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Caught by a Parking Ticket: The Night NYC's Terror Ended
Audio is available on Spreaker — see link below.
The .44 Caliber Killer terrorized New York City for thirteen months — until a parking ticket and a witness brought it all crashing down. This chapter traces Berkowitz's invisible double life, the Breslin letter, and the August 1977 arrest that stunned a city.
Audio is available on Spreaker — see link below.
The most dangerous thing about David Berkowitz wasn't the gun. It was the routine.
To understand how Berkowitz operated undetected, you need to understand what New York City looked like in the summer of nineteen seventy-seven. The city was already wounded.
Over the following months, the attacks continued. Berkowitz used the same weapon every time: a forty-four caliber Bulldog revolver.
In April of nineteen seventy-seven, the case shifted into something the city had never quite seen. A letter arrived at the desk of Jimmy Breslin, a columnist at the Daily News.
On July thirty-first, nineteen seventy-seven, Berkowitz shot Stacy Moskowitz in Brooklyn. She was nineteen years old and blonde.
The arrest didn't just close the case. It opened up everything investigators hadn't known while he was free.
In May of nineteen seventy-eight, Berkowitz withdrew his insanity defense. He pleaded guilty to six murders.
The through-line of this episode is about what ordinary life allows. Berkowitz killed six people and wounded seven others over thirteen months.
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