March Madness: Son of Sam, Pt. 1
Our month-long look at insanity continues with a peek at one of the most insane people who ever lived and died — David Berkowitz, better known as Son of Sam. He is one of the most infamous serial killers of the 20th century.
He also heard voices and experienced religious mania, which is are symptoms of psychosis. Although most mentally ill people are not a harm to others, Berkowitz was a major exception. It is important to note that his first symptoms of being a psychopathic killer was killing his mother’s pet parakeet. Animal abuse is always the first sign, which is is why that madness needs to be taken more seriously as it is.
His real name was Richard Davd Falco. He was an unwanted baby, which makes it a real shame that abortion was not legal in 1953. The world certainly would have been better without him. He was told that his mother died during childbirth and he felt guilty for that. When his adoptive mother died of breast cancer when he was 12, he felt somehow that he killed her, too.
He was adopted by a loving Jewish couple, the Berkowitzes. By all accounts, he had a decent childhood by a couple who really wanted a kid. It didn’t do him any good. He considered himself a failure in anything he did, including a stint in the Army and studying religion.
Unfortunately, he discovered the truth about his mother when he was 21:
This was the final spark to set off his arsonistic and homicidal streaks. To see true madness, look at this clip of a January, 2009 interview with the aged and ordained Son of Sam:
March 11th, 2009 at 8:44 pm
[...] set my mind off into these unstoppable whirlwinds of thoughts. Yesterday, it was doing a post on YouTube Digger about David [...]
March 11th, 2009 at 10:00 pm
[...] to other people with racing thoughts. Mine eventually go away. I was reminded of this when I did a post on David Berkowitz and have had racing thoughts ever since. I had to take a Benadryl (a decongestant) in order to get [...]