NEW YORK POLICE ARREST KILLER, SON OF SAM: THE HERALD JOURNAL, AUGUST 11, 1977
"Okay, you got me." That, by the UPI account, was what David Berkowitz said as police closed in on him at the wheel of his car outside his home in Yonkers on the night of Wednesday, August 10, 1977, ending what the wire called the largest manhunt in New York history. The next day The Herald Journal in Logan, Utah, ran the story under a banner across its entire front page, beside a photograph of the twenty-four-year-old postal worker in a white T-shirt, smiling as he was led into police headquarters.
What caught him was ordinary. On the night of the last shooting, July 31, his car had drawn a $25 ticket for parking in front of a fire hydrant, and the ticket was traced to him. In the car police found a fully loaded .44 caliber revolver, which ballistics experts identified as the gun used in all the attacks, and a submachine gun. Within hours he stood in a Brooklyn courtroom, charged with the murder of Stacy Moskowitz and the shooting of Robert Violante, both twenty, and Judge Richard Brown sent him to Kings County Hospital for psychiatric tests, saying that "the defendant may be incapacitated mentally."
The rest of the story is the first rush of what the public would learn about him. Jimmy Breslin, the columnist the killer had written to in May, reported that Berkowitz told police he killed at the command of a neighbor's dog named Sam, and that his latest order had been to take a submachine gun into a dance hall in the Hamptons and "kill everybody." A neighbor, Westchester County deputy sheriff Craig Glassman, said Berkowitz had sent him threatening notes. The story ends with a father: Charles Lomino, whose daughter Joanne had been shot on the family's porch the November before, was relieved to hear of the arrest.
This is UPI copy written within a day of the arrest, and several of its details were later corrected or told differently. It describes the car as a 1971 cream-colored Ford Galaxie; it was a yellow 1970 Galaxie. It puts the arrest at about 9:30 p.m. Wednesday while its own photo caption says Thursday night, and other accounts say about ten. His words are given here as "Okay, you got me"; other versions begin "Well, you got me." It calls Joanne Lomino temporarily paralyzed; she was left paraplegic. The dog story was his own, and he called it a hoax in 1979. In May 1978 he pleaded guilty to six murders and seven attempted murders, and he was sentenced to twenty-five years to life on each murder.
The Herald Journal printed this front page on August 11, 1977. The scan is from Utah Digital Newspapers at the University of Utah's J. Willard Marriott Library, which rates the issue No Copyright - United States, and no copyright notice was found anywhere in the thirty-six-page issue; the citation and rating appear under the scan. The story itself is credited to UPI. The photograph of Berkowitz carries no credit line in the scan; it is very likely a wire photo, and its rights are a separate question from the text's.
The text was transcribed word for word from the scan, and nothing was illegible. The page's own forms stay as printed: "$25-ticket" with its hyphen, "monicker," "Son of Sam" without quotation marks inside the prosecutor's quote, and a caption that reads "charged David Berkowitz is" and dates the arrest Thursday night. The caption is transcribed; the photograph above it is part of the scan and has no words to transcribe. The whole story sits on the front page under the banner, with no jump to an inside page.
Transcription
Transcribed word for word from the page scan. Original spelling, punctuation, capitalisation and typographical errors have been kept exactly as printed. Unreadable words are marked [illegible]. Nothing has been modernised or corrected.
New York police arrest killer, Son of Sam
NEW YORK (UPI) — David Berkowitz, a 24-year-old postal worker, was charged today as "Son of Sam," the psychopath who killed six persons in a year-long reign of terror and reportedly planned to go out "in a blaze of glory" with a wholesale slaughter at a discotheque the night of his arrest.
"Okay, you got me," Berkowitz said with an air of resignation as police closed in on him at the end of the largest manhunt in New York history, eclipsing the search for London's 19th Century Jack the Ripper and the Boston Strangler of the 1960s.
In the end, "Son of Sam" was tripped up by a dispute with a neighbor and by a $25-ticket for parking in front of a fire hydrant on the night of his last murder July 31.
"We have him," said First Deputy Police Commissioner James Taylor.
"He made statements of admission" after his arrest, added Chief of Detectives John Keenan. "He seemed to be resigned to what appeared to be his fate."
At a 15-minute arraignment proceeding in Brooklyn, Berkowitz was charged with second degree murder in the July 31 death of Stacy Moskowitz, and attempted murder and assault for the shooting of Robert Violante, 20.
Criminal Court Judge Richard Brown ordered Berkowitz held in maximum security without bail and remanded him to Kings County Hospital for psychiatric tests.
"It is my personal opinion that the defendant may be incapacitated mentally," Brown said. He urged that Berkowitz be isolated from other prisoners and watched continuously.
Philip Peltz, retained as Berkowitz' attorney, requested that his client "not be at liberty" and did not ask for bail.
"You have here before you the .44 caliber killer known as Son of Sam," Assistant Brooklyn District Attorney Ronald Aiello told Brown.
Berkowitz, flanked by seven detectives, remained silent except to say "Yes," when Brown called him by name.
Armed court guards scanned the packed courtroom and reporters and spectators had to submit to body searches before being admitted.
New Yorkers breathed easy for the first time in 13 months.
The suspect, according to a newspaper columnist, told police he killed on the orders of a dog named Sam and planned to shoot up a Long Island nightspot "and kill everybody" the night of his arrest.
Berkowitz, a stocky mail sorter who served in Korea with the Army's 2nd Division, was arrested as he sat at the wheel of his car outside his Yonkers, N.Y., home about 9:30 p.m. Wednesday, one year and 13 days after his first lovers' lane killing July 29, 1976.
In the car were a fully loaded .44 caliber revolver, the traffic ticket traced to him, and a submachine gun he reportedly planned to use to mow down dancers Wednesday night at a Long Island discotheque.
The revolver, which gave "Son of Sam" his other monicker of ".44-caliber killer," was identified by ballistics experts as the weapon used in all of the ambush attacks.
"Son of Sam" killed five women and one man, and wounded seven other persons, most of them as couples parked in lovers' lanes in widely scattered areas of the city.
A task force of 75 officers — hundreds more worked on their own time — stalked Sam. On the last day of the manhunt they received more than 1,800 calls an hour from persons trying to aid in the search.
A widely circulated sketch of the killer — drawn from the recollections of seven of Sam's targets who survived the killer's bullets — was credited with aiding the successful manhunt.
After his arrest, Berkowitz was rushed in a police motorcade to New York where he was interrogated for several hours and then booked on charges of murder, attempted murder and assault stemming from the latest killing July 31.
Newspaper columnist Jimmy Breslin, to whom "Son of Sam" wrote a taunting note in May after his fifth killing, wrote today that Berkowitz told police he killed at the command of a dog named "Sam" owned by a neighbor.
The latest command, according to Breslin, was to enter a dance hall in the Hamptons section of Long Island with a .45-caliber submachine gun and "kill everybody."
"He said he was 'going out in a blaze of glory,'" Breslin quoted a policeman who questioned Berkowitz as saying. "Do you know what he would have done? A machine gun in a discotheque?"
Berkowitz, who went to Columbus High School in the Bronx and attended Bronx Community College, was described as a quiet loner by many of his neighbors. But one, Westchester County deputy sheriff Craig Glassman, said he had recently received four threatening notes from Berkowitz and accused the suspect of setting a fire at his apartment door and throwing bullets into the blaze.
Glassman said he contacted police because the threatening notes appeared to be written in the style and hand of "Son of Sam."
A letter also was found among Berkowitz' arsenal in his 1971 cream-colored Ford Galaxie and seemed to have the same handwriting.
In the middle of the letter, which was addressed to Suffolk County police, was a cross straddled by male and female sex symbols and a large letter "S".
Charles Lomino, father of 18-year-old Joanne, who was temporarily paralyzed by one of the gunman's first bullets, was relieved to hear of Berkowitz' arrest.
[Photo caption]
NEW YORK POLICE today charged David Berkowitz is "Son of Sam," psychopathic killer of six persons. Berkowitz was arrested Thursday night, and is shown being taken into police headquarters.
Notes, kept as printed: "$25-ticket"; "monicker"; "Son of Sam" without quotation marks in the Aiello quote; the caption says "charged David Berkowitz is" and "arrested Thursday night", while the story says Wednesday. The banner headline runs across the full page. The photograph is a UPI-style news photo; it is part of the page scan but is not transcribed. No words were illegible.