, frosted blankets of snow throughout a glazed and desolate metropolitan area. For all its life in the other seasons, New York in winter evoked the specter of an ancient gray freighter ice-locked in a barren harbor: creaking, shuddering, rusting and waiting for the April thaw. 

Unlike some of its volatile adjoining neighborhoods, the enclave that was Forest Hills boasted a low crime rate, and its affluent residents were determined to keep it that way. The fact that the police investigation of Christine's death was seemingly stalled in low gear tainted the locality with a sense of apprehension and a bitter taste of vigilance. 

John Diel, back tending bar at the Ridgewood III, was—he knew—once considered a possible suspect in the murder of his girlfriend, as was the "unknown psychopath." There were, as mentioned, other possible suspects, too. But none of that would matter. 

At seven o'clock in the evening of March 8, the thermometer still hovered at a balmy fifty-two degrees as eighteen-year old Amy Johnson* left her Forest Hills home on Exeter Street for a customary nightly jog in the company of her thirteen year-old brother, Tony.* Beginning her run less than four blocks from the scene of Christine Freund's murder, she traveled west to 69th Avenue, turned left and continued south to the next block, Fleet Street. Turning east on Fleet, she and Tony trotted to the corner of busy Continental Avenue, where they again veered left, following a rectangular route back to their home. 

As Amy jogged north on Continental to the corner of Dartmouth, the image of the Freund homicide formed in her mind, and she involuntarily glanced across Station Plaza, where the murder occurred five weeks before. 

Especially wary of strangers since that night, Amy looked back to her left and saw a young man standing by a small play area at the corner of Continental and Dartmouth. Now, as he stared at the approaching Amy, his eyes studied her in what she termed an "eerie, threatening manner," and she became alarmed. 

He had wavy, dark hair combed straight back, and his hands were jammed into the pockets of the beige three-quarter-length raincoat he was wearing. He stood about six feet tall and weighed approximately 175 pounds. 

Unknown to Amy, this same man was loitering in the area before her arrival. He'd frightened another young girl, Peg Benson,* just minutes earlier. 

Now, as he glared at Amy, she shivered and quickened her pace, passing him and turning east onto Dartmouth Street. Off the sidewalk, she kept to the middle of the narrow road, and gestured to her younger brother to do the same. Together, they maintained a hurried gait down Dartmouth Street, which was lined with Tudor-style and stucco buildings and dimly lit by turn-of-the-century-type streetlamps. 

When Amy and Tony reached Tennis Place, near the stadium, they swung left and aimed toward Exeter Street, their own block. They would be home in a few moments. 

Incredibly, at the corner of Exeter and 70th, she again spied the same man standing on the sidewalk, and again he was staring at her. How did he get there? she wondered. Although she'd been running all the while, he somehow managed to get in front of her and was waiting for her to pass. Did he drive, or had someone driven him ahead of her? 

Now very frightened, she and her brother ran even faster. They scurried past the man—who made no movement—and safely reached the front of their home. Catching her breath, Amy looked around and saw that the stranger was walking away—heading east on Exeter toward Tennis Place and Dartmouth. It was about 7:25 P.M.

***

Virginia Voskerichian was late coming home from Columbia University in Manhattan. It was nearly seven-thirty when she climbed the subway stairs at the Continental Avenue stop in Forest Hills and began the short hike to her house at 69-11 Exeter Street. 

Walking south on Continental to Dartmouth, she turned right and began striding west on the same route her neighbor Amy Johnson had followed just fifteen minutes before. 

Virginia, nineteen, had long, wavy brown hair. She was attractive, well liked, and was currently dating one of her Columbia teachers, a twenty-seven-year-old Russian-language assistant named Vladimir Lunis. 

Virginia was born in Bulgaria and emigrated to the United States with her parents, brother and sister at the age of eleven. An intelligent girl, she soon mastered her adopted tongue and was officially welcomed as an American citizen on July 29, 1975—a year to the day before the murder of Donna Lauria in the Bronx. 

After two years at Queens College, Virginia transferred to Barnard College at Columbia, where she was a B-plus student majoring in Russian and planning a career in political science. As she walked to her home, she carried a calendar and some schoolbooks in her arms. 

As she neared 4 Dartmouth Street, an apartment house, Virginia noticed a short, youngish-looking figure in a watch cap and sweater approaching her from the opposite direction. 

As Virginia and the youth closed to within five feet of each other, she moved slightly to her right to allow the stranger to pass on her left side. Then, for the briefest of moments, everything froze. 

Realizing at the end that her life was in mortal danger, Virginia cried out as she saw the gun pointing into her face. Desperately, she ducked and frantically raised the schoolbooks to her face to ward off the coming attack. 

When the killer fired, the bullet ripped through the textbooks and entered Virginia's head on the left side of her upper lip, knocked out several teeth, tore through her skull and lodged in the base of her neck, cracking vertebrae. 

Slain instantly by the .44 slug, Virginia pitched sideways into the row of hedges fronting 4 Dartmouth. 

Down Dartmouth Street—back in the direction from which he'd come—the killer ran. At the corner of Dartmouth and Tennis Place, the gunman pulled the watch cap over his face as he hurtled by a startled Ed Marlow,* a fifty-nine-year-old civil engineer. 

"Oh, Jesus!" the killer exclaimed, covering his youthful features with the cap. But Marlow had seen the face, if only briefly. The person looked to be only about sixteen to eighteen years of age, was stockily built, clean-shaven, and wore a ski jacket, or sweater, and a cap—which was either brown or blue, and striped. He appeared to be about five feet seven. 

Now, it happened. Someone in the N.Y.P.D either panicked, manipulated, or stretched opinion to merge with fact. Whichever, the results would have a profound impact on the public's perception of the case for years to come. Just who actually endorsed the decision is still not known with certainty, but it bore the imprimatur of the Queens detective command and the highest officials in the Police Department, as well as that of the mayor of the city of New York. 

At the pyramid's pinnacle were the new chief of detectives, John Keenan; the police commissioner, Michael Codd; and Mayor Abraham Beame, who was facing a doomed-to-die reelection campaign. 

Somewhere in this alliance, which would later enlist Deputy Inspector Timothy Dowd, whom many regarded as a career bureaucrat, the answer lies today. For it was this group, acting on information gleaned from the ballistics unit, that created the .44-Caliber Killer, subsequently known as Son of Sam. Together, they misled the press and populace and stoked a panic the likes of which New York had never seen. 

To be sure, there absolutely was reason for great alarm, because some unknown force was definitely gunning down young girls in Queens and the Bronx. But the authorities would now package opinion about the .44 revolver and label it as "fact": they would inflate the ballistics findings. 

As a result, they would underestimate the menace. And in doing so, they would box themselves in on the .44 killings and their aftermath—a scenario that would include the deaths of many more young people, innocent and culpable alike. 

There isn't a definitive answer for why it happened. 

What was known unequivocally in March 1977 was that the Police Department was in the midst of a serious morale crisis. Since 1971 and the Knapp Commission corruption scandals, the detective division, once regarded as a fiefdom in the N.Y.P.D, had seen its elite ranks dwindle from 3,000 to 1,800 when Son of Sam began to march through the city streets. In fact, no policemen had advanced to the detective corps between 1974 and mid-1976 and promotions were scant for those already there. 

Procedural changes and budget cuts were responsible for the trimming. Adding to the department's disenchantment, the city had laid off some 1,700 cops as it struggled to emerge from the fiscal mire. 

What all this meant is that the N.Y.P.D was dismayed at its sinking status and an absence of recognition and public support. The Department sorely needed a shot in the arm. Or maybe a shot from a Charter Arms. 

On March 9, the day after the Voskerichian shooting, the newspapers and television stations accurately reported that the police, logically, were tracking a "chubby teenager" in a ski (or watch) cap as the prime suspect in the crime. This was Ed Marlow's suspect, who attempted to hide his face from the surprised witness as he fled. Other neighborhood residents also spotted this individual lingering in the area shortly before the slaying. 

And although the incident occurred barely a block from the Freund homicide, police told the New York Times there was "no evidence" to positively link the two killings. That was true, but it was also one of the last of the Police Department's concise statements about the .44 case. 

None of the following was ever revealed to the public, but here is what happened: 

In the morgue, a "large-caliber deformed lead bullet" (as stated in the autopsy report) was extracted from the body of Virginia Voskerichian. Although the slug passed through her books and her head, cracked vertebrae and flattened considerably, police ballistics were still able to identify it as having been fired from "a" .44-caliber Charter Arms Bulldog revolver; again, a relatively rare weapon in New York. 

The police now had evidence that a .44 revolver was used in all the assaults, and that a Charter Arms Bulldog model was used in at least two or three of them. And they had legitimate investigatory reasons to believe the attacks were related, given the common circumstances of each. 

But one gun and one gunman they did not have. There was no certain, positive match between the Voskerichian bullet and those recovered at virtually all the previous .44 shootings, due to the deformed condition of those bullets. In other words, the police had no irrefutable proof that the same gun was used in all the incidents.

More importantly, they had even less evidence to demonstrate that the same individual, acting alone, committed the crimes. In fact, they had accumulated considerable data which indicated that the opposite was likely. The composites drawn from the Lauria, Lomino-DeMasi and Voskerichian shootings (there would be two people sought in the Voskerichian case) showed that at least three and possibly four persons were involved. This information held regardless of whether or not the same .44 was used each time. 

A police claim of a ballistics match is not an indisputable edict, and such determinations are vulnerable to courtroom challenges. Aware of this, the N.Y.P.D recommends that two technicians concur before accepting a finding. It is not known if that procedure was followed in the .44 case, or if the ballistics lab was pressured. 

For all the benefits of ballistics it is an inexact science which often calls for conclusions rather than final statements of fact. Like fingerprints, ballistics evidence has become sacrosanct to many minds. Not true. 

A cliche in crime dramas, fingerprints, for example, are often effectively useless as investigative aids. A perpetrator would have to leave behind a fair number of clean prints before law enforcement computers could identify an unknown suspect. One, two, even three prints are simply not enough. However, when a suspect is under scrutiny, fingerprints become important because at that time a particular individual's prints can be compared with any number found at a crime scene. With a suspect in mind—fine. Otherwise no, unless he leaves a sufficient number behind and his prints are on file in the first place. 

New technology available in some jurisdictions is enabling police to work with fewer samples. But the equipment has not yet been installed throughout the country. 

As for ballistics, a bullet recovered at a typical New York shooting scene or in a hospital or morgue is forwarded to the NYPD's ballistics lab. There, on the premise that no two gun barrels are precisely identical, the bullet is analyzed microscopically and compared with a "clean" bullet which has been fired into a tank of water from a suspected gun. The bullets pick up tiny, unique markings from inside the gun's barrel as they are fired, making it sometimes possible for them to be matched to a particular weapon. 

As with fingerprints, the job is infinitely easier if a suspected firearm is available from which to obtain a "clean" bullet, via the water tank, for comparison purposes. However, in the .44 shootings there was no such gun in police custody. The killer still had it. Thus, any comparisons had to be attempted through analysis of the bullets recovered from the five crime scenes or from the victims' bodies. 

These bullets were all deformed. Similarities did exist and indeed they would exist in any number of Charter Arms .44 Bulldogs manufactured in the same plant, perhaps even with the same machines. In fact, due to a manufacturing quirk, the Bulldog produced an unusual "right six" twist because Charter Arms, in boring its barrels in twenty-four-inch lengths, clamped one end while the other hung free. So, as the cutter trimmed the barrel to the actual length that would be part of the gun, it vibrated slightly, leaving an impression that would be picked up by bullets fired through it. 

But this trait was peculiar to the Bulldog revolver itself, not to only one particular Bulldog. 

Out of the seventeen bullets fired in the attacks the comparison effort was narrowed to the projectile which killed Donna Lauria and the single bullet fired at Virginia Voskerichian. The other fifteen slugs must have been useless. If they hadn't been, a match could have been obtained much sooner. And in light of what the police were about to announce, that point, which concerns the Denaro, Lomino-DeMasi and Freund shootings, is a relevant one. 

Years later, NYPD ballistics detective George Simmons would say: "The gun wasn't in good shape, so the matches were hard." 

Queens district attorney John Santucci would phrase it differently: "Based on the reports we later obtained from the Police Department, the bullets were similar but weren't conclusively matched. Maybe the same gun was used; maybe not. In terms of evidence, the reports were inconclusive." 

On March 10, two days after the Voskerichian murder, the police and Mayor Abraham Beame convened a press conference to publicly state there was a ballistics match between the Lauria and Voskerichian bullets; i.e., that both were fired from the same—to the exclusion of all others—.44 revolver. It was possible the same gun was used in those attacks. But even if that was so, there was no evidence to lay the murders at the doorstep of a single individual, acting alone. 

The officials would further allege that although test results weren't as definite—meaning no match at all—in the Denaro, Lomino-DeMasi and Freund cases, they were nonetheless "certain" that the same gun, fired by the same man, was also used in those attacks. 

The press conference was held at the 112th Precinct station house in Forest Hills, where Codd and Beame proclaimed the birth of the .44-Caliber Killer to an anxiously waiting world— represented by every newspaper, television and radio reporter who could wheel his or her way to Queens on that chilly afternoon. 

There was yet another surprise in store. Codd and Beame took pains, by implication, to impart the message that the .44 fiend was not the man in the ski or watch cap, so far as they knew—a position they would sorely regret taking five months later. 

Oh, Ski Cap was still wanted for questioning. But, carefully couching his words, Codd revealed that his men were primarily seeking a white male, about six feet tall, 180 pounds, wearing a beige raincoat, and with dark hair combed straight back. 

This, the police knew (but the public didn't), was the man who frightened jogger Amy Johnson and Peg Benson shortly before the shots were fired. The statements of the two girls were kept under wraps, where they remained until this writing. 

Here is what the citizens of New York, and consequently the nation, were told: 

From the New York Times: 

Mayor Beame and Police Commissioner Codd, in a joint appeal to the public for help, disclosed yesterday that the police were seeking the same man for the "senseless" killings of three young women since July 29, including two recently from Forest Hills. 

The conclusion . . . was based on ballistics examinations that showed the same .44-caliber revolver had been used for the three killings. 

The commissioner gave the following description of a person wanted for questioning in the murders: male, white, between 25 and 30 years of age, between five feet ten inches and six feet tall, medium build, well-groomed, with dark hair combed straight back. 

However, when asked if this person was believed to be the murderer, Mr. Codd replied, "I can't say he is a suspect." 

Then what was he? And what about Ski Cap? The press had the opportunity to pin Codd and Beame to the wall. Why were you hunting one guy yesterday, another today, and two people in total, Commissioner? And what about the other sketches that look so different from these descriptions? What makes you so sure one gun means one killer? 

If those questions were asked, or answered candidly, the house of cards may have crumbled and the .44 case might have assumed an entirely different dimension. 

From the Daily News: 

The man who killed coed Virginia Voskerichian on a Forest Hills, Queens, street last Tuesday also killed a woman in January less than 100 yards away, murdered a Bronx woman last July, and has wounded at least two other women in the city in the last seven months, Mayor Beame and Commissioner Michael Codd disclosed yesterday. . . . 

Ballistics established that the same .44-caliber Wild West revolver had been used in all five shootings, Codd said. 

Outside of the already mentioned misrepresentations, the .44 Bulldog wasn't exactly Wyatt Earp's type. It was a shortbarreled weapon designed primarily for police use and had been available commercially since 1974. Why Codd described it as a long-barreled, Wild West weapon is another, possibly telling, enigma. 

The truth—that the police were making a judgment call— remained a closed secret, and the media and public pressure soon gave the N.Y.P.D brass and the mayor what they wanted: a task force. Initially, the group was comprised of about fifty detectives and uniformed officers, a combination of the Bronx and Queens cops already working separately on the various investigations. 

At first, Captain Joseph Borrelli was put in charge, with Lieutenant John Power and Sergeant Joseph Coffey right behind him. But the case was getting too big for a captain, at least in the public-appearance sense. A month later, after a number of officials turned down the assignment, Deputy Inspector Timothy Dowd, sixty-one, was named to head the squad. Borrelli, Coffey and Power would remain, and report to Dowd. 

With the mayor now involved, the case had become a hot political issue. The link with City Hall started the flow of money and manpower, but it also engendered pressure and interference. Beame was in a political dogfight. He wanted publicity. He wanted to be aligned with such an important case and known to the voters as the public servant whose personal intervention and concern cleared the path for a quick, efficient solution to the matter of this lengthening string of homicides being committed against young, white, middle-class residents of Queens and the Bronx. 

March soon surrendered to April, and with April came spring weather and Easter on the tenth, and still the killer didn't resurface. Reporters routinely interviewed detectives, psychologists and police supervisors involved in the probe. 

On a real-world level, the investigation was riding a rail to nowhere. By determining that the killings were all committed randomly, the police had dropped their probes of potential suspects with possible motives for the individual crimes. After all, a "deranged individual" had been doing all the shootings at random, right? And the deranged don't have real motives. 

And now, in the search for the psycho, the police were at square one. No suspect. No motive. Frustration. The investigation desperately needed some impetus. 

Impetus arrived in the early-morning darkness of April 17, 1977—the Sunday after Easter. 

Prominently displayed in the living room of the large, tastefully furnished high-rise apartment at 1950 Hutchinson River Parkway in the Bronx's Pelham Bay section, the impressive oil painting revealed a young, attractive girl in a formal, yet still soft and vulnerable pose. Regally resplendent in her gown, perhaps someday she would become an actress. That was her ambition. 

At nineteen, Valentina Suriani had her vision, and she had no reason to believe she wouldn't live to see it fulfilled. 

A 1976 graduate of St. Catherine's Academy, Valentina, daughter of postal employee Frank Suriani and his wife, enrolled at the Bronx's Lehman College to study her chosen profession. 

Five feet five inches tall, Valentina had short brown hair, brown eyes, a lively temperament and a strong will to succeed in her field. Outgoing with those she knew well, she was—like many people theatrically inclined—still somewhat shy and insecure around strangers. In April 1977 she was seeking a photographer to capture her essence for the portfolio she'd need as a budding thespian. 

Valentina's boyfriend, Alexander Esau, six feet one, was twenty, but the long, curly brown hair which framed his baby face made him appear to be about sixteen. The son of immigrant parents, he was employed as an operator's helper with Luna Brothers Towing Service in Manhattan. 

At 3 A.M. on April 17, the young couple, who'd been to a movie in Manhattan and later stopped at a party, pulled up and parked along a chain link fence on the west side of the darkened Hutchinson River Parkway service road opposite number 1878—about two blocks south of Valentina's home and less than a short city block from Jody Valente's brick house on the same street. 

Out of the millions of people in New York and its thousands of roadways, Valentina and Alex would die within four blocks of Donna Lauria—and less than two hundred yards from where Donna's wounded friend lay sleeping. 

As the young couple embraced in the borrowed Mercury Montego, Alex was behind the wheel. Valentina nudged close to him, and then sat on his lap with her legs stretched out across the seat in the direction of the passenger's door. 

As the lovers kissed, Valentina was face to face with Alex. Then, through the closed front passenger's window, a .44-caliber bullet shattered the glass and smashed into Valentina above the left corner of her mouth, passed downward through the base of her neck and exited below her right ear. Immediately, a second shot hit her above the left ear, traveled downward through her brain and lodged in the back of her skull on the right side. The shots came so rapidly Valentina didn't have time to fall between them. 

Alex, meanwhile, tried to escape the roaring rampage. Reflexively, he attemped to dive away from the shots. But not being able to judge where the noise was coming from, he instead bent straight into the path of the next two missiles—both of which hit him in the top of the head and tore their murderous path into his brain. 

And then it was quiet. 

The two young lovers lay motionless in the car. Valentina was still sprawled on Alex's lap, and his upper body was slumped toward the passenger's door. Their blood was mixing together. 

Valentina was already dead. And Alex, despite a frantic effort to save him, succumbed hours later at the Bronx's Montefiore Hospital. 

With the morning light, old women from the row of brick homes across the street in this Italian neighborhood sadly carried buckets of water to the scene to wash away the horrors of the night before. It was a tender gesture, made out of respect for the dignity of the dead couple. 

But nothing would eradicate the stain that was now spreading across New York. 

The gunman had been astonishingly accurate, even considering the close range. Four fatal head shots were fired with a weapon known for its significant recoil. Who he was remained an agonizing mystery. But before he fled, he did something that hadn't been done before—he dropped a macabre calling card in the road beside the victims' car. It was an envelope, addressed to Queens Detective Captain Joseph Borrelli. 

Inside the envelope was a letter which gave birth to Son of Sam. 

On Monday, April 18, the New York newspapers screamed the return of the homicidal night stalker. "BRONX GIRL SHOT TO DEATH IN CAR, GUN LINKED TO THREE OTHER SLAYINGS," read the banner headline in the Daily News. Underneath was a large photo of a smiling Alex and Valentina, both dressed formally for a prom or wedding. 

By the next day, the News, through its network of sources in the Police Department, learned that a letter was left at the scene. "KILLER TO COPS, I'LL DO IT AGAIN. TAUNTING NOTE IS FIRST SOLID CLUE," the paper shouted on page one. Beneath the headline were two composite sketches— both from March's Voskerichian murder. 

The drawings were of Ski Cap and the man wearing the beige raincoat, and the caption revealed that the two were being sought for questioning. The police already claimed only one man was behind the killings and were now publicly labeling Ski Cap a witness. 

At this point, it is reasonable to say that the man in the beige raincoat was David Berkowitz, as, among other things, a comparison of the sketch and Berkowitz's photo clearly illustrates the strong resemblance. However, it is not so reasonable to say Ski Cap was a man. Ski Cap, a "witness" who never came forward, may well have been a woman. 

Something else was at play here. Not that the police were thinking otherwise, but the Borrelli letter dropped at the Suriani-Esau scene negated the presence of two people at the Voskerichian murder simply because it was ostensibly written by one person claiming credit for the slayings. The police wanted one man? 

Then they'd have one man. The Daily News, quoting a police source, said the letter advised authorities that the murderer lived in a "nightmare world of blood-sucking vampires and Frankenstein monsters." The News also reported that the letter contained words in "a Scottish accent" and the phrase "too many heart attacks." 

That coronary wording would set police poring through hospital records because they believed the killer's father might have been mistreated by brown-haired nurses after suffering a cardiac arrest, thus igniting his demented offspring into a murderous onslaught against brown-haired young girls. Moreover, Donna Lauria was a medical technician and Jody Valente a student nurse. This fueled the theory, although how police reconciled the killer's possible knowledge of the victims' professions in a supposedly random series of attacks was never explained. 

The letter also caused police to believe the killer attended Catholic schools, a point worthy of remembrance. 

The people of New York never knew why authorities entertained these thoughts because the note was withheld. The Daily News hadn't seen it, either, and so the police were able to deny—falsely—that the assassin warned he would strike again. 

The rank and file members of the task force also didn't view the correspondence, several have since stated. Borrelli and Dowd wouldn't show it to them. And these detectives were responsible for catching the killer. It was a very closed circle at the top. 

In any event, the withholding of the Borrelli letter was a significant error because the note contained important clues which, if released, might have led to an arrest months, and victims, sooner. 

The letter, four pages in length, was printed in capitalized, slanted block letters: 

I am deeply hurt by your calling 

me a woman 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 wave length 

then everybody else—

programmed too 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. Too many 

heart attacks. "Ugh, me 

hoot it hurts sonny boy." 

I miss my pretty princess 

most of all. She's resting 

in our ladies house. But 

I'll she her soon. I am the 

"monster"— "Beelzebub"

—the "Chubby Behemouth." 

I love to hunt. Prowling 

the streets looking for 

fair game—tasty meat. 

The woman of Queens 

are  pretty of all. 

It must be the water they 

drink. I live for the hunt—

my life. Blood for Papa. 

Mr. Borelli, Sir, I don't want

to kill anymore no sir, no 

more but I must, "Honor 

thy Father." I want to make 

love to the world. I love 

people. I don't belong on 

earth. Return me to 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 [sic]

as—bang, bang, bang, bank, 

bang—ugh!! 

Your in murder Mr. Monster

If "I'll be back" isn't the equivalent of "I'll do it again," then the N.Y.P.D is owed an apology. 

With regard to its other contents, the letter was loaded with salient leads, such as references to a house, garage and attic— which implied a residential, suburban like location; an old man named Sam who drank and was beset with a heart condition, who was prone to violence, who had a family and who apparently spoke with a Scottish-sounding accent. There also was an allusion to a dog, and to a yard of some type "behind our house." 

In addition, the letter clearly indicated that an attack had been planned to occur in Queens—rather than the Bronx—and was to have been carried out the week before—Easter. That is, a shooting scheduled for seven days earlier in Queens was delayed and transferred to the Bronx. This evidence was at variance with the official psychological profiles of an obsessed murderer whose pent-up internal rages exploded unpredictably. 

If it had been released, there is every reason to believe (and without the benefit of hindsight)—particularly in light of events which will be detailed later—that someone in the Greater New York area might have read the letter and provided vital information about "Sam" and his murders. 

But no one, with the exception of a handful of police officials and consulting psychiatrists, would see the correspondence, except for Jimmy Breslin, columnist for the Daily News. 

Breslin would slip in a July 28 column devoted to the anniversary of Donna Lauria's death, when he would write that the killer, who referred to "women as wemon," might let the anniversary pass as he sat looking out "his attic window"—direct references to the secret Borrelli letter. 

Breslin would see a note the police brass wouldn't even share with the detectives working on the case. But perhaps the powers in the department thought it only fair to show Breslin their letter. After all, he was going to show them his. 

As Memorial Day neared, six weeks had elapsed since the murders of Valentina Suriani and Alexander Esau. But the police, now bolstered by a task force of more than 150 officers and detectives, were making no progress in the case. The investigation was centered on current and former mental patients, sex criminals who had demonstrated a hatred of women and candidates culled from the growing list of suspects phoned into the police .44 hot-line number. 

On the twenty-sixth of May, the NYPD released a new psychological profile of the killer. It described him as neurotic, schizophrenic and paranoid—dime-store definitions resulting from remote analyses by the psychiatrists. The profile also suggested that the killer might regard himself as a victim of "demonic possession." 

That little nudge from the Department would emerge as significant. 

On a more realistic level than the police profile of the killer, the detectives were trying to trace and test-fire the fifty-six Charter Arms .44 Bulldogs registered in the New York area. This was eventually accomplished, but produced no results. 

From that starting block, Inspector Dowd ran a nationwide marathon to locate every .44 Bulldog ever manufactured—all 28,000 of them. Some 670 had been stolen from Charter Arms and weren't even available for a possible trace. It was a hopeless mission, but was illustrative of the lack of progress and sense of desperation pervading the NYPD. 

The police were scrambling. They had decoy teams necking in parked cars and dummies posed in other vehicles; they were consulting psychics and investigating the thousands of tips received from citizens and other law enforcement agencies. Things were not going well. It was time for a little encouragement. 

On May 30, Memorial Day, encouragement was dropped into a mailbox in Englewood, New Jersey. The box was located in proximity to a large apartment complex in the affluent suburb, which was just a few miles across the George Washington Bridge from upper Manhattan. Specifically, the mailbox sat on the corner of Myrtle Street and Lorraine Court, something the police were privately able to determine because, on account of the holiday, the letter was hand-canceled at a local postal substation. 

The envelope was addressed to one Jimmy Breslin, the Count of Queens Boulevard and a controversial columnist for the Daily News. 

At forty-seven, Breslin was a success, and not undeserving in many respects. He was a colorful, earthy, man-of-the-streets writer, and a good one. He'd authored a number of well-received novels, and would later become familiar to many Americans for his self-caricature in the Piels beer commercials: "It's a good drinking beer," he would observe, cigar in hand. 

But notoriety bred a degree of pomposity and, some said, a touch of journalistic ambivalence. Breslin, a crime aficionado, had taken a keen interest in the Son of Sam slayings and produced a number of his trademark pounding-the-pavement with-the-cops columns about the investigation. He was also well plugged in to the Omega task force. 

When the letter for Breslin arrived at the Daily News building on East 42nd Street in Manhattan, the paper milked it for several days with teasing, circulation-building articles before finally making its contents known. When ultimately published, the note set off an explosion throughout the entire metropolitan area. 

More than anything else, the Breslin letter set New Yorkers spinning, sleuthing and trying to solve the case. The reason for this was simple: the missive contained four aliases of the killer, names which triggered hundreds of leads in the public mind. 

Beyond the clues, the letter was a chilling masterpiece— graphic, flowing and literally bubbling with vivid imagery. It was the work of a creative, intelligent writer. It was mailed in Englewood, but as its opening lines said, it really rose from the gutters—and the dank, mist-shrouded back alleys and entrails of the city. And from the deepest recesses of the human brain from which the most horrifying nightmares ooze. 

Hello from the gutters of N.Y.C., 

which are filled with dog manure, 

vomit, stale wine, urine, and blood. 

Hello from the sewers of N.Y.C. which 

swallow up these delicacies when 

they are washed away by the sweeper 

trucks. Hello from the cracks in the 

sidewalks of N.Y.C. and from the 

ants that dwell in these cracks 

and feed on the dried blood of the 

dead that has seeped into these cracks.

J.B., I'm just dropping you a line 

to let you know that I appreciate 

your interest in those recent and 

horrendous .44 killings. I also 

want to tell you that I read your 

column daily and I find it 

quite informative. 

Tell me Jim, what will you 

have for July twenty-ninth? 

You can forget about me if you 

like because I don't care for 

publicity. However you must 

not forget Donna Lauria and 

you cannot let the people forget 

her either. She was a very, 

very sweet girl but Sam's a 

thirsty lad and he won't let me 

stop killing until he gets 

his fill of blood. 

Mr. Breslin, sir, don't think 

that because you haven't heard from [me] 

for a while that I went to sleep. 

No, rather, I am still here. Like 

a spirit roaming the night. 

Thirsty, hungry, seldom stopping 

to rest; anxious to please Sam. 

I love my work. Now, the 

void has been filled. 

Perhaps we shall meet face to 
face someday or perhaps I will 
be blown away by cops with 
smoking .38's. Whatever, if I 
shall be fortunate enough to 
meet you I will tell you all about 
Sam if you like and I will 
introduce you to him. His name 
is "Sam the Terrible." 

Not knowing what the future 
holds I shall say farewell and 
I will see you at the next job. 
Or should I say you will see 
my handiwork at the next job? 
Remember Ms. Lauria. Thank you. 

In their blood 

and 

from the gutter 

"Sam's Creation" .44 

Here are some names to help you along. 
Forward them to the inspector 
for use by N.C.I.C: 
"The Duke of Death" 
"The Wicked King Wicker" 
"The Twenty Two Disciples of Hell" 
"John 'Wheaties'—Rapist and 
Suffocater of Young Girls." 

PS: J.B. Please inform all the 
detectives working the 
slaying to remain. 

P.S: JB, please inform all the 
detectives working the 
case that I wish them the best 
of luck. "Keep 'em 
digging, drive on, think 
positive, get off your 
butts, knock on coffins, etc." 

Upon my capture I promise to 
buy all the guys working 
on the case a new pair of shoes 
if I can get up the money. 

On the back of the envelope, in the same professional style of block lettering, was written: Blood and Family 

Darkness and Death 

Absolute Depravity .44 

Beneath that was the Son of Sam graphic symbol. It was one hell of a return address; and was withheld from the public. 

Besides the accomplished printing style, the Breslin letter incorporated techniques normally used by someone familiar with graphics, such as centering and "hanging indentations." 

Once the letter was published, police phones rang off the hook. People were turning in journalists, artists, draftsmen, cartoonists, men named John, boys nicknamed "Duke"; and the police themselves arranged for a screening of a Scottish film, The Wicker Man, which revolved around Druid sacrifices in flaming wicker baskets. 

The police said they believed the graphic symbol at the letter's end utilized the universal signs for male and female. This was incorrect. The symbol had its origins with nineteenth-century occultist Eliphas Levi. And the "signs" were actually the astrological renderings of Mars, the god of war, and of Venus —goddess of the Roman sewers, who was also known as Placida. 

Three weeks later, Judy Placido, of Wickham Avenue in the Bronx, was celebrating her graduation from St. Catherine's Academy—the same high school attended by Valentina Sudani a year earlier. Judy, seventeen, didn't know Valentina, but a friend of hers did. And another fact that would be kept confidential: Judy had attended Valentina's funeral with the friend. The .44-caliber world was certainly a small one. 

On Saturday, June 25, Judy, in the company of three girlfriends, drove across the Whitestone Bridge from the Bronx to party at a Queens discotheque named Elephas, which was located on Northern Boulevard in the Bayside section. Elephas, a Latin word, means elephant. In the occult, the elephant is the demon Behemoth—a reference contained in Son of Sam's April letter to Captain Borrelli. The implication is clear—and significant. 

It was a warm, rainy night, and the combination of inclement weather and mounting fear of the .44 killer turned the normally overflowing Elephas into something of a wasteland. 

The night dragged on, but by 11 P.M. the crowd increased somewhat and it was then Judy met Salvatore Lupo, twenty, a gas station attendant from Maspeth, Queens. Lupo, with a styled haircut, a mustache, a love of sports and a flair for disco dancing, was immediately attracted to the vivacious Judy, who herself was a shapely, pretty girl with long, wavy brown hair and an enthusiasm for the disco scene. 

Judy, who lived with her aunt, was the youngest of three children. Her mother had died of Hodgkin's disease nine years previously, and her father subsequently remarried and kept a home nearby with his second wife. 

At 2 A.M., Judy's friends agreed they'd had enough of Elephas. Judy, however, decided to stay and continue her getting-acquainted effort with Lupo. Lupo's friend Ralph Saccante was a bouncer at Elephas and had driven Sal there that night. Lupo informed Judy that Saccante and he would drive her back to the Bronx if she wanted to wait until the disco closed. After talking about the situation with her girlfriends, Judy consented. 

At 3 A.M., after another hour of dancing and conversation, Lupo showed Judy the keys to Saccante's maroon 1972 Cadillac and suggested they wait in the car until Saccante finished for the night. The auto was parked about two blocks from Elephas on residential 

211th Street, near the 45th Road intersection. Hand in hand, the young couple left the disco and walked directly to the Cadillac, entered and began to talk. A few minutes earlier witnesses spied another Caddy, an older one—gold in color with a black vinyl roof and rear-end damage—slowly cruising the neighborhood. A white male in his twenties or thirties who had short black hair and a thin mustache was behind the wheel. 

Inside Saccante's car, Lupo and Judy lit cigarettes while they conversed and Lupo, who was in the driver's seat, affectionately eased his right arm around the back of Judy's neck. They passed a quiet ten minutes. Ironically, their conversation turned to the subject of Son of Sam. 

And then Son of Sam decided to join in. 

The first shot, aimed at Judy's head, shattered the front passenger's side window, smashed Lupo's right wrist and hit Judy in the neck. It continued downward, exited her neck and embedded in the seat cushion. A fragment of flying glass sliced into Lupo's right leg. 

Lupo dove below the front seat, looked toward the window and was able to see the gun, which kept spitting red flashes. The second shot hit Judy in the head, but miraculously only grazed her skull, penetrating the skin and traveling along the surface of her forehead before settling just above her right eyebrow. 

The next missile pierced Judy's shoulder and, like the first shot, deflected downward and slammed into the cushion. 

The barrage was now over. Lupo flung open the car door and fled toward Elephas, trailing blood from the gash in his leg. Judy was left alone in the Cadillac. 

Stunned, and not knowing she'd been shot, Judy sat dazed for several minutes before staring into the rearview mirror and seeing she was covered with blood. Now overwhelmed by panic, she crawled from the Caddy and stumbled along 211th Street, trying to focus on the distant lights of Elephas. At the corner of 45th Road, her strength was drained and she collapsed in the rain-soaked street. 

Quickly now, the neighborhood came to life and Judy was soon draped with a blanket as a concerned crowd gathered. Police and ambulances were immediately summoned, and Lupo, after telling the Elephas doorman about the shooting, returned to the fallen Judy. 

Minutes before the shots rang out, an unmarked car containing Detective Sergeant Joseph Coffey and his partner drove from the neighborhood. Hearing the radio call, the two furious cops hastily sped back to the scene. Three blocks south of the site, a witness observed a stocky white male clad in dark clothing running along 211th Street, heading away from the shooting location. Another witness saw a well-dressed young man with sandy-colored hair and a mustache jump into a yellow or gold Chevy Nova type of car and leave the neighborhood with the car's headlights extinguished. A partial plate number was recorded, but would lead nowhere. It was believed this man watched the shooting and fled in the same direction taken by the killer—but this information was kept confidential. (A similar vehicle was double-parked across the street from the scene of Donna Lauria's murder in the Bronx. Later, evidence of this type of car's presence at yet two more Son of Sam shootings would be uncovered.)

At the hospital, surgeons patched up Lupo's wrist and gashed leg. Judy Placido recovered, which was nothing short of a miracle. However, neither she nor Lupo was able to describe their assailant to the police. 

The headlines following the attack fed the massive feelings of fright creeping through the city of New York. Adding to the fear was the fact that the police were admittedly making no progress in the ever-widening investigation. More officers were promptly assigned to Dowd's Omega force and in early July Mayor Beame announced he was allocating even more cops to the case and would step up patrol activity in anticipation of July 29—the anniversary of Donna Lauria's death in the Bronx. 

In the letter to Breslin, Son of Sam had written: "Tell me Jim, what will you have for July twenty-ninth?" Beame acted in response to that question, but he was criticized for "speculation" by some, including the New York Times. 

On the twenty-eighth, in a column titled "To the .44 Killer on His First Death day," Breslin wondered if Son of Sam would strike: "And somewhere in this city, a loner, a deranged loner, picks up this paper and gloats. Again he has what he wants. Is tomorrow night, July 29, so significant to him that he must go out and walk the night streets and find a victim? Or will he sit alone, and look out his attic window and be thrilled by his power, this power that will have him in the newspapers and on television and in the thoughts and conversations of most of the young people in the city?" 

Two of the city's young people, twenty-year-old Stacy Moskowitz and her sister, Ricki, fifteen, were as aware as any New Yorkers of the July 29 anniversary. 

On Thursday, the twenty-eighth, the sisters left their home in Brooklyn's Flatbush section and drove to Beefsteak Charlie's restaurant on Ocean Avenue in Sheepshead Bay. 

Stacy, a petite five feet two, was employed as a color coordinator at the Minella Shoe Corp.'s offices in the Empire State Building in midtown Manhattan. An attractive, brown-eyed blonde, she had attended Brooklyn's Lafayette High and the Adelphi Business School before landing the job with Minella. 

Stacy was a lively, outgoing girl and had just returned to New York from a Mexican vacation. Her father, Jerry, had met her at John F. Kennedy Airport and was immediately surprised with a box of Cuban cigars she had purchased in Acapulco. Stacy was like that. 

As she and Ricki conversed idly while waiting for their dinner to be served, a tall young man with dark hair and a mustache approached their table and asked if he could join them for a minute. The two sisters glanced inquisitively at the handsome intruder. 

"O.K." Stacy nodded, and Robert Violante slid into the booth. 

At twenty, Violante was a graduate of Brooklyn's New Utrecht High School and had been employed at several retail clothing jobs. He lived with his parents on Bay Ridge Parkway and was taking a summer vacation from the menswear business, but planned to resume work after Labor Day. 

He'd gone to Beefsteak Charlie's with two friends and noticed Stacy and Ricki when they entered the dining room. Deciding he wanted to meet them, he initially focused his attention on the younger Ricki. But Ricki, realizing he was too old for her, steered the conversation toward Stacy, and Violante quickly caught on. 

Ultimately, he invited Stacy to go out with him. She was attracted to the confident Violante and reasoned that her work in the shoe business complemented his background in retailing. So she agreed to a date, and Violante scribbled down her phone number and address and said he'd call for her at 8 P.M. on Saturday, July 30. 

In a suburban Yonkers apartment building high above the Hudson River, a young man named David Berkowitz used the anniversary date for his own purposes. He knew what was in the wind, and he knew how it could end for him. He wasn't sure there'd be another opportunity, so he didn't dare procrastinate. His July 29 "celebration" would be poignant. Little did he know, or think, that the letter would be suppressed by authorities. Nearly four years would elapse before it came into my hands: 

This is a warning to all police agencies in the tri-state area: For your information, a satanic cult (devil worshipers and practitioners of witchcraft) that has been established for quite some time has been instructed by their high command (Satan) to begin to systematically kill and slaughter young girls or people of good health and clean blood. 

They plan to kill at least 100 young wemon and men, but mostly wemon, as part of a satanic ritual which involves the shedding of the victims' innocent blood .

Warning: the streets shall be run with blood. I, David Berkowitz, have been chosen, chosen since birth, to be one of the executioners for the cult. He who hath eyes, let him see the dead victims. He who hath ears, let him listen to what I say. 

July 29 came and passed without incident. 

Chapter IV 

Her Name Was Stacy 

The 6:15 P.M. ferry from Patchogue, Long Island, to Davis Park on Fire Island was nearly empty as it nudged the narrow pier, reversed its coughing engines and was secured in place with thick mariner's line by the small crew of teen aged deckhands. 

 It was Saturday night, July 30, and as the gangplank rattled noisily landward, only a handful of casually dressed passengers alighted onto the aging wooden dock, which was sometimes known as Presbyterian Dock, most likely for a patently ungodly reason hidden in the weathered structure's colorful past. 

The scene was in stark contrast to the previous evening, when the Friday ferries swelled to capacity with beach-house shareholders—or "groupers," as they were cynically termed by homeowners and renters who could afford the price of a summer place without the assistance of co-contributors. 

As a National Seashore and weekend retreat on the Atlantic Ocean, Davis Park, and all thirty-two miles of Fire Island, had a direct, human link to the city proper that was never severed for more than five days at a time. Beginning late on Friday afternoons and continuing until the last ferry slipped into the marina at 11 P.M., the hottest news from the "Apple" was borne by the harried secretaries, admen, artists, writers, accountants and other white-collar types who emerged from the steaming bowels of the summer city to decompress in the salt air and sun until Sunday nights, when a reverse exodus veered toward the distant, unseen metropolis. 

Mostly, the summer people were young. And because they were, they were personally affected by the Son of Sam killings. Their jobs, weekday lovers and analysts they left behind, but they carried their dread and preoccupation with Sam off the ferries with them—a fact evident from the tone of conversations which drifted through the Friday swarms as the weekenders loaded groceries and baggage onto squeaky red wagons which they lugged behind them as they slowly trekked to their homes. 

Cars weren't permitted on Fire Island, a restriction that would spawn more than one morbid joke that weekend: most of Son of Sam's victims had been shot in parked autos. There were also few sidewalks in Davis Park. Instead, six-foot-wide elevated boardwalks, wearing rustic names like Beach Plum, Spindrift and Whalebone, weaved through the sandy landscape. 

The home I rented was perched midway between the bay and the magnificent beach on the Atlantic side of the island, and was no more than two hundred yards from water in either direction. 

Vacations on Fire Island were always good, affording total escape from the concrete, cars and hustle that lurked on the "mainland"—as Long Island and the rest of the metropolitan area were collectively known. 

But on Saturday, July 30, the mainland was on our minds. George Austin, my wife, Lynn, and I stood on the dock and mingled with the oil-glistened hordes of day-trippers who were leaving on the six-fifteen ferry's turnaround run to Patchogue. Lynn was departing, too; returning to Westchester to visit her recently retired parents, who'd just arrived in New York from their new home in Florida. George and I would remain for the weekend, spruce up the house and leave the beach on Monday, August 1. 

"Stay on the parkways when you go through Queens and the Bronx," I dutifully reminded Lynn as the ferry prepared to sail. "And above all, don't pick up some guy and go parking with him." 

Lynn managed a weak laugh while George, who was accustomed to such comments, just shook his head. 

"I'll phone you in a few hours," I added, "after you've had enough time to get home. It's still early. If anything's going to happen tonight it won't go down until late. You should be home before ten, so no sweat." 

"I'll be fine. Don't worry a bit," she replied. 

"I'm not worried about you—I just don't want to be pulled away from this island until I absolutely have to go, that's all," I deadpanned. 

"Bastard." She grinned, and boarded the boat.

We waited as the ferry, a wheezing blue-and-white aberration knighted the Highlander many years before, slowly inched its way into the deep-water channel it would follow on its six mile voyage across the bay. Lynn waved from the stern of the top deck as the ship slid past the marina boundaries and opened its throttle with a gurgling roar as it cleared the outlying channel marker. 

With all the guests who'd visited during the vacation, I must have seen eight ferries come and go. This one, for an unsettling reason, felt different. One of us was going back; leaving the safety and serenity of the summer hideaway on a night just about all the smart money in town thought Son of Sam would strike. The apprehension seemed foolish, I knew, but I also knew that it was real. These were frightening times in New York. 

And if I also knew how close the case actually was to me— even on that night—I'd have departed the island myself and driven directly back to Westchester. But that knowledge was yet to come. 

It was still cocktail hour in Davis Park, and as we ambled down Center Walk small clusters of brightly dressed people were gathered on front decks sipping gin and tonics and nibbling on pepperoni, cheese and crackers and steamed or cherrystone clams—standard pre-dinner fare at the beach. Some 30 percent of the clams harvested in the United States were dug from the bottom of the shallow Great South Bay. So what might have been a five-dollar decision to ponder as a restaurant appetizer elsewhere was as common as potato chips to Fire Islanders. 

"I wonder if anybody else managed to get crabs for dinner," George chided, mindful of the afternoon's futile crawl through the bay. 

"No, smart-ass, they'll get their crabs later—after dancing the night away with the love of their lives." 

"Speaking of rock and roll, when do you want to go out tonight?" he asked. 

"Around eleven, I guess. Nothing much going on before then. We'll fritz around the house a while." 

Indeed, it was far too early for any serious socializing, so we busied ourselves with the supper dishes and TV. Later, I sat in a canvas director's chair and scanned the newspapers, which were filled with Son of Sam articles. I'd also brought a collection of earlier clippings with me, which I'd previously read fifty times, and spread them out on the ancient oak table and devoured them again. Like many others, I'd become addicted to the .44 case. 

"Just what do you think you're going to find in all that?" George inquired after an hour elapsed. "You know all that stuff by heart as it is, and you've watched every news program that's been on for the last week. What's going to happen is going to happen and we can't do a damn thing about it. Nobody can, like it or not. And what do we know from mass murder anyway? You don't write about it and I sure as hell don't analyze it in the insurance business." 

"Well, I don't know a hell of a lot," I agreed. "But it doesn't look like the N.Y.P.D knows very much either. This shit's been going on a long time. A year yesterday. And they have zilch. They must have a million cops out tonight because of this anniversary thing." 

"In Queens and the Bronx, right?" 

"Yeah. I wonder why only Queens and the Bronx. Sam, I mean. He must know the streets." 

"All the shootings happened near the parkways," George suggested. "They think that's significant. Easy access and escape with a car. Meaning he uses a car. That's a pretty safe bet." 

"But they don't have any car ID'd," I cut in. "They've probably got a couple of 'possibles,' but nothing firm at all. There was something about a mustard-colored car at the disco in Queens. But that's it; nothing solid that's hit the papers." 

I held up a dog-eared map of the shooting sites from the Post "A lot of people are trying to make some sort of design or pattern by drawing lines between the different spots where he hit. It can look like a triangle if it's done a certain way. They think they might be able to predict where the next one's going to be by plotting out the pattern." 

"Well, if that's so, where's he going to hit tonight?" George challenged. 

"God damned if I know." 

In Brooklyn, forty miles to the west of the lazy idyll of Davis Park, Robert Violante arrived at 1740 East 5th Street in the Flatbush section and parked near a fire hydrant in front of the brick three-family home. From the second-floor terrace, Jerry Moskowitz gazed curiously from his lounge chair as Violante emerged from his father's 1969 brown Buick Skylark and, reading the address through the gathering dusk, opened the small iron gate and climbed the front stairs. 

Nice-looking kid, Jerry thought, as behind him in the apartment the doorbell rang. And on time, too. Jerry, fifty-three, a burly, graying truck driver for the Dolly Madison Ice Cream Company, looked at his watch. It was 8:05 P.M. 

"Hey, Neysa," he called in to his wife. "Tell Stacy her date's here." 

Neysa Moskowitz, forty-three, a vivacious, outspoken, auburn-haired woman with a keen interest in anyone her daughter went out with, hit the buzzer and opened the door to let Violante into the apartment. 

Stacy's younger sister, Ricki, who met Violante two nights before at Beefsteak Charlie's, remained in her room while her parents and Violante made small talk as they waited for Stacy. 

"What are you kids going to do?" Jerry queried. "That Son of Sam guy is all over the papers and TV . . ." 

Violante quickly assured Jerry that they'd probably go to a movie in Brooklyn before stopping for food or dropping by a disco. At that moment, Stacy appeared from her room. 

"I'm glad you've all met already," she announced brightly, and asked Violante to sit for a minute. This time, Neysa asked their destination, and Stacy let Violante answer again: "We're probably going to see New York, New York at the Kingsway and then get something to eat." 

"That's sensible," Jerry observed. "I don't want you kids getting anywhere near trouble out there." 

"We won't. I'll call you, Mom," said Stacy, who always made it a point to touch base with her mother during her evenings out. With that, the young couple rose to leave. 

"Now I want you to have a good time, but remember that Son of Sam," Neysa warned. 

"This is Brooklyn, not Queens. And anyway, I'm a blonde. We'll be just fine," Stacy remarked, and tossed her mother a reassuring smile. 

Jerry and Neysa, who were now joined by Ricki, stood on the terrace as Violante opened the passenger's door for Stacy before letting himself into the driver's side of the car. 

"Look at that, Jerry," Neysa gushed. "She hasn't stopped talking about him for two days. She said he was a real gentleman. When's the last time you saw that?"
"Yeah, it's been a while." Jerry nodded. "He seems like a nice kid. Must come from a good Italian home." 

Together, the Moskowitzes watched the Skylark pull from the curb and rumble down East 5th Street until it disappeared into the twilight. 

In the city of Yonkers, some forty miles north of the Moskowitz home, David Berkowitz was cognizant of the growing darkness. He knew it was time to be on the road. 

This night would be one of motion for people who were, or would become, part of the case. At 8:20, the Omega task force was fanning out from the 109th Precinct in Flushing, Queens, to blanket the residential and disco areas of that borough and the Bronx. About three hundred cops were on exclusive Son of Sam watch that night and thousands of others, on regular duties, were also on top alert for the elusive night wind with the snarling Bulldog .44. 

Lynn Terry was nearing the Whitestone Bridge, which connected Queens and the Bronx, on her way back to Westchester. Stacy Moskowitz and Robert Violante were driving through south Brooklyn, deciding whether to view a movie in Manhattan or queue up at the local Kingsway. On Fire Island, George Austin and I were discussing Son of Sam's escape routes. 

And David Berkowitz was edgy in Yonkers. 

The "nondescript postal worker," as he'd soon be labeled, was eight weeks past his twenty-fourth birthday. He stood about five feet eleven and weighed approximately two hundred pounds. His eyes were steely blue, and his hair was short, dark, and curled in a "perm." He had lived in the tidy, top-floor apartment at 35 Pine Street for fifteen months—since April 1976. To most who knew him, Berkowitz, outside of a brush with born-again Christianity that turned some people off, was a nice guy. Quiet, not pushy. A follower rather than a leader. Just one of the guys. 

An Army veteran who was discharged in June 1974, he'd held a handful of jobs since returning to civilian life. He'd been a security guard, a construction worker and a cabdriver for the Co-Op City Cab Company in the Bronx, where he formerly lived. His life was different then. 

Dressing to go out, Berkowitz donned a short-sleeved grayish shirt, a pair of black half-sneakers, blue jeans and, despite the searing July heat, a blue denim jacket. 

Passing up the elevator as was his habit, he trotted down the seven flights of stairs to the lobby of 35 Pine, a newly refurbished high-rise building. Opening the glass door, he bounded up the front steps to street level and walked to his car, a 1970 four-door Ford Galaxy, which was cream-colored with a black vinyl roof and black wall tires. The car, as it frequently was, was parked a block north and east on hilly Glenwood Avenue. 

Sliding behind the wheel, Berkowitz cranked the engine, which needed a tune-up, and climbed east on Glenwood to Park Avenue, where he made a left. He drove one block to Lake Avenue, turned right and drove down a slight incline and past a row of stores before making a right on Ridge Avenue and beginning to descend the steep hills of Yonkers as he angled toward the Saw Mill River Parkway. 

Finally entering the parkway on Yonkers Avenue, Berkowitz veered south toward Manhattan, paralleling the Hudson River. He played with the buttons on the Galaxie's radio, alternating between rock music and all-news WINS and WCBS. The broadcasts were highlighted by reports about the .44-Caliber Killer. 

Within hours the radio would be crackling with another report—that of what would become the most sensational homicide and follow-up investigation in the history of New York; and also one of the most infamous and controversial shootings in the annals of recorded crime in the United States. 

Into Manhattan now, Berkowitz exited the West Side Highway at the construction site at 56th Street and followed the detour to 34th. He made a left at the traffic light and soon found himself in familiar territory—a location of the Universal Car Loading Corp. where he'd once worked as a guard for IBI Security. 

At 34th and 9th Avenue he turned right, continued south for several blocks, again turned right and came out on 10th Avenue. At 31st Street, he looked for a parking spot, found one and walked to a food stand, where he ordered a quick dinner-on-the-fly. He didn't have much time to spare. He had a rendezvous in Brooklyn. 

At 8:45 P.M., Robert Violante and Stacy Moskowitz had themselves arrived at a joint decision concerning dinner. They opted to skip having a meal before going to the movies; and would stay in Brooklyn. They also agreed to drive down to Gravesend Bay to watch the ships in the harbor before catching the 10 P.M. showing of New York, New York. 

The young couple, enjoying each other's company immensely, drove west on the one-way Shore Parkway service road in Bensonhurst and stopped under a streetlamp opposite a playground and Softball field at 17th Avenue. This stretch of Shore Parkway was known as a parking spot for couples, a sporadic dumping ground for abandoned cars and a place where on-duty police would occasionally "coop" for coffee breaks. 

A high, bent chain link fence separated the service road from a greenbelt and the rush of traffic on the Belt Parkway. Behind the couple's car, a pedestrian footbridge rainbowed the highway and led to an esplanade where a handful of park benches faced Gravesend Bay, a sadly appropriate name for the body of water. 

In the distance, the necklace of lights from the Verrazano Narrows Bridge twinkled in the near darkness; and beyond the span loomed the distant purplish hulk of Staten Island. Several tankers lolled easily in the bay, riding quietly at anchor. A full moon was rising. 

After an hour of talking and a stroll down to the water, Violante and Stacy drove to the Kingsway Theatre at Coney Island and Kingsway avenues. From the lobby, Stacy phoned her mother to report she was having an excellent evening. At 10 P.M., the couple settled into their seats, hoping to be entertained by the multiple talents of Liza Minnelli. 

After watching the eleven o'clock news, George and I walked to the marina, where I called Lynn from a phone booth outside the police substation. Inside, two bored Suffolk County officers were leaning back in wooden chairs. 

"They're sure as hell not on the task force," George cracked. "Life at the beach does go on and on, doesn't it?" 

Lynn answered the phone after just two rings and reported her trip back was uneventful. But she noticed what appeared to be a number of unmarked police cars near the tollbooths on the Whitestone Bridge. 

"Great," I replied. "If you can spot them, do they think the killer can't? What'd they look like?" 

"Well, they had no chrome on them, no white walls, four doors ... " 

"Bingo. The whole country knows about the dragnet, and their unmarked cars might as well have neon lights on them. Next we'll have the Goodyear blimp over Forest Hills ..." 

In fact, Lynn's observations were correct. The Whitestone and Throgs Neck bridges, which linked Queens and the Bronx,were high on the police priority list. They were reasonably certain the killer had a car and used the spans to travel between the boroughs. They were right. 

After the phone call, George and I headed for the only night spot in town, the Casino, which was always an annoying wall to-wall crush on Fridays and Saturdays. But on a positive note, if one wanted to find the action in Davis Park, one knew exactly where to look. 

But that night, surprisingly, the crowd was more subdued than usual. Between Jimmy Buffett's "Margaritaville," jukebox disco and Rita Coolidge covering Jackie Wilson's classic rocker, "Higher and Higher," conversations were almost all concerned with Son of Sam. 

"Jesus, he's really out here, too, isn't he?" George observed as we exchanged theories on the killer with some friends at the bar. Around us, other discussions were as animated. 

Hypotheses were flowing as fast as screwdrivers were being poured into the plastic cups that passed as Casino crystal. Girls were comparing the guy who'd just asked them to dance with police composites that were indelibly branded in their brains. Anyone who came across as even a little "different" aroused suspicion. 

We'd never seen anything like it, but it was sure that similar scenes were being played out in night spots all over the metropolitan area—except in Queens and the Bronx. Those singles bars were empty. 

"This is a little much," I said. "What the hell do they think he's going to do—shoot them and escape in a speedboat?" 

"It's not that," explained Don Bergen, a tall, husky fuel-oil dealer from Sayville, Long Island, who was renting a house with his family for the month of July. "It's just that everyone who's come out from the city is now so used to being paranoid that it's become part of them. They can't even forget out here." 

"How I spent my vacation—jumping at shadows. I feel for them," Don's wife, Connie, remarked. "This is quite the unusual summer." 

That was an understatement. 

Later, at about 1 A.M., a small group sat on the dune stairs near the Bergen home on East Walk. Edith Kelly, whose husband, Carl, was a New York City cop working that night in Manhattan, joined us, along with her recently widowed friend, Barbara Newman.

For a time, no one spoke. The light slap of the waves on the shore below was the only intrusion. Thoughts turned inward. 

"Carl says the whole force is going crazy," Edith quietly said, breaking the silence. "Vacations are being canceled; everyone's on overtime to cover for the manpower on the task force. The guys all hate it. This kind of thing is like a domino effect. It's upset the balance of the whole Police Department." 

"I wouldn't want to be the owner of a disco in Queens," added Don Bergen, ever the businessman. "I keep reading how those places are really hurting." 

"And maybe some other places after tonight," said George. "It's gotta be tonight. It's so damn peaceful here. We're so close to that zoo over there but still so far from it all. I'd say tonight's the night." 

"Who the hell knows," I said. "But it damn well sure could be tonight unless they scared him off with that dragnet." 

"Well, maybe he'll go somewhere else," Barbara Newman stated. 

"Could be." I was enjoying my role as a student of the case. "Maybe into New Rochelle, somewhere just across the Bronx line." 

I believed Sam lived in lower Connecticut, Westchester or the north Bronx. There was no specific reason for this opinion. It was just a feeling based on the escape routes and the fact that the first shooting occurred in the northeast Bronx. Perhaps Sam, unsure of himself on his maiden flight, hadn't ventured too far from the nest. 

"Well, why not Brooklyn, good old Brooklyn?" Connie Bergen, a native of the Bensonhurst area, where her parents still lived, was tentatively serious when she spoke. 

"I haven't thought about Brooklyn since the Dodgers left, and I don't know anyone else who has either," Don said, laughing. 

"Yeah. But maybe he has," I countered. "Wherever it is, if it's tonight, they're going to learn a lot about this guy. By where he hits or doesn't hit. About his ego, his subconscious, his intelligence. 

"If he tries to defy them and do it in Queens or the Bronx, that will show one thing—omnipotence. If he just cools it and stays home, like last night, that's another thing. He doesn't subconsciously want to get caught. And if he goes to a new area to outsmart them and beat the dragnet, that's another indication of how smart and powerful he feels and that he doesn't want to get caught—subconsciously or otherwise." 

"Thank you, Doctor." It was George. 

"Screw it. Everybody on the damned East Coast has a theory on this freaking case. I might as well throw mine in, too." 

"Why do you think those pictures they released—the sketches—look so different from one another?" Connie wanted to know. 

"I have no idea," I replied. And I didn't. 

"We'll know soon enough on who, where and when, I guess," said Don, ending the night's discussion of Son of Sam. 

On the Shore Parkway service road in Connie Bergen's old Bensonhurst neighborhood, at the same location where Stacy Moskowitz and Robert Violante had parked four hours before, a young Brooklyn resident named Robert Barnes* was becoming annoyed with his wife, Paula.* The couple, who were temporarily living with Barnes's parents, had themselves driven to the block for some private moments together. They'd walked into the 17th Avenue playground and down the cobblestone path that separated the Softball field and handball courts from the swings and bocce courts. Upon returning to their car at 12:45 A.M., Paula noticed she'd lost her bracelet. 

Robert and Paula were two of a considerable number of Brooklyn citizens who were about to enter the Son of Sam saga. The story that is now ready to unfold has not been told before. It would take me nearly three years to piece it together. And it was only accomplished after more than thirty interviews; months of in-depth analysis of the events and the scene; confidential correspondence with David Berkowitz; and the assistance of highly placed official law enforcement sources in Brooklyn. Much of what follows has been culled from secret N.Y.P.D files that were never intended to reach the public. 

The public itself was told one story—a false story—by New York City authorities who, for their own reasons, decided to whitewash the events of July 31, 1977. The time of the shooting, as established by neighbors' calls to the N.Y.P.D's 911 emergency number, was 2:35 A.M. But the scenario actually began to unfold ninety minutes earlier. 

1:10 A.M. 
Paula Barnes was determined to find her lost bracelet. So, dragging her reluctant husband with her, she reentered the 17th Avenue park and proceeded to search for it. They returned to their car, which was parked on the service road near Bay 16th Street, shortly before 1 A.M. 

Paula and Robert, talking in their car, look down the service road and observe a yellow Volkswagen Beetle pull up to the park's entrance and watch as two people emerge from the car and walk into the park. The Barneses continue their conversation and leave the area at about 1:15 A.M. But they wouldn't be the only people at the scene; other couples were now beginning to arrive at the urban lovers' lane. 

About 1:30 A.M. 
Dominick Spagnola,* parked on the south side of the Shore Parkway service road near where the Barneses had stopped, sees what he believes to be a 1972 yellow Volkswagen Beetle parked by the entrance to the playground. It has a black stripe above its running board and what Spagnola thinks are New York license plates. 

Robert Martin,* another Brooklyn resident, is, at this time, driving west on the adjacent Belt Parkway. While passing the pedestrian footbridge opposite the park's entrance he sees a man standing on the parkway's greenbelt near the overpass. The man appears to be trying to cross the parkway to the esplanade near Gravesend Bay on the other side. He is wearing sunglasses, dungarees and a white shirt, which is out of his trousers. He is carrying a brown paper bag—an item previously used by Son of Sam to conceal the .44 Bulldog. 

Mr. and Mrs. Frank Raymond,* walking their dog on the service road near the overpass, notice a similar man by a hole in the fence which separates the parkway greenbelt from the service road. Seeing the Raymonds looking at him, the man ducks back behind some shrubbery. 

Mr. and Mrs. Frank Vignotti,* a young couple, are parked a short distance east of the park's entrance, near the fence and overpass. While talking, they watch a man, coming from their left, walk off the parkway overpass—returning from the Gravesend Bay esplanade. He walks in front of the Vignottis and crosses the service road to the yellow VW. He approaches the driver's door and stops, as if to open it. But he now notices the Vignottis and decides to enter the playground instead. 

He is white, stocky and short—about five feet seven—with dark, short-cropped hair. He is wearing dungaree pants and a light-colored shirt which is tucked into his trousers. The shirt's long sleeves are rolled up. His arms are well defined and muscular. He has a golden tan. 

About 1:45 A.M. 
Tommy Zaino, nineteen, is seated with his date, Debbie Costanza,* in a borrowed blue Corvette which is parked adjacent to the fence opposite the playground, a short distance ahead of where the Vignottis were parked a few minutes earlier. Zaino, the co-owner of a Coney Island auto repair business, was formerly parked directly under the sodium streetlamp near the overpass, but pulled forward two car lengths to a darker spot. 

It is his first date with the seventeen-year-old Debbie and, unlike some of the other couples in the lovers' lane, Zaino and Debbie are simply talking. At about 1:45 A.M., Zaino hears the distinctive sound of a Volkswagen engine and notices a yellow roof roll by as the VW moves past him on the one-way service road. 

A few minutes later, Robert Violante and Stacy Moskowitz, returning after the movie and a stop at a disco, pull into the vacated space three car lengths behind Zaino and Debbie. They are in Zaino's former location under the streetlamp. With the illumination from the light and the added effect of the full moon, the Shore Parkway service road is almost as bright as day. 

2:05-2:10 A.M. 
N.Y.P.D officer Michael Cataneo, on motor patrol with his partner, Jeffrey Logan, turns off the service road two blocks east of the Violante auto and begins to drive onto Bay 17th Street, a quiet one-way avenue of red-brick garden apartment buildings. The police travel north about half a block and notice a cream-colored Ford Galaxie with a black vinyl roof parked slightly behind a fire hydrant in front of No. 290, on the west side of the street. It is Berkowitz's car. He had arrived at his rendezvous in Brooklyn nearly an hour before. 

Berkowitz, in a courtyard between the apartment buildings, watches as Cataneo alights from the police cruiser, walks to read the address on the wall of 290 Bay 17th and returns to the curb to begin writing a traffic ticket. He inscribes the 2:05 time designation on it and then inserts the ticket behind the Galaxie's windshield wipers. He reenters the police car and the two cops leave, only to stop again to ticket two double-parked autos further up the street, near 262 Bay 17th.

Berkowitz, seeing the police about to ticket his car, reacts swiftly. In one of the most startling, significant and ironic moments in the entire Son of Sam story, he decides to stop the planned shooting from occurring. Hurrying back to the park, he confronts at least two accomplices and tells them his car is at that moment being ticketed and that the attack should be canceled or moved to another location. Berkowitz explains that the traceable ticket will make him vulnerable to arrest. 

An animated discussion ensues, which Berkowitz loses. The alleged reason why he is overruled will be explained later, and it is a shocking reason purportedly involving special plans in effect this night. Berkowitz, chagrined, is told to return to Bay 17th Street and to make sure that the police clear the area. He leaves the park at about 2:10 A.M. 

2:10-2:20 A.M. 
A young neighborhood girl, Michelle Michaels,* is riding her bike on 17th Avenue near Bath Avenue—two blocks west of Berkowitz's car and three blocks north of where Violante and Stacy are parked. Looking behind her, Michelle notices she is being followed closely by a man in a small yellow car, model unknown. After keeping pace with Michelle for two blocks—heading in the direction of the park—the man pulls alongside and stares at her. Pedaling faster, she reaches her home and runs inside. But the man remains in front of her house for a few moments before continuing south toward the park area. Despite the hour, he is wearing sunglasses—like the man who was standing by the parkway overpass a half hour earlier—and has brownish, short hair, high cheekbones and a pointed chin. 

Mrs. Cacilia Davis, forty-nine, a widow and native of Austria, is returning from a night out with a friend, Howard Bohan.* She is riding in the passenger's seat as his car turns off the Shore Parkway service road onto Bay 17th Street and slows while they look for a parking space. 

They initially think they can squeeze into the spot in front of Berkowitz's Galaxy, but, seeing the ticket already on his windshield and noting the proximity of the hydrant, they continue about seventy-five yards up the block and triple-park near Mrs. Davis' building, No. 262, blocking the one-way road. Their car is now between Berkowitz's Ford and the police car, which is still on the street near 262 Bay 17th. 

While talking with Howard, Mrs. Davis, aware that their car is blocking the avenue, keeps an eye on the road behind them. She suddenly sees a young man emerge from a courtyard, lean across the Ford's windshield and—like any motorist preparing to drive off—angrily remove the ticket. He is wearing a denim jacket and pants. The man opens the driver's door, which is against the curb, and puts the ticket inside the car. He then defiantly, openly leans against the ajar door and watches intently for several minutes as Patrolman Cataneo, laughing and joking with his partner, Logan, writes the second and third tickets on Bay 17th Street that night. When Cataneo finishes, he climbs back into the police cruiser. 

Mrs. Davis, meanwhile, has invited Howard inside for coffee and asks if he will accompany her while she walks her dog. Howard declines, looking at his watch and pointing out that it is already 2:20 A.M. and he is due at his supermarket job early in the morning. 

As the police, who are in front of Howard's car, start to drive off, Mrs. Davis sees the young man down the block quickly enter his Galaxy and speed up behind her and Howard. Clearly agitated, he blares his horn loudly several times to get by. 

Mrs. Davis climbs out and walks behind Howard's car, and in front of the Ford. As Howard drives off, she stands on the curb, looking at the profile of the impatient young man in the Galaxy as he passes. She notices the denim jacket and the dark, short-cropped hair. 

The Galaxy follows both Howard and the police across the Cropsey Avenue intersection, where it passes Howard—who observes it going by. Still on the trail of the police car, the Ford continues to the next intersection, Bay 17th and Bath Avenue, where both vehicles turn right. They are heading many blocks north and east of the Violante auto and the park. It is approximately 2:21 A.M., just fourteen minutes before the shooting will occur, and David Berkowitz is leaving the scene on the heels of the police. 

Mrs. Davis, who has watched the disappearing cars, then enters her first-floor apartment. 

2:20-2:33 A.M. 
At about the exact time the Galaxie is leaving the area—but two blocks away—Robert Violante and Stacy Moskowitz stroll into the park through the Shore Parkway entrance. 

Stacy and Robert, after arriving at the lovers' lane at about 1:45, talked in their car for about twenty minutes before walking across the footbridge to Gravesend Bay. Returning, and now into the park, they walk a path that separates a ball field and handball courts on the east from the swings and boccie courts on the west. 

Leaning against a rest-room building in the shadows beneath a broken park light near the end of the path is a man Violante terms a "weird, grubby-looking hippie." His hair is dark, curly and "all messed up, down over his forehead." He is stocky and wearing either a bluish denim shirt or jacket with a T-shirt underneath. His sleeves are rolled up. He is unshaven, tanned, and has "piercing dark eyes." 

Robert and Stacy pass within ten feet of the man, who continues to lean against the rest-room building as the couple turn left to enter the swings area. Together, they ride the swings "for about five minutes" before returning to their car—parked beneath the streetlamp—at about 2:25 A.M. They do not see the man as they leave. 

Zaino, who notices the couple return, will later agree with Violante's estimate of the time, as will Donna Brogan,* who is parked with her boyfriend, John Hogan,* opposite the Violante auto and slightly behind it. Donna had seen Robert and Stacy "enter the park, stay there five minutes" and return to their car about 2:25. Donna and John, in a red Volkswagen, will depart at about 2:30 and drive to a store for sandwiches. When they return at 2:40, the shooting will already have occurred. 

Meanwhile, at about 2:22, Mrs. Davis had leashed her white spitz, Snowball, and prepared to take him for a walk. But because neighbors' guests were leaving and the dog sometimes barks at strangers, she delayed her departure. She heard them outside complaining about the parking tickets they'd received minutes before. 

When the guests have driven off, Mrs. Davis begins her walk. It is approximately 2:23 A.M. She leads Snowball down the west side of Bay 17th Street and specifically notices the vacated space at the hydrant where the ticketed Galaxy was parked. 

At the corner of Shore Parkway, she turns west, or right, and walks through a hole in the fence near the overpass. She then unleashes the dog and lets him scamper on the greenbelt for a minute. 

Looking at the service road, she sees three occupied cars: Violante's (whose owners had just returned from the park), Zaino's and a third auto, a Volkswagen "bus"—a van. Donna Brogan has already left. The time is approximately 2:30. 

About 2:33 A.M. 
After they have walked back to the front of her apartment (a timed re-creation would later show the entire trip took a minimum of ten minutes), the dog hesitates. Mrs. Davis, giving in to her pet, turns and retraces her steps toward Shore Parkway. But about 125 feet from her apartment she sees a young man "leaping the curb" to the sidewalk on her side of the block. He appears to be coming from the other side of the street—the side away from the park. (The man, whom Mrs. Davis later positively identifies as David Berkowitz—whose auto was also positively identified by the parking ticket—is just returning to the neighborhood after following the police car. He has been away from the area for a crucial thirteen minutes. Moreover, he's been away from the park for twenty minutes.) 

But now, Mrs. Davis understandably doesn't connect him with the Galaxy driver, who'd left the area, but she notes he appears "similar" to him. As he walks by, less than five feet separates them. He is wearing a dark blue denim jacket with the sleeves rolled down. He has on a shiny, gray-colored Qiana shirt which is tucked into his denim trousers. His stomach is large and he is wearing what seem to be blue deck shoes—halfsneakers. His hair is short, dark, curly and neatly combed. He looks so tidy Mrs. Davis initially thinks he is "out on a date." 

Berkowitz's right arm is held stiffly at his side, and as he turns to enter a courtyard between the buildings Mrs. Davis sees something "metallic" partially hidden up his right jacket sleeve. She thinks it is a portable radio. 

Berkowitz glares at her and, knowing he is not a neighborhood resident, she becomes "a little frightened." She hurries the forty yards to her first-floor apartment—more than a two block walk from the Violante auto—where she immediately unleashes her dog. She then opens a newspaper, and at that moment hears a loud "boom" and a car horn blaring in the distance. 

2:35 A.M. 
While Mrs. Davis is still entering her apartment, Tommy Zaino, who is parked two car lengths ahead of Violante's auto on Shore Parkway, sees a man standing by a bench near the park's entrance, which is across the street and slightly behind him. With the excellent lighting conditions, Zaino gets "a very good look" at the man, who is stationary—gazing at the Violante car. 

He is twenty-five to thirty years of age, "short, about 5'7" tall," stocky and with long, straight, messy blondish hair which is covering his forehead and part of his ears. "It looked like a wig," Zaino will later say. The man is wearing a grayish, uniform-type shirt with long sleeves. The sleeves are rolled up to his elbows. The shirt is out of his denim trousers. He is unshaven. 

Zaino, who'd been looking out the Corvette's passenger window, now shifts his gaze to the rear view mirror as the man peers up and down the street, crosses the pavement and approaches the Violante auto. Stacy and Robert are necking, oblivious to the nearing menace. 

The blondish-haired man stops about two feet from the car, pulls a gun from beneath his shirt, crouches and fires four times through the open passenger window. 

Zaino, watching the entire incident, is frozen in place as he sees the gunman's hands "go up and down" between the shots. The attacker stops firing, turns abruptly, "runs like hell" into the darkened park and disappears. Zaino thinks he's never seen anyone run that fast. 

About a hundred yards away, on the opposite side of the park—at the 17th Avenue exit—a beautician, who is seated in a car with her boyfriend, sees a "white male with dark eyebrows," possibly wearing a denim jacket, and wearing "a light colored, cheap nylon wig, exit the park at a fast pace, enter a small, light-colored auto," and speed away. 

"He looks like he just robbed a bank," she exclaims to her boyfriend, and reaches for a pencil. Concentrating on the license plate, she writes down as much as she can discern. It is, she thinks, - - 4-GUR or - - 4-GVR. She isn't able to read the first two numbers. 

At the same time, Mrs. Robert Bell,* a 17th Avenue resident, sees a car, whose make she can't identify in the shadows, pull away from the park "20 seconds after the shots were fired." Likewise, a visiting nurse tending to a patient on 17th Avenue also hears the shots and looks out to see a yellow Volkswagen speeding north on 17th Avenue, away from the park. She, too, records a partial plate number—463—but is unable to read the letters that follow.

At the corner of 17th Avenue and the first intersection— Cropsey Avenue—the yellow V.W, with its lights out and the driver's left arm hanging out the window as he struggles to hold the hastily closed door shut, speeds through a red light and nearly collides with a car being driven east on Cropsey by another witness, Alan Masters.* 

Both autos come to a screeching halt in the center of the intersection. The VW driver leans out his window and screams, "MOTHERFUCKER!" at the astonished Masters, then straightens out the car and roars west on Cropsey. Infuriated, Masters swings a sharp U-turn and takes off in pursuit. 

The VW driver, not realizing he is being chased, now turns on his headlights. But he quickly extinguishes them when he spots Masters bearing down on him. Masters, in a vain attempt to read the VW's license plate, hits the floor button for his high beams. He thinks the plate may be a tan New Jersey plate, lighter than New York's amber, but he isn't sure. 

The pursuit continues west on Cropsey to 15th Avenue, where the yellow V.W Beetle makes a hard left turn at high speed and again accelerates in an attempt to lose Masters, who is closing the ground between them. At Independence Avenue, the V.W abruptly turns right, veering wildly down the narrow one-way street in the wrong direction with Masters still in pursuit. 

At the end of Independence Avenue, the V.W swerves to the right onto Bay 8th Street. The driver then swings a hard, onemotion U-turn and heads straight back at Masters. The Volks passes the witness and hurtles up the access ramp to the Belt Parkway. 

The chagrined Masters also executes a U-turn, but is stopped at the ramp's entrance by another car leaving the parkway. Seconds later he speeds up the ramp, which offers entrances to the Belt in both east and west directions. He slows, looks east toward Coney Island and sees no taillights or cars, so he enters the parkway westbound toward the Verrazano Narrows Bridge. 

But by the time he reaches 4th Street, he realizes the elusive V.W has escaped. 

Masters may not have been sure of the license plate's state of origin—but he wasn't the least bit uncertain about the description of the V.W's driver. He was: male, white, twenty-eight to thirty-two years old, high cheekbones, face narrow at the bottom. Slight cleft in chin. Flattish nose. Shadowy, unshaven face. Narrowish, very dark eyes. Hair messy, stringy and brown, combed left to right. 

The V.W driver also was wearing a bluish-gray, long-sleeved shirt with the sleeves rolled up to the elbows—a feature Masters spotted at the time of the near-collision when the V.W driver's left arm was extended out the window as he tried to hold the door shut. 

Mr. Masters was a hell of a witness. His observations were as concise as a cop's. 

Even as the V.W driver was fleeing from the top of the park, two neighbors were witnessing events that would receive little attention from the police but would, in time, prove to be extremely important. 

First, on the immediate east side of the park, in her Bay 16th Street apartment which faced the playground, Mrs. Mary Lyons*—within seconds of the shooting—heard cries for help —Violante's—and the sound of a car horn blaring—also Violante's. Investigating, she looked out her window. She saw a man, ignoring the pandemonium, walk casually out of the park's handball courts and continue to stroll across Bay 16th Street toward her building. 

She described a man identical to the one seen by Mrs. Davis, who was face to face with Berkowitz directly behind Mrs. Lyons' building less than three minutes earlier. Mrs. Lyons noted a "male, white, 25-30, dungaree jacket, dungaree pants, and dark brown, curly hair." Berkowitz would later say he left the scene by precisely this route. 

In the second report, Mrs. Thomas Valens* observed yet another car leaving the scene in a highly suspicious manner. Mrs. Valens lived on Bay 14th Street, the block adjacent to the park's western side. She was standing in front of her home shortly after the shots were fired when she saw a small yellow car with its headlights flashing on and off speed past her. (The headlight-flashing technique is not a routine normally employed by innocent citizens. It is used when one wishes to prevent one's license plate numbers—which are illuminated by bulbs—from being read. The lights are turned on to enable the driver to quickly appraise the road ahead before shutting them off again.)

As the gunman disappeared into the park, Robert Violante knew he was hurt badly. He looked at Stacy. He heard her moaning, but he couldn't see her. A .44 bullet, which smashed his left eye and severely damaged the right one, had blinded him. He was bleeding profusely. Violante immediately leaned long and hard on the Skylark's horn. He then stopped, climbed from the car and, wrapping one arm around the streetlamp, began to cry for help and pressed the horn again. 

Tommy Zaino, in the Corvette in front of Violante, had remained stone still during the shooting and watched the gunman until he disappeared into the park. His date, Debbie, had seen nothing—and in fact didn't know the explosions she'd heard were shots. Now, however, the smell of gunpowder hung heavily in the humid night air. 

"That was the fucking Son of Sam!" Zaino yelled, frantically reaching to start the Corvette's engine. "What the fuck are we doing here?!"

Debbie started to speak but Zaino admonished her to shut up and peeled away from the scene. He turned right on Bay 14th Street and began to reason things through by the time he reached the corner of Cropsey Avenue. He'd just missed the fleeing V.W and the pursuing Alan Masters, and apparently also missed the yellow car Mrs. Valens saw speeding on Bay 14th with the flashing headlights. 

Zaino turned right on Cropsey, looked down both 17th Avenue and Bay 16th Street and saw nothing. He knew a police station was only several blocks away, so he drove directly to the 62nd Precinct on Bath Avenue, passing all the traffic signals en route. 

Seeing a cop standing on the corner by the station house, Zaino squealed to a stop in front of him. He blurted out there'd been a shooting on the service road near the park and then hurried back to the scene. 

When Zaino arrived on Shore Road, Violante was lying on the street and off-duty Port Authority officer Richard Sheehan was standing over him. Sheehan, a resident of Bay 14th Street, had heard the shots and rushed around the corner to the Violante car. 

As Zaino slowed down, Sheehan waved his badge at him and Zaino halted the Corvette. Together, they covered Violante with a blanket they found in the back of the victims' car.Stacy, gravely wounded but still conscious, was sprawled across the Skylark's front seat. 

In a few moments, sector officers Cataneo and Logan, who may have made a routine stop at a diner after being tailed by Berkowitz, pulled up at the shooting site. 

Cataneo looked into the car and saw Stacy. She didn't know she'd been shot in the head. "I just got sick in the car," she muttered. 

If only that could have been so. 

The Son of Sam had made his choice. He'd outwitted the hapless Omega dragnet and struck in Brooklyn. He was the devil playing God and the New York City Police Department seemed powerless to stop him. 

Police Commissioner Michael Codd, acknowledging that the force's blanketing of Queens and the Bronx was a disastrous failure, said, "We've got an entire city to protect now. Sam is telling us he can strike anywhere." 

The description of the yellow V.W driver provided by Alan Masters would dovetail perfectly with Tommy Zaino's portrayal of the gunman—a key point—right down to the unshaven face and rolled-up sleeves. It was also very similar to Violante's sighting of the "grubby-looking hippie" in the park. And, with the exception of the hair, it matched the description the Vignottis would supply of the man who approached the yellow VW on the service road an hour before the shooting. 

But in no way would the descriptions provided by Masters, Zaino, Violante or the Vignottis—whose suspect was of noticeably short stature and not wearing a jacket—match Mrs. Davis' account of the man who would turn out to be David Berkowitz; he of the roving Galaxy. He who was clean shaven, carefully coiffed, wearing a dark blue denim jacket with rolled-down sleeves and who was so neat Mrs. Davis first thought he was "out on a date." 

Critical elements of timing and movement also would be missed by the police—afterwards, when it really mattered. To explain: Berkowitz, by his own statement to authorities, would acknowledge he watched his car being ticketed on Bay 17th Street—at 2:05 A.M., the time on the ticket. He would further state he removed the ticket from the car's windshield, just as Mrs. Davis—who didn't know the specifics of the unreleased confession—had seen. This occurred between 2:10 and 2:15,according to her and to Howard Bohan—who'd looked at his watch a few minutes later. 

Berkowitz also would confess that he next stood watching the police; again, just as Mrs. Davis said he did. 

To close the loop, the first of the two other parking tickets written on the block after the Berkowitz summons was timed at 2:10 A.M. Then, still another ticket was written by the police as they leisurely conversed in front of Mrs. Davis' building. And, she said, they also examined two additional cars without ticketing them. Together, these actions could easily account for at least another five to seven minutes beyond 2:10. 

Berkowitz, in his 1977 confession, would say he stood watching the police for "about 10 minutes." And he was right, since he returned to Bay 17th from the park at about 2:10 and Howard Bohan's watch pinpointed 2:20 as the time the police began to depart. As of this point, all the statements and the physical evidence complement each other. 

However, the Davis, Bohan and Berkowitz accounts would now differ drastically, as they would have to for Berkowitz to claim he was the gunman. 

Berkowitz would confess that after removing the ticket and watching the police he returned to the park; sat on a bench; watched Stacy and Violante enter the park and ride the swings; saw them return to their car; waited "about 10 minutes"; and then shot them at 2:35—the time established by the calls to the 911 computer. 

There are significant factual contradictions in his account. For one thing, Berkowitz would say he was "far down" in the park and seated on a bench. Violante, however, said he and Stacy passed within ten feet of the man who was leaning against the rest-room building—not hidden far down in the park or seated on a bench. 

"He saw us and we saw him. We went right by him," Violante would tell me. "And he was leaning against the park house. He wasn't near a bench at all." But even more importantly, Mrs. Davis and Howard both state the Galaxy—driven by Berkowitz—left the neighborhood at 2:20, following the police car blocks from the park. There is no question that the Galaxy moved. The car was in fact ticketed, and Berkowitz and Mrs. Davis agreed that he removed the ticket and stood watching the police after that. 

She and Howard then saw the car as it approached and blared its horn behind them. And they saw it again when it passed Mrs. Davis as she stood on the curb and then went by Howard at the corner of Bay 17th and Cropsey Avenue. 

Also, while walking her dog, Mrs. Davis specifically noticed the vacated spot at the hydrant where the Galaxy had been. 

What this means is that by all accounts, even Berkowitz's, he could not have been the man seen by the victims in the park at 2:20—a time established by Violante, Zaino and Donna Brogan. Even allowing for a minor miscalculation on the exact minute, Berkowitz, by his own statement, would have been away from the park for an entire twenty minutes—from 2:05 until 2:25. The man in the park, moreover, was already lounging against the rest room when the victims entered; he didn't show up midway through their ride on the swings. 

But beyond that, Mrs. Davis put Berkowitz totally out of the area beginning at 2:20, when she saw him leave to follow the police. And he was still away from the park at 2:33—just two minutes before the attack—when he passed Mrs. Davis on foot while she was walking the dog. 

Her second sighting of Berkowitz would highlight yet another major contradiction in his confession. If, as he claimed in 1977, he removed the ticket, went back to the park and didn't leave it—what was he doing two blocks away on Bay 17th Street again at 2:33? There is only one credible answer: he had just returned to the area from following the police and hadn't been in the park at all since the argument with his accomplices at about 2:10. 

But Berkowitz, as noted, would claim he was the man in the park; the man seen by the victims; the man police believed was the killer. Why did Berkowitz do so? Because he had to become that man in order to confess to sole responsibility for the crimes. By making himself that person, he accounted for that individual's presence on the scene. 

The intricate detail provided in this explanation of July 31, 1977 is necessary. The facts, some subtle, involve mass murder, and it is vital to document and explain them as explicitly as possible. 

And there is one more relevant fact concerning the murder and who actually committed it: When Mrs. Davis re-created her walk with the dog for me on two occasions, a stopwatch showed she could not have passed Berkowitz on foot before 2:33, at the earliest. This conclusion was determined by her actions and the distance she walked after Howard left at 2:20 —a time all the principals agree on. 

Then, further timing of her movements demonstrated that only one minute and ten seconds elapsed from the moment she saw Berkowitz disappear into the courtyard and the instant the shots rang out—which she heard as "a long boom." In several timed reenactments, while walking at a brisk pace over the route Berkowitz would have had to travel if he was the gunman, my stopwatch showed he still would have been more than a minute and twenty seconds away from the Violante car at the time Mrs. Davis heard the shots. 

Simply put, he couldn't even have arrived there in time—let alone discard his jacket, pull his shirt from his pants, roll up his sleeves, change his hairstyle and stand stationary at the park's entrance for about ten seconds—as Zaino saw the killer do—before approaching the victims' car and firing. 

The Brooklyn scenario had a beginning—the 2:05 ticket— and a computer-logged ending at 2:35. With those bookends, Howard Bohan's watch, numerous interviews and the timing of the movements of the principals and measurement of the distances traveled, this final re-creation of the last two minutes was accurate. This, too, was a step the police never took. 

But with the actual story of July 31, 1977, described here for the first time, it now becomes possible to compare these confidential reports, facts and other information with the subsequent police investigation; an investigation which would, in eleven days' time, end with the arrest of Galaxy driver David Berkowitz as the "lone" Son of Sam killer. The man who, sources close to him say, tried to stop the killing of Stacy Moskowitz would be arrested as her murderer. 

The yellow V.W, the eyewitness descriptions, the timing and movement contradictions and Mrs. Davis' account of the Galaxy's travels (Howard Bohan was never interviewed by the police) would be ignored or forgotten—as would the conflicting composite sketches, additional evidence gathered at other .44 scenes and evidence virtually begging to be uncovered in Berkowitz's own life and activities. 

What was David Berkowitz's role that night in Brooklyn? Who owned the yellow V.W? And who pulled the trigger? The second and third questions will be addressed later. But as for Berkowitz himself, all available information demonstrates that he functioned as a lookout responsible for the "east sector," near Bay 17th Street. It is apparent that when the police arrived, he went back to the park to argue his case for postponing the shooting. Failing, he returned to Bay 17th and followed Cataneo and Logan to make sure they'd left the area. 

Returning after following the police, Berkowitz parked in an alleyway between 18th Avenue and Bay 17th; passed Mrs. Davis on foot; reached the outer fringes of the playground and signaled an "all clear" to the gunman—who in fact was the man in the park, just as the police believed. The killer then approached the Violante car and fired. 

As the murderer fled and the VW chase began, Berkowitz— as seen by Mrs. Mary Lyons from her apartment window— calmly walked away from his vantage point in the corner of the park. 

None of this information would come to me for several years. 

to be continued...next
Countdown: The Final Week