Serial Killer 'Son of Sam' Recounts His 'Walk in Darkness'

David Berkowitz says he was 'lost and confused'
By Arden Dier,  Newser Staff
Posted Aug 9, 2017 9:24 AM CDT
Serial Killer 'Son of Sam' Recounts His 'Walk in Darkness'
David Berkowitz is seen at Sullivan Correctional Facility in Fallsburg, NY, in 2009.   (AP Photo/Mike Groll)

"I didn't see it at the time," but "I was just very lost and confused," David Berkowitz says of his outlook during his killing spree in New York 40 years ago. In his first major TV interview in a decade, Berkowitz, 64, recounts shooting 13 people over the course of a year, six of whom died, telling CBS News he would now warn his 23-year-old self to "turn around before it's too late." He says he's sorry for his crimes, which he thought would "appease the devil." Now serving six consecutive 25-year-to-life sentences, "I see that people will never understand where I come from, no matter how much I try to explain it," Berkowitz says in the interview airing Friday. "They wouldn't understand what it was like to walk in darkness," he adds. "There was ... a battle going on inside me."

Berkowitz—who referred to himself as the "Son of Sam" in a letter to police—says he's since come to "despise" the moniker. "That was not me," he says. "That was a demon." Berkowitz previously said he was encouraged to kill by a demon possessing his neighbor's dog. His lawyer tells the New York Daily News that Berkowitz could have easily been found not guilty by reason of insanity, and that he could have his guilty plea vacated as a result. But though Mark Heller says he's begged Berkowitz to file a post-conviction motion that could see him freed, he says Berkowitz has refused out of respect for victims' families. The born-again Christian previously said he won't seek parole for the same reason. (See Berkowitz's message to "gangbanging teens" here.)

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