29 SEP 2026 · Before the shootings. Before the letters to Jimmy Breslin. Before New York City locked itself indoors through the summer of 1977, David Berkowitz was something far more ordinary — and far more revealing.
This episode opens the Son of Sam story from the beginning, tracing the life of the .44 Caliber Killer long before he earned that name. Born in Brooklyn in 1953 to a mother who gave him up at birth, David Richard Berkowitz was adopted by Pearl and Nathan Berkowitz, a Bronx couple who adored him. But the secret of his adoption, kept from him for years, planted a fracture at the centre of his identity.
When Pearl died of breast cancer in 1966, thirteen-year-old David lost the one parent he was closest to. Nathan remarried and eventually relocated to Florida, leaving David largely on his own. Teachers remembered a hyperactive, impulsive boy who craved control. Classmates remembered someone who pushed past normal social limits without noticing when he'd crossed them.
In 1971, Berkowitz enlisted in the U.S. Army. Three years of structure, routine, and belonging. Then a discharge in 1974 — and the same unresolved questions waiting on the other side.
He settled in Yonkers. He sorted mail for the U.S. Postal Service. He was, by every outward measure, nobody in particular.
This episode is the chapter that true crime coverage almost always skips: the before. Because understanding how a Yonkers postal worker became Son of Sam requires starting well before the first shot was fired. This episode includes AI-generated content.