Speaker 1: Good morning, Joe. How are you doing today. I'm doing great.
Speaker 2: I understand you're from Charlotte. I was just in Charlotte
for two weeks. We could have gotten together for coffee.
Speaker 1: Oh and really dug into this. What were we doing?
Speaker 2: Well? I'm doing another show for Netflix, but I can't
tell you what it's about, but Charlotte plays a big
role in it.
Speaker 1: Wow. Wow, Hey, I got to tell you something. You're
shaking me up with this new documentary on Netflix, Conversations
with a Killer, because right away, I don't know why
it is. The Son of Sam has always reminded me
of Brian Coburger, and it's because, I mean, I don't
know if it's the stare. I don't know what it is,
because I guess the mystery is is that could Brian
have gone on to do several of these if he
wouldn't have been caught.
Speaker 2: That's a great point, and I think he could have,
you know. And the thing about a lot of these people,
particularly Burkwitz and Coburger, is like present as so normal
in real life. That's what's scary about it. You know,
we want to think that serial killers, and I think
Coburger would have gone on to become a serial killer.
We want to think that serial killers like look and
act evil all the time, and that like, you know,
when they're walking down the street, they look at they
you know, they're they're dripping with blood and you want
it and the street to avoid the fate of becoming
a victim. But the reality is most people who do evil,
and particularly Berkowitz, you know, just look like the normal
guy next door. And that's what's so frightening about it
and why I like to do these shows as a
cautionary tale that you know, the people who do evil
in this world are the people you least expect and
most often trust, and that people really need to earn
your trust before you just trust somebody. Just because somebody is,
you know, seems nice and trustworthy, you shouldn't trust them.
In fact, there's a fascinating anecdote in the show because
Berkowitz worked for the post Office and he's sitting around
the post office with colleagues and they're all speculator about
who the son of Sam could be and what his
motivations are, and they're all having wild theories about what
kind of person. And David turns to them and says,
you know, he's probably just a regular guy like you
or me, and that's that's that And Coburger fits that
bill too.
Speaker 1: Please do not move. There's more with Joe Berlinger coming
up next from Netflix. We've got Conversations with a Killer.
Joe Berlinger talks about it. But the thing is about
with your with Conversations with a Killer is that how
did you learn to even trust what was being shared?
Because he liked to play games. He you know that,
you know, I'm I'm demonized, only to realize he was
just trying to create confusion by using that term.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I've I've listened to other tapes of
Berkowitz and one of the reasons I've decided to do
this show is that this particular set of tapes, which
were done by a journalist by the name of Jack
Jones at the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle at the time.
You know, Rochester, New York is upstate New York and
it's fifty miles from Attica Prison where Berkerwitz was incarcerated.
And Berkerwitz reached out to Jack Jones wanting to tell
his side of the story, and Jack did a masterful
job of interviewing him in such a way that I
found him to be very truthful and compelling, and sure
enough in these tapes as far back as nineteen eighty,
he was disavowing the idea that he was, you know,
being being spoken to. You know, the story of So Sam,
for the listeners who don't know, is that, you know,
Burkewitz claimed that a six thousand year old demon was
talking to him, instructing him to kill through his neighbor's dog.
His neighbor's name was Sam Carr, and so that hence
the son of Sam, and this dog was commanding him
to do these killings. In these tapes, he admits that
that was a ruse, just to make people think he
was crazy. He admits that the week before he was arrested,
you know, he staged his apartment to make it look
like a crazy guy lived there, and you know, did
scrawlings all over the wall, punch holes in the wall,
cut out pictures victims. So I found these tapes to
be very very credible, and nothing we put in the
show is in something we you know, we always corroborate
through other means. So he was, you know, in this instance,
he was quite It was quite compelling and truthful. But
you know, these guys are often unreliable narrators of their
own story.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, they always tell us so don't you know,
you can't forget history. And this is one of those
moments because when you sit here and you realize this
happened forty seven years ago, and you bring it up
and it feels like it just happened last week.
Speaker 2: Yeah. One. You know, one of the reasons I wanted
to do the show is I view this case as
one of the most important cases in the history of
true crime, because, as I think people know or we've
never had, true crime has never been more popular. I mean,
people just can't seem to get enough of it. And
I trace that fascination back to this case. Because Berkowitz
had the entire city of New York ripped in fear,
manipulated and played with the press in ways that were new.
The press was only too willing to comply. And you
know the famous Jimmy Breslin, who was a you know,
staple in New York of one of the major papers.
You know, they wrote letters to each other. Breslin kind
of egged him on on the anniversary of the first
death of death, you know, give yourself up, which some
people interpreted as he was egging him on to like
do another killing. You know, I think the codependency between
people who love crime and the media only too willing
to serve it up, which I include myself by the way.
I mean, I'm it was kind of a self reflexive
exploration here, you know, I think this this era of
of of crime as big news really you know, started
with with this case.
Speaker 1: Well, please come back to this show anytime in the future.
The door is always going to be open for you.
Speaker 2: Appreciate it, man, Thank you, Thank you.