Will robots one day be capable of raising human children as their own? I'm Holly Fry. And as the host of the companion podcast to HBO, Max's new show, Raised by Wolves, I'm speaking with leading scientists and historians to answer some of the very real questions posed by this mind blowing sci fi series from Ridley Scott Stream raised by Wolves now on HBO and subscribe and listen to Raised by Wolves, the podcast on the I Heart radio app, HBO, Max Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

Where the bodies are buried contains graphic depictions of violence that some listeners may find disturbing discretion is advised.

Forget what you've heard about serial killers, forget the movies, podcasts and stories in the media of infamous psychopaths like Jeffrey Dahmer and Ted Bundy. I'm going to show you what exists beyond all of that. And you will hear from the source, the killers themselves. This is where the bodies are buried. My name is Phil Chalmers. For over 35 years, I've dedicated my life to communicating with and studying hundreds of serial killers, teen killers, school shooters and mass murderers, I help solve cold cases, locate bodies and bring closure to hurting families of the victim.

Joining me is my wife, Wendy, and my producers, Adam and Samantha. Samantha, you ready? Yep. All right. We're rolling. One, two. All right.

Let's jump into one of the most famous serial killers still alive today, David Berkowitz, also known as the Son of Sam, but now calls himself the Son of Hope.

Good morning. The 44 caliber killer has terrorized New York City with yet another brutal murder. We just wait for the terrible news of his next victim.

More than 13 months and thousands of leads down endless blind alleys. The detectives at the Brooklyn Omega Squad, part of the 300 cop task force, are still on the hunt for a cold blooded killer known as the Son of Sam.

Good evening. David Berkowitz, 24 years old, walked out of his Yonkers apartment to his car and found himself surrounded by police. Well, he said, you've got me. Those words ended the biggest manhunt in New York City history. Son of Sam told police he was a killing machine ordered by a voice speaking through a neighbor's dog to carry out his bloody rages against young pretty women. Serial killer David Berkowitz, also known as the Son of Sam, is so notorious he's been given celebrity status in 1976.

In 1977, Berkowitz terrorized New York City. He would ambush and shoot women with a 44 caliber revolver as they sat in their car with their boyfriends during this reign of terror. He killed six people. Berkowitz eluded the biggest police manhunt in the history of New York City while leaving letters which were highly publicized by the press. David Berkowitz is different from all the serial killers that we've talked about. He shot his victims and fled, leaving the bodies behind.

He says that he's remorseful and he now calls himself Son of Hope. Berkowitz told us that he found God and claims Son of Sam is dead. Can we believe someone who had so much evil inside of him can be reformed? I mean, with the possibility of parole every two years? We certainly hope so.

How are you doing?

OK, I'm doing OK. Thank God everything is all right here in New York now. And pretty nice weather, actually. It's a little on the cool side for once. You know, we've had this tremendous heat wave. Well, what can I do for you?

I'm recording you. I want to make sure, you know, I'm recording you that. OK, OK. Yeah, OK.

You kind of being you became infamous for the summer of saying and you were called the Son of Sam, the summer of Sam and now you're called the son of Hope. And how how did that name come about, Dave?

How did you come up with a sign of hope? Well, that after I came to Christ, that was over a little over 30 years ago and, you know, I've been incarcerated now for 43 years after I came to Christ, the Lord gave me a heart to reach young people and to reach out as best as I could behind prison walls. And one day I was just reading the scripture. One of my favorite passages was the story of the demon possessed man who terrorized this community and he met the Lord.

The Lord set him free from his demonic bondage. Well, anyway, one day the Lord spoke to my heart and says, you know, you're no longer that of the name. That was a demonic name anywhere that came from the devil. You you're now the son of hope. And it just resonated with me and my. Yeah. And when I came to the Lord, I was already 10 years into my prison sentence and very depressed and just trying to exist from day to day and really no purpose but just hanging in there.

And then another inmate came and began to share his faith with me. We became friends. He led me to the Lord. He gave me a pocket Bible and encouraged me to read the Psalms and write them in there alone in my prison cell late at night or maybe around midnight, I got down on my knees and just poured my heart out to the Lord quietly. But yeah, but privately shedding tears, saying, I'm sorry for all the things that I did and I have so much regret and so much pain and even hurting my parents and disappointing my family.

And when I got up off my knees about 20, 30 minutes later, it was like a tremendous blow. It lifted off me.

OK, Phil, who is David Berkowitz to you?

David Berkowitz is someone I've known for a long time. I met him way back in the day like 30 years ago. In the early 1990s. He actually was the first serial killer I've ever spoken to. I had been interviewing teen killers and school shooters for a while, and I thought this would be an interesting meeting. So I set it up with him.

David Berkowitz, The Son of Sam, he's saying that he's found God and is looking to touch people spiritually and be a positive influence.

Yeah, I don't know. I got to call this out like that. Son of Sam is claiming, you know, he's the son of hope. He's remorseful. He's you know, he feels bad for me. I can sum it up with one word. And that is. No, I'm sorry. He is one of the most famous killers on the planet. It's really tough for me to be like, oh, yeah, I could do now.

Nice guy.

Yes, it is normal to be skeptical about these kind of things.

We call it jailhouse religion, and I'm very skeptical.

Any time an inmate tells me they're religious or they're Christians or they're this or they're that.

So jailhouse religion is when an inmate claims to be religious, converted a Christian. And a lot of times they will use that to gain sympathy, to gain favor and possibly to gain release from prison or jail.

The killer is a killer, but there are different types of killers and different types of motivations. And I've had a lot of inmates say they're Christians and they want me to send them Bibles and Christian books along with pornography.

Oh, yeah. I just I question the legitimacy of what he's saying because ultimately we're talking to the Son of Sam.

We continue our conversations with David Berkowitz. But next, we're going to speak to Carl De Niro, who was one of the survivors that was allegedly shot by David Berkowitz. However, he survived the gunshot to his head. What we're going to talk about is one of the most controversial theories about the son of Sam. Was there more than one shooter or did David Berkowitz act alone?

Hi, Karl, thanks for joining us. Please briefly introduce yourself and your connection to the Son of Sam shootings.

My name's Karl De Niro. I was a second second victim of the Son of Sam. Attacks happened on October 23, 1976. About a little after two two a.m. I was at a house party with my friends. About midnight. We went back to the bar that we hung out at the Bar Grill, ran into an old friend. Rosemary came and we started talking and we decided to to leave, to leave the bar and go find a quiet place basically to make out.

She stopped at a stop sign and looked across the avenue. It looked like it was pretty, pretty dark. It's a very residential neighborhood. There was basically no foot traffic and very, very few cars at that time of the morning. And then we started making out. We were all. I don't know, maybe five minutes and all of a sudden my life changed. I can't tell you that I heard gunshots because I didn't hear was glass all over the place.

All the windows in the car were blown out. And I had blood, blood all over my my hands and my arms from from the glass shrapnel. I knew I was in trouble, but at this point I didn't know I was shot, but I knew I knew something was wrong. And I said, you know, I yelled at Rosemary in the car, let's get out of here. So I directed her back to the bar that we had.

We started that. We walked in the door. Man said, Paul, you don't look too good. And I said, I don't feel too good. I think the car exploded. That's when everyone knew I was in trouble because all the blood from my head was being held in by my hair. And when my head went down, all the blood just turned my my shirt blood red. So my friends came over and said, we got to get him to the hospital.

And we drove watching plussing hospital emergency room.

Do you recall what you first talked about with law enforcement after this horrible incident?

About four a.m., a uniform uniformed cop asked me if he should call my parents, so I asked them what time it was. He said for the next four o'clock, I said, some of them home by 7:00. My mother wanting to know. And he looked at me and said, Son, she got shot in the head, you're not going home. And that's that's the first recollection of knowing that I got shot. About a week later, I found out what happened was she was not shot, but she she did have a few cuts from from the flying glass there.

And their immediate reaction was it was a drug deal gone bad. New York City was actually the whole metropolitan area basically went went into lockdown. Most of the people in the area lived in fear. The mayor of New York City at the time, Mary Poppins, and the police commissioner, Todd, held a press conference stating that compare, you know, through ballistics to compare bullets. And these five seemingly random shootings were related and they all used of 44 bullets.

That's when I found out that I was shot by a serial killer.

The theory was that David Berkowitz was part of a group of people, perhaps a satanic cult, sharing the same 44 revolver to carry out the execution of innocent people, mostly women. Did anyone believe that Son of Sam was more than one shooter?

At this time? I had no indication that other people were involved or anything about a conspiracy. It was just, you know, I basically took go with, you know, what the cops told, you know, what the cop said in the press conferences and the information they gave the newspapers that I read every day. Maurice Harris started investigating the case and compiled enough information to prove, in his opinion, that other people were involved based on what the witnesses told police at some of the shootings.

And and based on what Berkowitz said, it raised a lot of flags. I believe it was 1979. And then to office reopen the case. Unfortunately, the case was shut down eight weeks later. I had moved to and moved to California basically to just to get away from the mayhem that the aftermath of this understand saga and the arrest of David Berkowitz. I kind of felt like I was losing my identity, were right when I was, you know, kind of known as the guy that got shot.

I understand. So, you know, fast forward six years. And I see in the newspapers it's going to be a show, you know, with David Berkowitz being interviewed. And, you know, Maury, recurring question, Berkowitz specifically about my shooting. And he said, no, that he didn't do it. You know, he said, you know, dead. And he said yes. And he said, you know, a woman, a woman shot Carl and I was blown away.

Yes. That was that was kind of like well, after a while, you know, circumstantial evidence starts to add up and it can't be a coincidence anymore.

If you could speak to David Berkowitz, what would you ask him? If I got to talk to Berkowitz's? You know, I know this no upside. And you telling the authorities everything because they would have to put you in lockdown for your own protection, but. You know, if you're sorry for what you did, like your wife, why don't you come clean and give closure to myself and the other victims that survived, you know, take words out of his mouth?

You know, he would do anything he could to take back what happened back in 76 and 77. And, you know, and I do but I do believe that he got wrapped up into something that some kind of, you know, grabbed grabbed a hold of them and before he realized that it was too late.

Hey, Dave, if the son of could talk to the son of Sam, like if you could have a talk with the son of Sam, what would you say to him? What would you say to him? Well, he was a very busy and troubled and tormented person. So that man is dead and gone. And I would say good riddance, you know, because. Yeah, because I came into a family that loved me and raised me with everything that they possibly could, you know, to provide for me.

I came from a loving home and there was really no reason for these things to happen. But they did. And so all that darkness, all that evil or whatever you want to call it, that's no longer part of my life. And people don't have to believe that. But I know it's true. And that's that's what I know in my heart.

Let me ask you one last question is in this one minute, Dave, do you have any remorse for your crimes? Oh, absolutely. Yeah, I'm so grieved by so much pain and torment and and God is comforting my heart, he but it's over with. It's done. You're a new person today, you know. And so, yeah, that's something I will never forget. Never stop grieving.

You can call me tomorrow. That'll be great. OK, well, bye now. Got to go. New York City was in a constant state of fear during this summer, they called the Summer of Sam or David Berkowitz was terrifying. The entire community in attacking the community, killing its citizens, living at that time had to be a very scary time and people had to be afraid to go out.

We continue our conversations with David Berkowitz, known as The Son of Sam, and now calls himself the Son of Hope.

Typically, I conduct these interviews through a series of short phone calls since inmates are only allowed a certain amount of phone time. Also, we talk to Dr. Beth Krio about the psychology behind David's alleged transformation in prison.

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We are talking to David Berkowitz, and this is a very different kind of interview that we're used to doing on this show, David Berkowitz is one of the most notorious serial killers in American history. He is still alive today from the son of Sam to the son of hope, which is what he refers to himself as.

But is he a changed man? You had a pretty loving parents, but you were adopted.

Have you ever I mean, I've seen you sat and thought about this. How do you go from a bouncing baby boy to the to the crimes you committed? What happened to you in that process? What was the reason?

Well, I really feel that the adoption had nothing to do with with what had unfolded. My my struggle was when I was told maybe about four or five years old, I was told that I was adopted. And, you know, my parent my adoptive parents, of course, meant well, I don't fault them in anything they did, but I couldn't understand what was happening. I said to my dad, well, why why did this happen? He said, your mom died while giving childbirth, giving birth to you and your dad couldn't keep you.

So he put you up for adoption. And we were searching for a child. You long for a child. And we found out you were we took you. And that was very nice, believe me, that this is a wonderful, tender hearted, loving thing. But one of the things that I realized and many, many years later, it began to dawn on me that all my self-destructive behavior patterns and lashing out and all these other things were because I had guilt, thinking I had somehow caused the death of my mother.

I remember talking, looking up at the sky, saying, God, why did you let me live and why did you let my mom die? And on and on. But I found out about 20 years later that that story was not true. The my adoptive parents meant well, but have professionals at that time told, you know, that's what you say to a kid whenever he asked you, OK. So I went to a lot of like suicidal, self-destructive behavior, struggle with depression in my youth.

Sometimes it got things got really bad. But, you know, my adoptive parents were always there for me, but I had a lot of guilt, which turned out to be false guilt because that never happened. They met years later. I met my birth mother. I looked her up. I found her. It's a long story, but I found her. I after I got out of the army, I searched for her and that we had a wonderful, wonderful meeting.

She was a she is she was such a sweetheart. She's not alive anymore. This is a long time. This is over forty years ago. But she was a great, great person and I miss her very much too. So really, I was blessed with two moms. You know, my birth mother, whom I met I didn't even know existed till in the seventies. And then, of course, my adoptive mother. So it's a whole long story.

Yeah.

Do you see many serial killers or even teen killers who are adopted? Is there any pattern here or is it completely unrelated?

Adoption is definitely in the makeup of some teen killers, school shooters and serial killers.

It is not a very prevalent or prominent trait, but it's just it's just there it's part of the instability, an unstable upbringing being rejected growing up. So it's not a huge trait, but it's there.

David, when you were growing up, were there any warning signs where people could have spotted them? Like, were you setting fires or cruel to animals? Were there anything like that that you expressed that people could have said, we need to get David Berkowitz some help?

Well, actually, yeah, when I was in school, I was a real I was kind of a behavioral behavior problem. I caused a lot of aggravation for my teachers. This was in public school and they called in my parents and said, listen, your child has to go to, you know, make arrangements to go to a child psychologist if he's not going to keep them in the school with all this disruptive behavior. I was hyperactive. I had attention deficit disorder, which back then was even recognized everything I said I would do it, getting getting up, running around the classroom, disrupting things was considered a behavioral problem or problem and disciplinary problems.

So I got punished a lot. But yeah, my parents were desperate. They took me to a child psychologist every Saturday for about two years during the school year and when school was in session. And, you know, they they try to help me that way and to meet the demands of the school officials to let me stay there. But it really had no effect.

You know, did you set fires growing up? Well, yeah, when I was a kid, I had a lot of anger and I wasn't even aware of that then, but I did. And I want to say a lot, but enough and there's a lot of vandalism and things like that. And, you know, even with my friends, we run around and do mischief. It was a pretty every kind of group in a bad area. Soundview section of the Bronx.

If anyone's familiar with this, it's not the nicest. But, you know, it was it is worse. Well, you know, it is.

You know, David Berkowitz did have some behaviors that we see in serial killers growing up. He claims he didn't participate in animal cruelty, the bedwetting, voyeurism, peeping toms, sexual assault. But he did like to set fires. And some people have claimed he set hundreds of fires throwing out. We also know he comes from a dysfunctional family. He comes from an unstable family. Right. There was instability there. That's a very big part of the raising of a serial killer in stability.

And he was adopted and he thought his mother died when she gave birth. And there's a lot of instability there. There are three traits the FBI talks about called the homicidal triad or the McDonald triad. If your child is displaying any of these three behaviors, they could become a serial killer. And those behaviors include bedwetting, fires, starting and animal cruelty. In my opinion, animal cruelty is the worst. So, Dave, do you feel like you're reformed?

And do you feel if you were released today, you would be able to live in the general public?

Well, that's an excellent question. I don't like to use the word reform, OK? I like to use the word trick transformed because when a person comes, puts their faith in Christ, they're there, they're transformed. It's a slow process outwardly, but inwardly it begins right at that moment to receive Christ. So I feel that No. One, I'm transformed and no to the only threat I would be is a threat to the devil.

Is there a chance, Dave, that you could be released? I mean, are you up for parole? Oh, well, it comes up every two years. But, you know, that would be a miracle of God.

And I just wanted to add to that that even if I were to stay in prison for the rest of my natural life, I would continue to serve the Lord and do what I could from in here, even though it's limited and difficult to get certain things done. I'll do the best I can. I've been doing that for 30 plus years as a Christian. And, you know, as I said, I've been incarcerated to 43 years.

So, you know, Phil, I know you're a skeptic, too, with a lot of this stuff, but my feeling is once you've murdered people, especially the way that David Berkowitz did, there's no going back. You know, maybe he feels bad a little, but could you really change that much after you've done horrible, horrible things? You know, I can't imagine one day walking down the street being like, oh, my God, Son of Sam.

Or none of those people are like, now he's a son of a bitch.

Do you think that David Berkowitz is really reformed? You know, David Berkowitz is different than somebody who rapes, tortures, Dismembers, sodomizes necrophiliacs. He doesn't partake in any of those typical serial killer behaviors, not saying he can be rehabilitated. There's no guarantee he would walk up on people and shoot them and flee. He's more like a school shooter or a mass murderer. Do you think there's any chance David Berkowitz would be released? I don't think there's any chance David Berkowitz will ever be paroled.

His case is too infamous and his crimes are too shocking. We are now joined by clinical psychologist Dr. Beth Creel, a certified grief specialist specializing in death, loss and PTSD. Hey, Dr. Creel, thanks for coming on. My pleasure that you're familiar with David Berkowitz. He claims he found God in prison. He's remorseful. I've actually known him for some time. He also told me that if he's released, he would be able to live in a normal society.

My question for you is, do you think someone who's committed these kind of crimes, could he be reformed and could he make it on the outside after being in prison for 40 years?

I'm not quite sure about that, Phil.. I think that remorse is a very personal emotion. But I think the question here should be more about rehabilitated, not necessarily remorseful, because if he's rehabilitated, this is when we actually see actions change and remorse, when we see emotions change.

As far as I'm concerned, as a professional, serial killing is an addiction. And there's an interesting saying that you don't pick something of value away from somebody unless you can replace it with something equal or greater value. So is that God? Is that religion? We've just taken away his killing and we've replaced it with God or he's replaced it with God. Another interesting point is that we in psychology refer to things called triggers. And so something to ask yourself, certainly I've asked myself is if David Berkowitz was to get out of prison and live, quote unquote, in normal society because he has been rehabilitated and he is remorseful because of post-traumatic stress and things that we have experienced in our past, there is different kinds of triggers that can set us off again.

So a smell is a huge trigger. Fear is a trigger, sound is a huge trigger. And so we have to be very sure that if he were to come out of prison and live in a normal society, that these triggers don't influence him in any way to go back to an old state of mind. And the unfortunate part about that is that we would never know that until we were to him. Yeah, exactly. David Berkowitz is up for parole every two years right now.

Do you think this could be an act trying to fool the prison system or the parole board?

Well, I think that whenever we're looking at anyone coming up for parole, there's always the chance of them pulling the system. Unfortunately, they're in the prison system because they've done something wrong and they were caught because they did something wrong. And so where is the trust factor here? I think that there has to be as a defense mechanism, there has to be some form of repression. You have to repress and depress these bad, bad, bad, ugly, dark thoughts somewhere.

And that's another question that some of my colleagues would ask. Where are those thoughts? They don't just disappear. Just because you don't want to talk about them doesn't mean that those dark thoughts disappear. So in order to trust this, I would assume that there have to be people on the parole panel that have seen some kind of incredible change within this man.

And trust that David Berkowitz told me he's that he was the son of Sam, but now he's the son of hope. In his mind, the son of Sam and son of Hope are two different people. Have you ever seen this before? And is this something normal people can do?

Well, they can certainly split their minds into the old and the new. We know that. I mean, you and I can do that. So it's possible that he's taken his old state of mind and he has put it in a place where he is now replacing that with a new way of thinking. I do think that it's possible. But again, I would question as a professional the level of rehabilitation that he has gotten in order to become remorseful.

Remorse does not just happen overnight. Remorse. This is where you have to address what you've done, feel some guilt, feel some pretty bad feelings, and go to bad places emotionally in order to pull yourself out of those bad places. And I would also question how he went from negative thinking to positive thinking and how we can trust it.

Well, Dr. Beth Crill, thanks so much. We appreciate you taking the time out there in Las Vegas. Thank you. Feel good luck. If you didn't commit the crimes you did when you were a young man, what do you think you would have done today if was there some way, like a job or the family?

What would you what do you think you would have been doing today if it wasn't for this?

Yeah, I would probably be retired right now. I was working for the Postal Service and I probably would have been married with kids and raising a family because that's what I always hoped for. When I got out of the service, I saved up some money. I did three years in the army. I got out, got my own apartment. I was hoping to one day, you know, get married. And just the typical American dream, you know, real simple.

David is talking about how if he didn't lose his way, he would probably have a family and a job. But the truth is, he ruined many people's lives and families.

He did. And it's easy to say if I didn't do this, I might be living this kind of a lifestyle.

But he did a lot of damage. His crime spree did a lot of damage and did ruin a lot of people's lives. And that's that's something that I never forget doing my work. I understand who I'm talking to. I understand the crimes that these people commit. My goal is to help people understand what makes these people tick. How can we stop them when they're young? How can we equip law enforcement to arrest them quicker before more people die? And how can we close more cases?

And how can we get more confessions? And how could we bring closure for more families?

Hi, I'm Gengel Jared, I created a podcast called Occupational Therapy with my friends at NYU School of the Arts as an artist in residence in my former occupation, I was the biggest jingle writer of all time. Now I'm looking for a new job, speaking to every entrepreneur that I can find so I can find out what it's like to transition from one career to another. This podcast is a virtual masterclass for anyone looking to expand their knowledge of how to be an entrepreneur in the media space.

In it, I speak with many multi hyphenate personalities that span sports, television, music and journalism. Every single person in this podcast is a disruptor and innovator and have left a major dent in their part of the universe. I'm Jared Goosestep and this is occupational therapy. Listen on the I Heart radio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. We're talking to David Berkowitz, the Son of Sam, who now calls himself the Son of Hope.

So far, we've learned a bit about David's troubled childhood, the effect of his adopted mother's death, the discovery that his biological mother did not die giving birth but was still alive, all of which could have contributed to his mental state leading up to this killing spree. Hello, we are speaking to David Berkowitz. Dave, a lot of people talk about you and messages from a dog when you were younger and in the midst of all this. And you and I talked about this when I first met you, you said that was not that that didn't happen.

It was your attorneys or some. Tell us that story set the record straight.

People continue to talk about you in a barking dog. Tell us the story. Right.

Well, that's that's again, you know, a lot of media stuff. There's so much in the media. It's misinformation, facts that have been blended with fiction and people, the so-called experts, to give their own opinions and on and on. But at the time, I was suffering from, I believe, some very serious mental disturbances. And I was under had delusions about things. And also I feel that I was under some degree of demonic oppression.

And I know a lot of people would wish that they'd shake their head. But I feel that that's a part of reality. And that was it was a demonic stronghold in my life. So I couldn't see or understand stand things clearly. And that seemed very real. So, I mean, what can I say? It was a delusion. It was craziness. It was a whole bunch of stuff mixed into one. But of course, it gets played up and exaggerated to a silly degree.

Right. I mean, you know, that's the way it goes here.

So there was a story that broke that David Berkowitz was getting messages from a barking dog.

Right. That's the story that everyone knows of, the barking dog, the neighbor's dog that was demonic and giving him messages to go kill. Right.

Who a demonic stronghold. Couldn't all these killers be essentially possessed by the devil? And David Berkowitz really does believe the devil had him under his control. Yeah.

I mean, a lot of people could say they're controlled by the devil, but we don't hear that very often. That is not something I hear from serial killers. The devil made me do it. It's pretty rare. And usually we only hear that if someone is converted or religious or, you know, reformed or whatever, Charles Tex Watson would say the same thing, one of Manson's followers. So, no, that is not something I hear very often.

And it is pretty unique to a serial killer.

Do you ever have any urges to hurt anybody, to kill anybody today? How do you just explain that to the public? Do you ever have those kind of urges? No, no, no, those are gone, right? Yeah, those those I know are gone. Everybody here knows me. I get along with all the inmates I'm in the general population, don't have any problems. I just blend in with the crowd and, you know, get involved in chapel activities and things like that.

I'm not I don't think about hurting people, you know. Hey, Dave, they named us.

They named a law after you, the Son of Sam law. It's a pretty famous thing. And people talk about it almost weekly. I hear it all the time. What is your thoughts on this law that was named after you?

Well, I mean, it's understandable because people had a sense of outrage and let's say if a person committed a crime and it turned out to be like an infamous case or something, where there's, you know, media interest and that sort of thing, people will be loath to think that someone could profit financially, a person who did it, the perpetrator could profit financially by doing something like that. But I've never done that. In spite of whatever news stories that have come out over the years which are inaccurate.

I have never sold my story. I you know, I work with a man whose crime victims advocate in Houston, Texas. We communicate from time to time. And I don't have any I'm not opposed to that law.

But Phil, can you explain the son of Sam law, the son of Sam law is a law that says you cannot profit from your crimes. So for some reason, they call it the Son of Sam Law. But David Berkowitz said, ironically, I never tried to profit off my crimes, but they named it after me.

The Son of Sam law says you can't, like, get a book deal. You can't get paid to do something and it limits inmates for making money. The problem is inmates can make money. There's a way around that law. So what the inmates will do is they'll just have other people get paid and then those people put money on their books. So there is a very loyal following. There is a very large group of people that are fans of serial killers.

They are groupies. They want to marry them. They want to date them. They want their saliva. They want their hair. They want a lot more personal things from them. And there's a group of people that will spend money on anything that a serial killer touches. I can't believe that's happening today, but there's an underbelly of a serial killer world that is out there and exists.

Next, our final interviews with David Berkowitz, conducted by my wife, Wendy. Wendy interviews him to try to find out more about the son of Sam, a subject he rarely talks about.

OK, here's Wendy, my wife, and I won't let you talk to her.

Right. That sounds fine. Hi, David. How are you? Oh, what the hell are you. I am good.

So you have some questions or something to ask me.

So there are a few things I just want to ask you. I had wondered if if you were never caught, would you still be committing the crimes that you were committing before?

I think well, it's always you can never say anything with certainty, but something like that. But I think that more than likely, because eventually back in my own life, that I say that because I was a very tormented person, even though outwardly I was seeming to get along in society, holding a job in this and that inwardly I was coming apart, I think that would have been it would have been just a matter of time before somehow I may have taken my own life when I felt that really, if not for God's mercy, I don't know where I would I would be.

So let's say today is your last day in prison. And you're going to be released tomorrow. What do you do? Well, first of all, I would definitely gather with my brothers from my Christian fellowship because we have a small but very faithful and loving fellowship of believers. I would definitely want to say good bye to them, pray with them, give them some words, encouragement to continue on to serve God, even in these difficult circumstances. And I would rejoin I would join up with my friends on the outside and would just get involved in whatever ministry work God could have me to do.

Maybe my dream would be, of course, if that was reality, my dream would be reaching, talking in schools to youth groups, churches, jails, prisons, just sharing the love of God and trying to give a cautionary tale to young people who think they are invincible and can do what they want and never think of consequences. I would tell them about prison life. And yeah, if you were going to commit a crime, listen, you're doing the most foolish and reckless thing.

You're destroying your life. You just don't know what you don't see the whole picture. But I will be a voice of warning and caution and as well as hope.

If you could tell me one thing that happened to the most from their life of crime, but of course, taking taking innocent lives, harming other people. You know, my parents gave me so much love. They they put their life into me and so forth. And I know that they were my dad was alive at the time, is haunted by that, and I'm haunted by that. And as I said, I wish I could somehow take it all back, but that's not possible.

You know, we can't go back in time and undo certain things. OK, Phil, I mean, these interviews have been so interesting and fascinating, but the question is, do you think that there's a possibility that David Berkowitz will ever be able to redeem his murderous past?

My answer to that is no. I believe David Berkowitz, his case is so infamous. He's one of the top 10 serial killers. He would be going down in this serial killer hall of Fame. So I don't think David Berkowitz will ever outlive his crime spree. I don't think people will ever forget about it, especially in New York City. And it'll be very, very tough for him if he ever did get paroled to break away from his troubled past.

Is it possible for a serial killer to be rehabilitated? Could we release a serial killer? I think he's going to make it in society. These are the kind of questions we bring up on this episode. And it's very interesting to think about those things. Thanks for listening. And please take the time to write and review this podcast.

This podcast is produced by Gridding Dog Entertainment and Audio Up.

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Hi there, my name is John Paul Kurumi, I am a breastwork teacher. I'm really excited to be doing this new podcast with my good friend Foully called Hanga. That's right. I'm John Feldman. I'm in a band called Gold. Singer John Paul taught me breath work that changed my life. We're talking about solutions to problems today.

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