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Speaker 2: You are now listening to True Murder, the most Shocking
Speaker 2: Killers in True Crime History and the authors that have
Speaker 2: written about him Gaesy, Bundy, Dahmer, The Nightstalker BTK. Every
Speaker 2: week another fascinating author talking about the most shocking and
Speaker 2: infamous killers in true crime history. True Murder with your host,
Speaker 2: journalist and author Dan Zupanski.
Speaker 6: Good evening. Chances are you've already met the son of
Speaker 6: Sam in movies, documentaries, books, etc. May I introduce you
Speaker 6: to David, a fellow human being with familiar vulnerabilities. The
Speaker 6: monster you met in print collides with the man I
Speaker 6: met in person, irrefutably, the precious lives he ended screamed
Speaker 6: from the graves about his barbarism. Yet my one hundred
Speaker 6: hours thirty four sessions with him will open your eyes
Speaker 6: to a guy who resembles your brother or friend. Here's David,
Speaker 6: a life for at Schwanagunk Correctional who still scratches his
Speaker 6: head about what possessed him decades ago in the city
Speaker 6: that has mythologized his crimes ever since. May I warn
Speaker 6: you that when you meet David, you will not look
Speaker 6: into the eyes of a monster, but a mirror. The
Speaker 6: book that we're featuring this evening is Monster Mirror. One
Speaker 6: hundred hours were David Berkowitz, once known as Son of Sam,
Speaker 6: with my special guest author, doctor Michael Caperelli. Welcome to
Speaker 6: the program, and thank you very much for this interview,
Speaker 6: Doctor Michael Caperelli.
Speaker 7: Thank you, Dan for the opportunity to talk to your
Speaker 7: audience about this analysis of David Berkowitz's convicted serial killer
Speaker 7: known as the Son of Sam.
Speaker 6: And thank you very much, very very interesting take on
Speaker 6: this infamous killer, David Berkowitz, who, as you write, his
Speaker 6: akronym Son of Sam. He terrorized New York City from
Speaker 6: July twenty ninth, nineteen seventy six to August tenth, nineteen
Speaker 6: seventy seven. Six people were killed while seven were wounded
Speaker 6: close range forty four caliber revolver. Police and media were
Speaker 6: taunted with catch me if you can letters signed Wicked King, Wicker,
Speaker 6: Duke of Death, and Son of Sam. Right away in
Speaker 6: your introduction you talk about the horn effect cognitive bias.
Speaker 6: Tell us what you mean by the horn effect and
Speaker 6: how it relates to this story.
Speaker 7: Well, if you've ever seen a movie, I'm sure you've
Speaker 7: seen many on psychopaths, on those that commit senseless violence,
Speaker 7: It's never a positive depiction for justifiable reasons. Some of
Speaker 7: the acts that are committed by guys like David Berkowitz,
Speaker 7: Jeffrey Dahma, Charles Manson. We read about these acts or
Speaker 7: we watch them on television, and right away we begin
Speaker 7: to see these people as monsters. In any humanity whatsoever
Speaker 7: is completely overlooked. The problem with that is you and
Speaker 7: I can have in our very household, maybe a child,
Speaker 7: a sibling, maybe even a spouse. We could be up
Speaker 7: close and personal with someone who has within them an
Speaker 7: inferno of rage and never detect that particular person as
Speaker 7: a person who could commit atrocities. I mean, you see
Speaker 7: it all the time news clippings. Someone commits a crime.
Speaker 7: Let's say it's a young man, he goes into a school,
Speaker 7: he shoots the school up. Probably one of the most
Speaker 7: popular commentaries is I would have never suspected this person
Speaker 7: because we have this idea of psychopaths as being monsters.
Speaker 7: So the horn effect, in simplicity, means to see someon
Speaker 7: one according to a character defect, and to not be
Speaker 7: able to see beyond that character defect, to put horns
Speaker 7: on their head, and there's a lot of you know,
Speaker 7: negative ramifications for a society and for an individual when
Speaker 7: we see the psychopaths through this horn effect bias, and
Speaker 7: how we were able to understand them in our minds.
Speaker 6: Give our audience your background as a doctor and also
Speaker 6: how you came to enter this story. In December twenty
Speaker 6: twenty one with David Burkowitz.
Speaker 7: Yeah, so I have mailed David Berkowitz a copy of
Speaker 7: a book I had previously written called Doctor Jesus. It's
Speaker 7: a book on mental health issues from a Christian perspective.
Speaker 7: I mailed it to David, not knowing him, having heard
Speaker 7: his story on a television program about his religious conversion.
Speaker 7: I've worked with prisoners for the last twenty years. I
Speaker 7: passed at a church in the Inner City for sixteen
Speaker 7: years and had a heart for those that called a
Speaker 7: compart if you will, for those that are in prisons.
Speaker 7: As a kid, I visited my dad who was locked
Speaker 7: up for a brief period of time felt like an eternity,
Speaker 7: but at that time was maybe about a year and
Speaker 7: a half of visiting him. So I had this compassion
Speaker 7: towards inmates. I mailed David a copy of this book,
Speaker 7: Doctor Jesus, and he must have read it quickly, because
Speaker 7: within two weeks, David Berkowitz in May seven eight a
Speaker 7: nineteen seventy six, mailed me back. It was the very
Speaker 7: first letter I've ever received from him. It was in
Speaker 7: early twenty twenty two, and he requested that I visit him.
Speaker 7: He believed that with my qualifications both as a clergyman
Speaker 7: because he too was a Christian, as well as a
Speaker 7: PhD in Advanced studies in human behavior, he thought I
Speaker 7: was the ideal candidate to tell his story from both
Speaker 7: a spiritual as well as a psychological vantage point.
Speaker 6: Now tell us more about your first visit with David
Speaker 6: Berkowitz April first, twenty twenty two.
Speaker 7: Well, you know, I meet David on that particular day
Speaker 7: in April. It's depending upon how you define COVID. It's
Speaker 7: during the COVID pandemic. I say that because I had
Speaker 7: to wear a mask. David also had to wear a mask,
Speaker 7: a COVID test had to be taken. I remember when
Speaker 7: I first showed the correctional office of my ID. I
Speaker 7: told him who I was, what I did. He asked
Speaker 7: me the question, does David know you're here to visit him,
Speaker 7: and I said, yes, he requested my visit. He said,
Speaker 7: that's surprising because he doesn't meet with many people, so
Speaker 7: that was flattering. I've been asked a question often when
Speaker 7: you're nervous. Again, I work with prisoners for a long time,
Speaker 7: so there really wasn't a lot of fear. Definitely some awkwardness.
Speaker 7: I mean, this notorious figure the last forty six years.
Speaker 7: I remember being a kid growing up. My stepdad who
Speaker 7: raised me, was from New York City, the Bronx, right
Speaker 7: where David grew up. New York was always a home
Speaker 7: away from home. So for in my mind, he was
Speaker 7: this mythologized figure. But I knew enough about human nature,
Speaker 7: being a pastor, being a PhD. To that behind the
Speaker 7: monster persona that was a man. And within the first visit,
Speaker 7: probably about three and a half hours long, we established
Speaker 7: a pretty quick rapport. We built some common ground. We
Speaker 7: talked a lot about New York City, a lot about
Speaker 7: common interests, the Yankees, a particular ministry known as Team
Speaker 7: Challenge that David was very familiar with I've worked for
Speaker 7: many years, and that sort of built some common ground.
Speaker 7: And that visit was the first of thirty four sessions
Speaker 7: over the next year and a half of meeting with
Speaker 7: David and exploring some of the factors behind his crimes
Speaker 7: as well as his life in prison over the last
Speaker 7: forty six years.
Speaker 6: Now, you're right that you are a supernaturalist with a
Speaker 6: PhD in human behavior, and you see demonic interference and
Speaker 6: mental health factors working in tandem. And you write about
Speaker 6: the ancients believed that dominion interacted with natural phenomena. Discuss
Speaker 6: this a little bit further, about this dominion and that
Speaker 6: two thirds of the world still believe in this as well.
Speaker 7: Yeah, you know, America is the minority across the globe
Speaker 7: in dismissing the involvement of the supernatural in human behavior.
Speaker 7: If you go to Africa, not maybe not everywhere in Africa,
Speaker 7: but a lot of places, there's a heavy emphasis upon
Speaker 7: spiritual activity. We Americans are very rational. In fact, we're
Speaker 7: so rational, we're so left brained. Our heads probably tilt
Speaker 7: to the left when we walk down street corners, So
Speaker 7: you know, we're very rational. We emphasize what we can see,
Speaker 7: what's natural. But two thirds of the world understands that
Speaker 7: there's a spiritual realm of good and evil. It doesn't
Speaker 7: override free will. I don't believe any man can say
Speaker 7: the devil made me do it, but it does interact.
Speaker 7: It interacts with our choices. Talk about this interaction. I
Speaker 7: am not a supernaturalist at the expense of natural phenomenon.
Speaker 7: In fact, I describe in great detail psychological and sociological
Speaker 7: phenomenons that are at play within the crimes. But it
Speaker 7: is a insisted by supernatural reality. Now, let me just
Speaker 7: give you an example of this. A listener right now
Speaker 7: that maybe has some trouble understanding the supernatural. How many
Speaker 7: times in your life have you behaved in a way
Speaker 7: that was out of character. Let's say you had a
Speaker 7: temped tantrum, angry outburst, you did something or said something
Speaker 7: that's not consistent with who you are, and when it
Speaker 7: was all said and done, you apologize and you say,
Speaker 7: I don't know what got into me, I don't know
Speaker 7: what possessed me. I'm sorry I did that interesting language
Speaker 7: you use, I don't know what got into me, what
Speaker 7: possessed me, or I got carried away. It sort of
Speaker 7: insinuates that there's a paranormal energy that can insist us
Speaker 7: in doing right and wrong. And I go to great
Speaker 7: lengths in Monstermera my book, I'm David Berkowitz. I go
Speaker 7: to great lengths to describe the interaction between what gets
Speaker 7: into a man as well as what comes out of him,
Speaker 7: what comes out of a meaning in his psychology, the
Speaker 7: psychological aspects of these kinds of senseless crimes. So I'm
Speaker 7: both a supernaturalist. I'm a Christian, I believe in good
Speaker 7: and evil. But I'm a PhD. I'm well studied in
Speaker 7: the area of human behavior. I do believe in man's
Speaker 7: involvement within his own choices in all the psychological and
Speaker 7: sociological factors behind that.
Speaker 6: You pose the question early in the book, how does
Speaker 6: David Berkowitz explain the Son of Sam? And, replying to
Speaker 6: this question, you say that involves one hundred hours of
Speaker 6: data collection, data analysis, and the entirety of this book
Speaker 6: that we are discussing right now. You take us to
Speaker 6: his most recent parole hearing in the spring of twenty
Speaker 6: twenty two, his tenth parole hearing. Tell us what he's
Speaker 6: more interesting in bearing witness to at this parole hearing,
Speaker 6: what he's more interested in conveying.
Speaker 7: So David is up for parole every two years, He'll
Speaker 7: be up for parole again in just a few months.
Speaker 7: He doesn't have any expectations of leaving. He's going to
Speaker 7: be seventy one years old, he's been incocerated for forty
Speaker 7: six years. So he shows up at these hearings. At
Speaker 7: one point he didn't show up at all, but then
Speaker 7: it was perceived as arrogance on behalf of the parole board,
Speaker 7: and he thought it was you know, he thought it
Speaker 7: was a slap in the face to not show up,
Speaker 7: so out of respect, he shows up. But he shows
Speaker 7: up with the expectation of simply sharing his story, a
Speaker 7: story that he calls a story of transformation. He gave
Speaker 7: his life to Christ in nineteen eighty eight and since
Speaker 7: then it's been a journey of change. That doesn't mean
Speaker 7: he's perfect. David has had many character defects that he's
Speaker 7: still working on today. In fact, in one of the
Speaker 7: chapters of my book, I confront David about a character defect.
Speaker 7: I'll let the reader discover that for themselves. But David
Speaker 7: is by no means a perfect man. But when he
Speaker 7: shows up at those hearings, he wants to tell his
Speaker 7: story about how there is hope, there is the possibility
Speaker 7: of redemption for anyone. And that's what he does, is
Speaker 7: he shares his story. Of course, the parole always ask
Speaker 7: the question David why he finds it difficult to answer,
Speaker 7: because it's one of those questions. You know. The easy
Speaker 7: trap is something we call in behavioral science puzzle reductionism,
Speaker 7: which means to reduce complicated phenomenon to one single cause.
Speaker 7: It would be like blaming the last block in the
Speaker 7: game of Djenga for the towers collapse. You know, it's
Speaker 7: not the last block. You know, it's a puld up
Speaker 7: of blocks that leads to the collapse. And David is
Speaker 7: always cautious in giving an answer because he knows human
Speaker 7: nature we want a quick, easy answer. And the facts
Speaker 7: are it was not one thing. It was a build
Speaker 7: up of many things. And that's what he sheds light
Speaker 7: on in his parole hearings, but more importantly his transformation
Speaker 7: over the last thirty five years.
Speaker 6: He uses the language even at the parole hearing though
Speaker 6: you right that he fell under some kind of spell, which,
Speaker 6: of course is is not going to be adequate for
Speaker 6: any kind of parole hearing with it.
Speaker 7: No, you know, of course, your average parole hearing is
Speaker 7: not looking at all for a conversation about supernatural phenomenon.
Speaker 7: I think David says that I fell under a spell.
Speaker 7: If you're looking for the crux of why I did
Speaker 7: what I did, it was demonic. If you're looking for
Speaker 7: the nuances, well, that's going to take some time. And
Speaker 7: that's why I say it takes one hundred hours of
Speaker 7: describing was behind Son of Sam. If you want a short,
Speaker 7: simple answer, diabolical. But if you want that more involved,
Speaker 7: comprehensive answer, We've got to talk about the biological his
Speaker 7: head trauma. We've got to talk about social issues like
Speaker 7: the isolation that he experienced. We got to talk about
Speaker 7: psychological issues like shame and anger and abandonment. There's a
Speaker 7: lot involved in that quote unquote spell that David fell under.
Speaker 6: You write about the very first things he said when
Speaker 6: he was arrested, and then very interestingly, he writes about
Speaker 6: retracting those statements and why, very very interesting the why.
Speaker 7: Well, David initially told the NYPD August nineteen seventy seven,
Speaker 7: after being arrested, that he believed he was under the
Speaker 7: commands at the behest of Satan and committing his crimes. Now,
Speaker 7: when David shows up in prison, Attica, nineteen seventy eight.
Speaker 7: Attica is a very contentious environment. In fact, if you
Speaker 7: know anything about the history of Attica, the Attica Riots
Speaker 7: had taken place just a few years prior. There was
Speaker 7: a lot of tension between the correctional officers and the guards.
Speaker 7: He said, Mike. The atmosphere was combustible. He said. The
Speaker 7: littlest thing would provoke a conflict. And here I am,
Speaker 7: I'm young, I'm scared, and all of a sudden, the
Speaker 7: inmates are harassing him because of his devil story. You know,
Speaker 7: the devil talked to me through a barking dog. And
Speaker 7: they're making howling sounds from the cells. I mean, they're
Speaker 7: harassing him in every turn. In fact, he was stabbed
Speaker 7: in the neck in nineteen seventy nine, a stabbing that
Speaker 7: had resulted and I want to say thirty some odd
Speaker 7: stitches almost killed him. So he quickly. If you read
Speaker 7: a New York Times article from nineteen seventy I think
Speaker 7: it was in February, it says David Berkowitz, the son
Speaker 7: of Sam, retracts his devil possession story, and it was
Speaker 7: pretty much I want to go along to get along.
Speaker 7: I don't want to say anything that's going to stir
Speaker 7: up the hornet's nest. It's too combustible the atmosphere, and
Speaker 7: I'm not looking for problems with anybody.
Speaker 6: You asked, though, too, about the infamous purp walk where
Speaker 6: he is seen as cocky and has a smirk on
Speaker 6: his face. You ask him about this, and at first
Speaker 6: you're very skeptical, But what's his explanation for this very
Speaker 6: famous photo.
Speaker 7: You know, that purp walk goes right back to your
Speaker 7: first question about the horn effect. Most of us have
Speaker 7: branded in our minds David Berkowitz with a cocky what
Speaker 7: they call the Mona Lisa's smile back in the seventies
Speaker 7: when he's escorted by police officers outside of the Brooklyn Precinct.
Speaker 7: We've got that cocky smirk in our minds, and we
Speaker 7: see him as uncaring. We see him as evil, you know,
Speaker 7: gloating in his crimes. And Dave said, Mike, there was
Speaker 7: a lot of shame behind that smile, And at first
Speaker 7: I was a little suspicious of that, but then I
Speaker 7: had remembered, you know, I didn't put this in the book,
Speaker 7: but I remembered a funeral that my grandmother had passed away,
Speaker 7: and a friend came to the funeral and they smiled
Speaker 7: while greeting my family. My family took it very insulting.
Speaker 7: They said, why is this girl smiling? It's grandma's funeral.
Speaker 7: But I knew her. I knew she was nervous. I
Speaker 7: knew her neurotic energy had made its way through her.
Speaker 7: You know her facial expressions and a smile sometimes is
Speaker 7: more of a cover up for some inadequate feelings. In
Speaker 7: the case of David Berkowitz, a lot of shame. In fact,
Speaker 7: I would argue that cockiness in general, even if you
Speaker 7: say his smile was cocky, Cockiness in general, arrogance, even
Speaker 7: to the extremes narcissism, is a cover up or feelings
Speaker 7: of inferiority. I've known very few people that have a
Speaker 7: superiority complex that are truly confident. Most of those folks
Speaker 7: with that kind of ear of superior already from pastoring
Speaker 7: for two decades. There's deep shame, deep self loathing, and
Speaker 7: there's an overcompensation through their persona. And I think that
Speaker 7: that's what you're seeing on that perp walk. I think
Speaker 7: it's just as David said. It may be cockiness on
Speaker 7: the surface, but it's deep shame and self loathing underneath.
Speaker 6: You got to the isolation that he experienced and the
Speaker 6: deep shame with the examination of his childhood, and you
Speaker 6: talk about his adopted parents, but he did not grow
Speaker 6: up realizing they were his adopted parents. Not in Pearl
Speaker 6: Berkowitz tell us about his early childhood and the event
Speaker 6: where it is revealed about his actual or what he's
Speaker 6: told about his actual birth mother and his birth.
Speaker 7: David emphasizes often how nurturing and devout his adopted parents
Speaker 7: or NAT in Pearl Berkowitz, they adopted him at four
Speaker 7: days old. In fact, not only David, but anybody that
Speaker 7: knows those people. And I talk to some other people
Speaker 7: that knew Nat and David or not in Pearl, very
Speaker 7: loving people. But David from the day he was taken
Speaker 7: home from Brooklyn Hospital, picked up four days old, driven
Speaker 7: to the Bronx. From the day who's picked up at
Speaker 7: the hospital, he was a very difficult baby, not easy
Speaker 7: to console, very hyperactive child, very resistant towards Nat in
Speaker 7: Pearl's love, he said Mike. They tried every way to
Speaker 7: show affection, but it was like taking a piece of
Speaker 7: tape and trying to stick it to a wet surface.
Speaker 7: It just wouldn't stick. Now I go in in the
Speaker 7: book some of the what we call primal wounds. You know,
Speaker 7: if you read a book called Primal Wounds, it's all
Speaker 7: about the psychology of adoption. There's a bond that is
Speaker 7: formed between a baby or as we would say, a fetus,
Speaker 7: in the mom for nine months. We think development or
Speaker 7: learning begins outside the womb. It does not begins in
Speaker 7: the way we know through countless studies and behavioral science
Speaker 7: that an infant a point of birth can recognize a
Speaker 7: mom's smell in the sound of her voice in a
Speaker 7: room full of strangers. So this is a serious bond
Speaker 7: that forms, and when that bond is severed, it creates
Speaker 7: a trauma. Whether that trauma is cognitively recalled or not.
Speaker 7: It may not be the mind, but it is remembered
Speaker 7: by the central nervous system. And for some people that
Speaker 7: are adopted, even at a young age, not all. I
Speaker 7: can't explain why it's some and not all, and there's
Speaker 7: probably a lot of other variables there, but for some
Speaker 7: it creates attachment disorders, and David Burkwitz was certainly one
Speaker 7: of those. Now we know through some FBI analysis that
Speaker 7: the serial killer is sixteen times more likely to have
Speaker 7: been adopted than the general population. Now, am I saying
Speaker 7: every adoptees become a serial killer? Absolutely not, That's not
Speaker 7: what I'm saying. I'm all for adoption, But I am
Speaker 7: saying that we're going to look at this and see
Speaker 7: it as a potential trauma. M Burco was his case.
Speaker 7: It caused an inability to bond at a very young age,
Speaker 7: despite his mother and father's best efforts. At five or
Speaker 7: six years old, they sit him down and they tell
Speaker 7: him the news. They tell him that he's his real mother.
Speaker 7: Key word real, which you know, back then they were ignorant,
Speaker 7: they didn't know any better. Their intentions were well meaning,
Speaker 7: probably not the best choice of words, because if my
Speaker 7: mom my real mom, my biological mom, they said that
Speaker 7: she died when he was born. If she's my real mom,
Speaker 7: what does that make you? Does that mean you're not real?
Speaker 7: Does that mean what we share, what we have is
Speaker 7: something less than authentic? So that phrase real already The
Speaker 7: bond severance really played on David's psychology. He actually believed
Speaker 7: the experienced survivor's guilt at a young age. He actually
Speaker 7: believed that because he survived his birth and his mother
Speaker 7: supposedly died. He believed that he was responsible for her death,
Speaker 7: that he killed his mother, maybe by kicking too hard
Speaker 7: when he came out of the womb, but he believed
Speaker 7: himself to be the culprit behind her death. So at
Speaker 7: a very young age, he starts to see himself in
Speaker 7: this very warped, twisted light. Now some may think, well,
Speaker 7: that's ridiculous. How could a five to six year old
Speaker 7: think that they're the cause of their mother's death. But
Speaker 7: that line of reasoning is very consistent with let's say,
Speaker 7: Jeanepget's theory of cognitive development. Doctor pg had studied children
Speaker 7: for decades and found out that children are very egocentric
Speaker 7: in their thought process, so they believed themselves to be
Speaker 7: the cause of events that are outside their control. And
Speaker 7: for David Berkowitz, he believed himself to be the culprit
Speaker 7: of his mother's death, and it began to shape his
Speaker 7: self image at a very young age, and interestingly enough,
Speaker 7: he becomes a killer of women later in his life.
Speaker 6: You talk about his childhood and his father worth ten
Speaker 6: to twelve hour days, but beyond that, he was still
Speaker 6: a distant father that couldn't seem to reach his son,
Speaker 6: and his son was David was destructive of his toys
Speaker 6: and things and was not punished that this toys were replaced.
Speaker 6: But you talk about also an event when he is
Speaker 6: fourteen years old that has to be traumatic and seemingly
Speaker 6: was tell us about that.
Speaker 7: At fourteen, his mom and dad, it's a Saturday night.
Speaker 7: They go out for Chinese food in New York City,
Speaker 7: leave David home. David loved to be home alone. He
Speaker 7: was at that age. He was very drawn to the dark.
Speaker 7: He'd watch horror movies, deep curiosity in the occult, so,
Speaker 7: you know, these sort of things. He can't watch when
Speaker 7: they're home because they're Jewish, he's able to watch when
Speaker 7: they're gone. And they're out on a Saturday night in
Speaker 7: a Chinese restaurant and David's expecting them to return somewhere
Speaker 7: around eleven twelve o'clock like they normally would, and they
Speaker 7: don't come home that night, and David wakes up the
Speaker 7: next morning's about five o'clock in the morning, and he
Speaker 7: realizes it's still not home. And then he gets a
Speaker 7: phone call from the hospital. His dad tells him that
Speaker 7: mom fainted while having dinner, and she was rushed to
Speaker 7: a hospital in Manhattan and a short time later diagnosed
Speaker 7: with cancer stage four, and about six months later she dies.
Speaker 7: In fact, she never returned home. David watches this what
Speaker 7: he called the beautiful woman, a woman that was shapely,
Speaker 7: she's very attractive, she turned heads when she walked into
Speaker 7: a room, become this skeleton figure, and David says that
Speaker 7: the anticipation of her passing, let's call it an abandonment really, which,
Speaker 7: as we already explored, that abandonment is sort of hardwired,
Speaker 7: that fear of abandonment hardwired into him from birth because
Speaker 7: of the separation from his biological mom. He says, the
Speaker 7: abandonment anticipation is so intense he can't stay in the
Speaker 7: hospital room he sees her for about a minute. Dad
Speaker 7: is on his knees bedside, devout husband, crying over his
Speaker 7: wife's perishing body. And David would go for long walks
Speaker 7: in the city by himself, tormented by having to say
Speaker 7: goodbye to the only woman that he said, at that
Speaker 7: point in his life he ever really felt love from,
Speaker 7: and a lot of guilt he hadn't reciprocated that love,
Speaker 7: he had not responded to Pearl with the same affection
Speaker 7: he was constantly pushing away his adopted parents. I say
Speaker 7: in the book, I believe it's almost to beat them
Speaker 7: to the punch. It's as if he's afraid they're going
Speaker 7: to push him away at some point. So, you know,
Speaker 7: as people often do when they're afraid of rejection or abandonment,
Speaker 7: they'll reject you first, or they'll abandon you first so
Speaker 7: that you don't have the opportunity to abandon or reject them.
Speaker 7: So David loses his mom at fourteen, and from that
Speaker 7: point the darkness envelops him even thicker, and the resentment
Speaker 7: begins to build towards God, towards himself, and really towards
Speaker 7: humanity at large.
Speaker 6: Let's use this as an opportunity to stop. To hear
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Speaker 6: for forty percent off. Now you talk about this growing
Speaker 6: hostility towards God. What is his religious curiosity is? What
Speaker 6: does his faith have to do in this mix of
Speaker 6: anger towards God, anger towards the world for taking away
Speaker 6: his mother.
Speaker 7: Well, he begins to delve into Satanism somewhere during his adolescence.
Speaker 7: He delves into Satanism because he sort of sympathizes with, say,
Speaker 7: you know, the classic narrative that Satan and God are
Speaker 7: at war. He sympathizes with Satan's hostility towards God because
Speaker 7: he himself is angry with God, Angry with God because
Speaker 7: he was taken away from his biological mom, angry with
Speaker 7: God because his adopted mom Pearl dies at fourteen. He
Speaker 7: begins to see the world as very unjust. How is
Speaker 7: it a saintly woman like Pearl Berkowitz could die at
Speaker 7: a young age and a mischievous young man like him
Speaker 7: continue on to him this idea of an unjust world.
Speaker 7: It just fuels his hatred towards God, which lends itself
Speaker 7: into a deep dive into Satanism. He begins to read
Speaker 7: the Satanic Bible. He eventually, when he returns home from
Speaker 7: the military, does go away to the army for about
Speaker 7: three years at eighteen years old. He meets a group
Speaker 7: of people in New York that are heavily involved in
Speaker 7: the occult, that have this same sort of gripe with God,
Speaker 7: the same sort of animosity towards the divine. He gravitates
Speaker 7: towards that group. He begins sort of meeting with them
Speaker 7: for these ritualistic ceremonies, and his head really gets twisted
Speaker 7: in notts and he starts to believe that he's a
Speaker 7: messenger of Satan, and a lot of it, when you
Speaker 7: get to the bottom of it, is this fueling resentment
Speaker 7: towards God, I also believe towards himself that's been displaced
Speaker 7: towards God. That sort of becomes the weapon used against
Speaker 7: humanity at large.
Speaker 6: Tell us more of his progression and the adoption rules
Speaker 6: at that time concerning confidentiality about your biological parents. Tell
Speaker 6: us about this effort by activists to be able to
Speaker 6: reverse this, and how David Berkowitz finds out about his
Speaker 6: biological family.
Speaker 7: He's a student under the GI Bill at Community College
Speaker 7: in New York City. When he comes home from the Army,
Speaker 7: he had enrolled in two courses in English composition course.
Speaker 7: David is very linguistically gifted, by the way, I see
Speaker 7: that in some of his letters to the police when
Speaker 7: he was committing the crimes, very linguistically gifted. He's enrolled
Speaker 7: in an English class, and he's also enrolled in a
Speaker 7: second course that eludes me right now. But while he's
Speaker 7: attending the community college one day, he walks by the
Speaker 7: community college bulletin board. This is back in the mid seventies,
Speaker 7: and there's a brochure for an organization known as ALMA,
Speaker 7: which if you study the history of ALMA, it's basically
Speaker 7: the rights of adopted children to find their biological parents.
Speaker 7: And the bruch Shaw points to a particular meeting time
Speaker 7: a location somewhere in midtown Manhattan, where he's encouraged to
Speaker 7: attend that meeting, and he attends the meeting and he
Speaker 7: hears the stories of other adoptees, and his desire in
Speaker 7: attending that meeting is to reconcile with his dad, because
Speaker 7: in his mind, his biological mom died. When he shares
Speaker 7: his story at that meeting, the other attendees of that meeting,
Speaker 7: they burst out in laughter. At first, He's a little
Speaker 7: bit insulted by it, because again, David's got some serious
Speaker 7: issues with shame and embarrassment. I didn't really get into
Speaker 7: this too heavy. It's very much discussed in the book.
Speaker 7: But he was shamed often as a kid for being fat,
Speaker 7: for being Jewish in an Italian neighborhood, a lot of
Speaker 7: shame shaming by his teacher. His desk was put in
Speaker 7: the middle of the classroom and in the third grade,
Speaker 7: and the teacher told the other kids, this is where
Speaker 7: the bad boys sit. So here he is in this
Speaker 7: meeting and they're laughing when he tells his story about
Speaker 7: his mom dying, and he blushes, as David often does
Speaker 7: when he's embarrassed, and then he says, why are you laughing?
Speaker 7: And they said, well, that's the story that we've all
Speaker 7: been told. It's a very common story. There's a good
Speaker 7: probability that your mom, your biological mom, is still alive somewhere.
Speaker 7: It's a story that was told to many of us
Speaker 7: to reduce the sting of rejection. So if mom died
Speaker 7: during birth, it would feel less personal. But if mom's
Speaker 7: alive leads itself to the question why does she get
Speaker 7: rid of me? So it's a common story told. So
Speaker 7: David leaves the meeting thinking, maybe my biological mom is alive,
Speaker 7: picks up the phone, calls his dad. His dad had
Speaker 7: moved to Florida when he got home from the army, remarried,
Speaker 7: and his dad says, Dave, we lied to you. Tells
Speaker 7: him the truth. And now David goes on a mission,
Speaker 7: almost like a pilgrimage to Mecca or to the Holy Land,
Speaker 7: looking for his mother. And it was this, I believe,
Speaker 7: a deep need for belonging, for identity, all the things
Speaker 7: that he had really lacked in his development. He was
Speaker 7: hoping to find and reconciling with his mom. David wanted
Speaker 7: to belong. He wanted to belong so badly. That's why
Speaker 7: that's part of the reason why gravitated to was the cult.
Speaker 7: It wasn't just existential, but it was also social. He
Speaker 7: had this need to sort of fit in somewhere, always
Speaker 7: felt disconnected, always felt alone, even in the most populous,
Speaker 7: populated city in America. So he finally finds this birth
Speaker 7: mom through a very interesting hunt, if you want to
Speaker 7: call it that. David has this sort of hunting instinct.
Speaker 7: You can read about the hunt in the book. And
Speaker 7: he meets his mom after hunting for her for about
Speaker 7: six months, he meets his half sister, biological sister meets
Speaker 7: his two and David says, Mike, as much as the media,
Speaker 7: you know in the seventies portrayed that reconciliation as the
Speaker 7: trigger for my murders. He said, it couldn't be further
Speaker 7: from the truth. He said, I was already a ticking
Speaker 7: time bomb. He said, it's unfortunate the reconciliation hadn't happened
Speaker 7: a few years prior. Maybe my mind wouldn't have been
Speaker 7: as twisted as it was, he said, But my family,
Speaker 7: my biological family, wasn't a reason for killing. It was
Speaker 7: more like a refuge. In fact, there's one particular evening
Speaker 7: when he was having dinner with his biological sister. She
Speaker 7: remembers him not wanting to leave. He wanted to sleep over,
Speaker 7: and he made up a lie, saying there was too
Speaker 7: much traffic. Well, it turns out her husband had come
Speaker 7: home and he was a bus driver, and he said
Speaker 7: David's lying, there's no traffic. Retrospectively, David wanted to stay
Speaker 7: because he was fighting the urges to kill, and he
Speaker 7: felt solace with his biological family. He felt a sense
Speaker 7: of solace there. Now he had some bad blood with
Speaker 7: his biological mom after he went to prison, because she
Speaker 7: started talking to newspapers and magazines and she made some
Speaker 7: profit off of the story, and he felt insulted by that,
Speaker 7: and he kind of put his own dark spin on
Speaker 7: the reconciliation. But forty six years later he looks back
Speaker 7: and he tells me it was a positive meeting. I
Speaker 7: wish I hadn't pushed her away. He did push her away.
Speaker 7: She visited with the sister, but he drove them away,
Speaker 7: just like he drove away the berkowitzays, but they were
Speaker 7: more of a refuge from his homicidal urges and not
Speaker 7: the impetus behind it.
Speaker 6: You talk about that he was already full blown in
Speaker 6: this madness and that the reunion had nothing to do
Speaker 6: with the impetus for his killing spree, But many people ask,
Speaker 6: wasn't the killing spree right after the reunion?
Speaker 2: Yes.
Speaker 7: However, if you go back to David's pathology, he is
Speaker 7: lighting toys on fire at a young age. He's exhibiting
Speaker 7: all the symptoms of conduct disorders that usually prelude antisocial
Speaker 7: personality disorder, the cultural term psychopath Those psychopathies a little
Speaker 7: bit different than antisocial personality. Sort of there's a lot
Speaker 7: of parallels there these you know this the setting of
Speaker 7: the stage studying his pathology from a young age takes
Speaker 7: place years before meeting Betty Broda, his biological mother. I
Speaker 7: think if there's any impetus at all that it plays,
Speaker 7: it's more of the fact that David's looking for a savior.
Speaker 7: He's looking for someone to save him from this madness
Speaker 7: that had begun at a young age. And let's face it,
Speaker 7: Betty may have been a wonderful woman, but nobody can
Speaker 7: play the role of a savior other than the savior himself.
Speaker 7: So there might have been some letdown, you know, this
Speaker 7: thought that finding this family would finally remedy all of
Speaker 7: my mental health issues, and it's sort of, you know,
Speaker 7: as wonderful of a reunion as it was, there might
Speaker 7: have been some anti climatic aspects to it, because David's
Speaker 7: still going back home when he's done with those dinners,
Speaker 7: He's still going back home to his darkness, to his psychosis,
Speaker 7: to his homicidal urges. So if it plays any impetus,
Speaker 7: I think it's more the impetus of it being a
Speaker 7: letdown that it did not save David from David.
Speaker 6: You're right that he did have that sense of in
Speaker 6: the day he was helpful. In fact, he was in
Speaker 6: the midst of the killing spree and a woman asked
Speaker 6: for his help, was stuck in a snowbank. So he
Speaker 6: reverted to his altar self and went and helped that woman.
Speaker 7: Willingly interesting, Yeah, So when David Berkowitz would leave the
Speaker 7: post office at around twelve thirty at night with the
Speaker 7: forty four caliber gun locked away in his glove compartment
Speaker 7: of his Ford Galaxy nineteen seventy yellow Ford Galaxy purchased
Speaker 7: the vehicle with his money saved. While he was in
Speaker 7: the army, he would roam the streets of New York
Speaker 7: looking for the perfect prey, you know, some vulnerable person
Speaker 7: to unleash this fury inside of him, a fury that
Speaker 7: he believes and I believe with him it was very
Speaker 7: much energized by the powers of Hell, including his own psychology.
Speaker 7: In the midst of that, he had in his trunk
Speaker 7: an emergency kit that if someone was stuck some where.
Speaker 7: One example that you reference was in January. I believe
Speaker 7: it was a couple of people, a couple of girls.
Speaker 7: I was stuck in a snow bank. He got out
Speaker 7: and he actually helped them retrieve the car from the
Speaker 7: snow bank back in his automobile and went back on
Speaker 7: his diabolical mission. Now one tries to make sense of
Speaker 7: that and say, okay, what is this. Some will say
Speaker 7: it's deceit. You know, it's part of his sort of
Speaker 7: pretending to be a nice guy and carrying on his
Speaker 7: deceitful ax. And again that goes back to the Horn effect.
Speaker 7: I think that we take that idea of a psychopath
Speaker 7: that can be nothing human about them. They've got to
Speaker 7: fit that monster persona that we see in the movies.
Speaker 7: I'm gonna just sidebar for one second. I was on
Speaker 7: one of those serial killer group pages I'd been invited
Speaker 7: in because of my work with David Berkowitz, and somebody
Speaker 7: asked the question, what motive would Ted Bundy have had
Speaker 7: for befriending the woman and forget her last name, the
Speaker 7: one that wrote the book about dating him, the stranger
Speaker 7: beside me, what motive would he have had for befriending her?
Speaker 7: And everyone is given these cynical perspectives, and I put
Speaker 7: it the bottom of it, how about just friendship? And
Speaker 7: you know it's hard for that the average person to
Speaker 7: or the general public to accept that because we want
Speaker 7: our monsters to be just at monsters, they can't have
Speaker 7: any human qualities. Well, I can tell you to sit
Speaker 7: in with David Burkowitz for one hundred hours, and he's
Speaker 7: not my first serial killer I dealt with. To others,
Speaker 7: the relationships had to stop because of the psychopathic games.
Speaker 7: But I have found that the image we portray in
Speaker 7: the movies, it's not consistent. I believe David Burkowitz was
Speaker 7: helping people at the same time he was killing him
Speaker 7: is because he was trying to almost, if you want
Speaker 7: to call it, a pease or placate his conscience, to
Speaker 7: feel a little bit more like a human in the
Speaker 7: acts that was so monstrous. So yeah, nobody. This may
Speaker 7: disagree with some people's worldview, but nobody is purely evil.
Speaker 7: There's always some element of humanity, some vestiges of humanity
Speaker 7: that are there that if you get close enough, you're
Speaker 7: able to see them.
Speaker 6: Is as an opportunity to hear these messages.
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Speaker 6: Now you talk about the one hundred hours, the thirty
Speaker 6: four sessions, what you learned from David Berkowitz and what
Speaker 6: this relationship and this book entail. So let's go back
Speaker 6: to David Berkowitz and some of the issues that you
Speaker 6: raise with him, some of the issues that he imparts
Speaker 6: to you there's important to his psychological development and in
Speaker 6: the end in These.
Speaker 7: Crimes, Well, I list nine themes in the book. You know,
Speaker 7: when you conduct this kind of qualitative research semi structured interviews,
Speaker 7: I'm submitting to David by way of emails, some questions
Speaker 7: I'm going to ask him when we meet. We meet
Speaker 7: each session probably about three and a half hours. You
Speaker 7: collect your data and then you do what's known as
Speaker 7: thematic analysis. You're looking for themes that keep surfacing. And
Speaker 7: when I conduct my thematic analysis, I see these nine
Speaker 7: themes that keep surfacing, and I call these themes a
Speaker 7: recipe of violence. What's interesting to me about the themes,
Speaker 7: and it's the reason for the title Monstermera, is they
Speaker 7: are not themes that are exclusive to what we call
Speaker 7: the psychopath They're themes that affect all of us on
Speaker 7: some level. Isolation, shame, abandonment, trauma, resentment, the individuation, which
Speaker 7: is a very fancy word for pay pressure. You know,
Speaker 7: you've got all these these themes that help us really
Speaker 7: understand why it is that in America right now there
Speaker 7: are thirteen mass shootings a week. Now, that is a
Speaker 7: staggering number. Why Now, you look at the different types
Speaker 7: of killers. Let's just take Columbine for instance. You've got
Speaker 7: Eric Eric Harris on one hand, as cold as it gets,
Speaker 7: and you got Dylan Claybold more of a depressive, melancholy personality,
Speaker 7: two different kinds of people committing the same crime. The
Speaker 7: criminal profile keeps expanding, I mean, it just keeps going
Speaker 7: because I believe that anybody's capable of anything. And I
Speaker 7: call it monster Mara because I was expecting to see
Speaker 7: a monster. Instead I saw a Mira. And I discovered
Speaker 7: themes that relate to me, that relate to anyone. And
Speaker 7: I can't help but say the words of John Bradford
Speaker 7: back in the seventeen hundreds, when they were escorting a man,
Speaker 7: a criminal, to his death, and the entire town was
Speaker 7: calling him every name in the book, Bradford stood up
Speaker 7: and he said, there but for the grace of God
Speaker 7: go I. What he meant by that was that man
Speaker 7: that could have been me. And that's really the bottom
Speaker 7: line message of this book is, I'm I'm challenging the
Speaker 7: reader to take everything they know about a psychopath and
Speaker 7: put it aside for a minute and consider the possibility
Speaker 7: that if you for six months all over your resent
Speaker 7: for six months, the rate yourself, continually think about every
Speaker 7: insult spoken to you, start to see yourself through a
Speaker 7: very shameful lens, isolate from people, pull away for six months,
Speaker 7: justify every little wrong thing you do. What would you become?
Speaker 7: And you know, I believe that there's a potential psychopath
Speaker 7: in everyone.
Speaker 6: Let's talk about cognitive distortions and how it relates to
Speaker 6: this case with David Berkowitz.
Speaker 7: I describe in the book of a variety of cognitive distortions.
Speaker 7: One of them that we've already alluded to is the
Speaker 7: unjust world or the just world fallacy, the idea that
Speaker 7: the world should be perfectly equitable, and any sign of
Speaker 7: injustice or inequality sort of causes us to go into
Speaker 7: a fury or rage or dark place in our minds
Speaker 7: where we start to see, you know, that the world
Speaker 7: is not being governed properly by the Almighty, and therefore
Speaker 7: we must take matters into our own hands. This just
Speaker 7: world fallacy is behind lots of anti heroes and movies
Speaker 7: like taxi driver Travis Bickell. By the way, Travis Bickle
Speaker 7: played a large role in David's psyche development. It's seen
Speaker 7: taxi drive right before he did the killings. It was
Speaker 7: actually a taxi driver that motivated him to go buy
Speaker 7: the forty four caliber because the forty four caliber was
Speaker 7: referenced in the movie. But this idea of the world
Speaker 7: being unjust and God not doing his job properly, David
Speaker 7: I mean brought into that line of thinking a hook
Speaker 7: line and sink, and it really distorted his view of
Speaker 7: the world and his own role sort of made him
Speaker 7: very presumptuous, not sort of persumption, be an understatement, made
Speaker 7: him take matters into his own hands and do what
Speaker 7: he did. He actually saw it as sort of a
Speaker 7: war with God, payback towards God. So that's one cognitive distortion.
Speaker 7: He also had some very twisted distortions and how he
Speaker 7: saw himself and just personalize everything, going back to when
Speaker 7: he was a kid, believing that he was the cause
Speaker 7: of his mom's you know, his biological mom's death. Just
Speaker 7: sort of personalized everything. I mean, even listening to songs
Speaker 7: on the radio during that time. It was the late sixties,
Speaker 7: early seventies. He starts listening to a lot of songs
Speaker 7: by Barry you get his name, but it's a popular
Speaker 7: song back then, of Destruction, Eve of Destruction. Thank You.
Speaker 7: Listen to that song over and over again, and it's
Speaker 7: sort of built in him. The sense of the world
Speaker 7: is headed towards absolute destruction. The value for life begins
Speaker 7: to diminish. He sees on the news constantly. He was
Speaker 7: a news junkie, current events junkie, constantly reading the news,
Speaker 7: the headlines, Vietnam protests, riots breaking out, the wars in Vietnam,
Speaker 7: the bloodshed there just kind of puts in him this
Speaker 7: sense of the world is coming to an end and
Speaker 7: human life begins to lose its sense of value. And
Speaker 7: that's just to name a couple of the distortions that
Speaker 7: were taking place in his mind. Ideas have consequences, and
Speaker 7: David has some very bad ideas about the world and himself,
Speaker 7: and those bad ideas bore some very bad consequences.
Speaker 6: This Jesus as an opportunity to stop for these messages.
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Speaker 6: Want to get back to this one on one. Face
Speaker 6: to face with David Berkowitz is very, very interesting, the
Speaker 6: sessions you describe talking to him and the things that
Speaker 6: he imparts to you. But what's most interesting is one
Speaker 6: of the victims of his horror, of his crimes free.
Speaker 6: The mother's name is Nasa, and there is a relationship
Speaker 6: that ensues that you ask him about it, and you
Speaker 6: even see confirmation of the kinds of things that he
Speaker 6: says about this relationship through the letters tell us about this,
Speaker 6: how it came to be, and what was the result
Speaker 6: in their relationship.
Speaker 7: Nisa Moskowitz was the mom of Stacy Moscowitz, David Berkowitz's
Speaker 7: last victim. She was murdered in July thirty first, nineteen
Speaker 7: seventy seven, in Brooklyn. She was a blonde lady about
Speaker 7: twenty years old, beautiful. She's gone on a date that night, Neisa,
Speaker 7: her mom, Jewish lady said, Tosa said to Stacy, please
Speaker 7: be carefuled as a madman at lose. Stacy's response, Mom,
Speaker 7: I'm safe. He's not targeting blondes well, she couldn't have
Speaker 7: been more tragically wrong, because that was his first blonde victim. Immediately,
Speaker 7: Nisa understandably so hates David Berkowitz, probably one of his
Speaker 7: most vocal critics for the next I don't know, fifteen
Speaker 7: twenty years, from the late seventies all the way through
Speaker 7: the nineties, appearing on Heraldo Rivera, a lot of talk shows,
Speaker 7: you know, saying things about David, like he deserves to die,
Speaker 7: He's evil. I would die right here to see that
Speaker 7: man suffer greatly. I mean, she just hated David Brookwitch.
Speaker 7: You could just YouTube Nasa Moscowitz David Brookowitz, and you're
Speaker 7: gonna pull up a variety of clips to show her animosity,
Speaker 7: which is understandable towards the man who ended her daughter's life. Well,
Speaker 7: somewhere in the late nineties broke Nasa Moscowitz forgives David Brookowitz.
Speaker 7: She actually told her neighbor in Florida, she left New
Speaker 7: York moved to Florida, typical migration route for people that
Speaker 7: are Jewish. And she's in Florida and she's next door
Speaker 7: to a woman friend who told the newspaper reporters when
Speaker 7: they did a story on NSA's death that Nasa looked
Speaker 7: at her and said, don't be consumed by hate towards anyone.
Speaker 7: It'll devour your life. So she saw forgiveness as an
Speaker 7: escape from hate. So she forgave David. They developed a relationship,
Speaker 7: written course respondent's letters back and forth for about a
Speaker 7: year and a half, maybe two years. They spoke on
Speaker 7: the phone regularly. Well, David gave me access to those letters,
Speaker 7: and I'll never forget asking Dave before he handed the
Speaker 7: letters to me. In fact, I went through about sixteen
Speaker 7: hundred documents pertaining to David Berkowitz, the son of Sam,
Speaker 7: psychiatric reports, police records, letters between David and his dad,
Speaker 7: letters between David and Asa. All that was part of
Speaker 7: the making of this book. I asked David before I
Speaker 7: looked at the letters. I said, what does she call you?
Speaker 7: What was her name for you? Because I had heard
Speaker 7: some of the names she said in the media. And
Speaker 7: he said, with tears in his eyes, he said, she
Speaker 7: called me Davy, not David Davy when you think of
Speaker 7: Davy like a term of ben damn and a mom
Speaker 7: would call herself. And one of the letters read really
Speaker 7: touched my heart, she said to him at the end
Speaker 7: of the letter, David, please pray for my other daughter
Speaker 7: who's still alive. She was sick, she into dying. Please
Speaker 7: pray for her. She's very sick right now. And here
Speaker 7: she is asking the man who murdered Stacy to pray
Speaker 7: for Stacy's sixth sister. I mean, one can only say
Speaker 7: this is the work of God because it's not human.
Speaker 7: I don't know. I've got four kids, I got three daughters.
Speaker 7: I can't imagine, like any listener, forgiving someone for murdering
Speaker 7: one of my daughter. It would have to be an
Speaker 7: act of God. Well, they became friendly, and Nisa and
Speaker 7: him were going to actually start a ministry together. They
Speaker 7: wanted to go public and telling this story of forgiveness
Speaker 7: that it would hopefully inspire others. But Nisa was diagnosed
Speaker 7: with stage four cancer and she died in the early
Speaker 7: two thousands. But that played a large role in David's
Speaker 7: own healing and his own transformation.
Speaker 6: You're right at the end of this book because people
Speaker 6: will still possibly not believe that this is real. You
Speaker 6: pose the question, is David's conversion real? And you also
Speaker 6: mentioned a longtime friend of David's who also offers his opinion.
Speaker 7: Yeah, I mean, of course we say jailhouse conversions. But
Speaker 7: I want to challenge this idea by saying, I've dealt
Speaker 7: with prisoners for twenty years. I know what a jailhouse
Speaker 7: conversion is. They last about six months tops. They don't
Speaker 7: go thirty five years, and it's usually the six months
Speaker 7: prior to the parole hearing. David Berkowitz has not just
Speaker 7: believed in Christ for thirty five years, He's practiced the
Speaker 7: Christian faith. He mentors fifteen to seventeen guys, meets with
Speaker 7: them weekly. Am I saying he should be released. I'm
Speaker 7: not saying that. I'm not saying that at all. David's
Speaker 7: not even saying that. I'm just saying that his life
Speaker 7: behind bars. You can only judge a tree by its fruit,
Speaker 7: and I would say the fruit that I've tasted is good.
Speaker 7: Do I think he'd kill again? No? Do I think
Speaker 7: he should get out? Probably not for a lot of reasons.
Speaker 7: But I do believe that the life he's living contradicts
Speaker 7: any idea that we have of a jailhouse conversion. I've
Speaker 7: seen jailhouse conversions and this is not it. It's a
Speaker 7: man who responds to letters that are written to him
Speaker 7: around the world. People that write him suicidal teenagers. They
Speaker 7: write to him people that committed awful crimes. Because he's
Speaker 7: a place where there are no stones to throw. How
Speaker 7: would David Burkowitz ever throw a stone at me? In fact,
Speaker 7: I'll give you this, Dan. I don't cite it in
Speaker 7: the book, but the campus serial killer who killed four
Speaker 7: and two years ago wrote David Berko which two times,
Speaker 7: one time while he was out at loose. I don't
Speaker 7: know if it was before the killings or after or
Speaker 7: in the midst of them. But then again he wrote
Speaker 7: to him a second time. Leader David sees these letters
Speaker 7: as opportunities share his faith, try to talk suicidal teenagers
Speaker 7: off of ledges. He's trying his best to make his
Speaker 7: wrongs right. He knows the general public is not going
Speaker 7: to accept that, but he can only do what he
Speaker 7: believes is commendable to his God. He will face God someday.
Speaker 7: He knows that he's had some real health scares, and
Speaker 7: he wants to try to make the best of the
Speaker 7: life that he has behind bars. Let me also say this,
Speaker 7: We like to think that you can tell a man's character.
Speaker 7: We always say talk is cheap. His actions. That's what
Speaker 7: tells a man's character. I got people can put on
Speaker 7: a good act. Shakespeare said the world is a stage right.
Speaker 7: All of the people in the world are its players.
Speaker 7: People can put on an act. I didn't just see
Speaker 7: David's actions. I saw David's reactions. And reactions are a
Speaker 7: better litmus test for character than actions. Reaction, actions under pressure,
Speaker 7: caught off guard, taken by surprise, actions in real time.
Speaker 7: I've seen David anger. I describe a conflict that he
Speaker 7: had with an inmate and how he handles that anger.
Speaker 7: I've seen him empathetic. I've seen him own up to
Speaker 7: things that he never owned up to before, confessions that
Speaker 7: were very difficult to make. So I didn't just see
Speaker 7: his actions. I saw his reactions, and I am a
Speaker 7: witness that I believe this man has experienced the major transformation.
Speaker 6: I want to thank you very much, doctor Michael Caparelli
Speaker 6: for coming on and talking about your incredible monster Mirror
Speaker 6: one hundred hours with David Berkowitz, once known as Son
Speaker 6: of Sam. Those people that might want to check out
Speaker 6: your book, they can go to Amazon obviously, do you
Speaker 6: have do you any social media? Do you have a website?
Speaker 6: They might take a look at You.
Speaker 7: Can go to unmuted myiwebsite, dot app app. But the
Speaker 7: best way to get it is the easiest way is
Speaker 7: to go on Amazon of Barnes and Noble. It came
Speaker 7: out October of this year, two months ago. It has
Speaker 7: sold thousands of copies since the first three days. It
Speaker 7: ranked the number one new really in the serial killer
Speaker 7: subgenre on Amazon. And now that's been a lot of
Speaker 7: uh hustle on my part. I've been on a lot
Speaker 7: of media appearances, but it seems to be a book
Speaker 7: that's resonated with many people. Right now, go to Amazon,
Speaker 7: go to Bones and Noble. You can get on kindle paperback.
Speaker 7: You can even get it translated in Spanish. You know Spanish.
Speaker 7: I don't want to try pronouncing it. Just type in
Speaker 7: Monstermera and how you write that in Spanish and you'll
Speaker 7: see a copy of the book.
Speaker 6: Well, thank you very much, doctor Michael Caparelli for Monster
Speaker 6: mir one hundred hours with David Berkowitz, once known as
Speaker 6: Son of Sam. Thank you very much for this interview,
Speaker 6: and you have a great evening and good night.
Speaker 7: Thank you.