David Berkowitz says he no longer trusts the media, 50 years after the killing spree that made him one of New York’s most notorious killers began. He also declined an interview request through an intermediary, but not before saying the press will “twist and distort” whatever he says.
The timing matters because Berkowitz is speaking as New York lawmakers weigh bills that could reshape parole for older prisoners and end life without parole. The measures under consideration would create an elder parole system for people 55 and older and remove the possibility of life without parole, a change that has drawn renewed attention because of who could one day fall under it.
Berkowitz said the media had twisted his words about some changes in New York’s parole law and insisted the changes had nothing to do with him. He also pointed readers to his website, where he said they can find more than a thousand pages of prison writings, along with videos, interviews and other material, even as he said he does not trust the coverage that follows him.
That distrust sits beside a long record that still defines him. Berkowitz, known as the.44-caliber killer and the Son of Sam, taunted the public with letters to Jimmy Breslin, and his first victim was 18-year-old Donna Lauria, who was shot and killed while getting out of an Oldsmobile in the Bronx on July 29, 1976.
In May, Berkowitz skipped a parole hearing and wrote to the New York Post that he was not trying to get out. He said then that the only place he was looking forward to going was to heaven to be with the Lord, a line that drew a sharp response from Robert Violante. “I sincerely doubt he is going to heaven,” Violante said. “He is lucky he is not already in hell.”
What Berkowitz is really objecting to is not just a quote getting bent, but the way any new mention of parole can pull him back into a public debate he says has nothing to do with him. The bills still moving through New York state would not be aimed at him by name, but they could change the legal landscape around him and other violent offenders, which is why his latest statement landed now.
