Very Scary People

Berkowitz: I had made a pact with the devil,

and I felt these paranormal powers.

And I felt somehow invincible,

and I was slowly being led down a path of destruction.

Welcome to "Very Scary People." I'm Donnie Wahlberg.

He was known as the Son of Sam ...

a cold-eyed serial killer who terrorized New York City

and the nation.

David Berkowitz stalked his victims

across three different boroughs,

wounding seven people and killing six.

Berkowitz taunted police

and the seven million citizens of New York,

creating widespread hysteria in the city that never sleeps.

The final terrifying three months of his killing spree

would come to be known as the "Summer of Sam."

Why did this seemingly unassuming postal worker

commit these vicious attacks?

And how did he elude investigators for so long?

Here is part one of "Son Of Sam: the Duke of Death."

New York City in the mid-'70s

was discotheques, Studio 54.

Klausner: And in the midst of this...

suddenly, horrific acts occur.

Jordan: In 1976, Donna Lauria

was an 18-year-old living in the Bronx.

She's out with her friend Jody Valenti.

They go out to play some backgammon.

Borrelli: They had returned.

They were sitting in the car in front of Donna's home.

Kamen: They had no idea that in moments to come,

a strange man would appear out of nowhere,

like something out of a nightmare.

He walks almost right up to the passenger window.

And Donna even says to her friend, "Who is this guy?

What does he want?"

He took the gun out of a paper bag.

Jordan: The man crouches...

and fires a big gun at them.

Kamen: Five times.

Put a bullet into the leg

of the woman who was behind the wheel.

She fell forward. Her body struck the horn.

He shot both people and then left.

Donna dies almost instantly, but Jody survives.

The police come to the scene.

Jody gives a description of this person that she sees fleetingly.

Jordan: She can describe him in general terms, the shooter ...

an average white guy, kind of young, nondescript.

Who shoots at young women sitting in a car?

Hopkins: Their belief at the time

was it could have been a lover's quarrel.

Borrelli: They determined the caliber of the gun that was used

was a .44-caliber.

And there had been a boyfriend of Donna,

and he possessed a .44-caliber.

But ballistically, it was no match for the gun.

This was cold right at the beginning.

There was nothing to do.

Just one paper has it

that a girl is shot in the Bronx and killed.

And then for the public, it's lost.

The '70s in New York, crime was bad.

There was guns all over the place, shootings.

Kamen: Let's face it, in 1976,

there were 1,622 murders in the city of New York.

For a case to stand out,

it had to have some special characteristics.

The second shooting really begins the pattern.

Rosemary Keenan is out with her companion, Carl Denaro.

Someone walks up behind the car.

Borrelli: They both survived in that shooting.

But they really were not able to provide

any kind of definitive information about the person,

and that made it difficult.

There seemed to be no real apparent motive.

Borrelli: There really wasn't too much to go with.

The bullets were badly deformed.

Klausner: The kind of gun was pretty big. They knew that.

But the police don't have a theory.

Kamen: It took a while

before some of the smartest detectives

in the city of New York began to say, "Wait a minute.

We may have a serial killer at work."

David Berkowitz was born June 1, 1953.

He was raised by Nathan and Pearl Berkowitz.

He seemed to have a relatively normal childhood at first,

but then behavioral issues started to bubble up.

Berkowitz: It goes back, really, to childhood

and the struggles I had as a child,

many psychological problems growing up.

I was so disruptive in school

and had so many emotional problems, behavioral problems,

that the school officials told my parents,

"You're gonna have to take him to a child psychologist."

I went for about two years, once a week.

I had very bad bouts of depression when I was a child.

I was very suicidal.

His parents took him to a rabbi, they took him to psychologists,

they took him to school counselors,

but none of them were able to help him in any way.

Berkowitz: I didn't get along all that well with my dad.

It was just my mean spirit towards him.

I don't know why that was.

I definitely mistreated him, and there were times

I wouldn't talk to him.

I was a very moody and spiteful child,

and there were so many walls between us.

I remember seeing my dad cry.

He said, "David, you're my son.

I love you so much, but you don't talk to me.

You walk out of the house without saying anything."

I don't know what was ... what the problem was.

I don't know why I was so mean.

Glassman: So, in the summer of 1977,

my father moves into 35 Pine Street in Yonkers.

He didn't know what he was about to face.

Klausner: Craig Glassman worked as an auxiliary deputy sheriff

in Westchester County.

Glassman: He started getting

threatening letters and phone calls.

He'd be asleep with the TV on,

and I guess he had it on too loud.

He'd get a phone call screaming at him to shut it off.

At first, wouldn't think anything of it.

He thought, "Well, okay. Well, someone has a temper.

I'll just try to be more respectful."

And then one night, he went to the door,

and he heard crackling.

He opened his door and found a fire.

Glassman: It was trash that someone had put there,

put bullets in, and set it on fire,

hoping that my dad would open the door

and get hit by one of the bullets.

Jordan: Craig Glassman came to realize

that the man harassing him with these letters

and this fire was his upstairs neighbor...

...but he had no way of knowing it was the Son of Sam.

Nobody put it together. Nobody.

Klausner: November 27th, there is another attack.

Two young ladies, Joanne Lomino and Donna DeMasi,

go into Manhattan to see a movie.

It's about 11:45 in the evening.

They're walking back from the bus stop.

Jordan: Donna notices a man standing under a streetlight,

watching them.

They don't like it.

So they head directly to Joanne's house.

Clark: The worst thing about these ...

these girls did nothing to put themselves into harm's way.

He went after them as someone would go after prey.

Klausner: They reach Joanne's home

and are climbing up the steps.

They saw this fellow approach them.

Jordan: Joanne is fumbling for her keys.

He crosses the street, coming directly towards them.

The killer would pull out the gun, look at them...

...and then fire and fire and fire.

Both teens were shot but survived.

Lomino, however, would always be paralyzed from the waist down.

Police are confounded about who would do this

to these two young teenagers.

They simply weren't connecting the dots

to the other two shootings.

Hopkins: In order to make a comparison with a bullet,

it has to be intact.

If the bullet strikes a hard object,

even bones in a human body,

it could deform it.

Borrelli: We had three pieces of a bullet that looked like

from a very large-caliber weapon.

Hopkins: But if you don't have those characteristics

where you can match it up, it's of no value.

Hopkins: There was really no direction to go.

January 30th, it came around about 10 to 1:00

that there was a shooting.

I remember it was a cold night.

Little did I realize it would turn the city upside down.

The fourth shooting was with Christine Freund and John Diel.

The police come, and they begin questioning John.

All he remembers was...

...a loud noise, glass coming in.

And he looked at Christine, and she's covered with blood.

Diel: All of a sudden, there's a crash, and I turned.