The parking ticket that led police to David Berkowitz's car — and the confession that followed
A witness to the final shooting described a car parked nearby.
That description led police to a parking ticket issued in Yonkers.
The ticket was in the name of David Berkowitz.
The exact wording of the ticket is not in the record.
The precise time it was issued is not in the record either.
But the ticket was the hinge.
After months of false leads and public panic, it was a scrap of paper that broke the case.
Officers went to Berkowitz's apartment in Yonkers.
They found a rifle in his car.
They arrested him.
He later confessed to all the shootings.
He provided details that matched the crime scenes.
It is a mundane object.
It is also the weight of a manhunt.
A parking ticket, issued for a car sitting where a witness said it sat.
Not because of a demonic dog.
Not because of taunting letters.
Because of a ticket.
That would require evidence, and the evidence was the ticket.
The ticket led to the car.
The car led to the rifle.
The rifle led to the confession.
The confession matched the scenes.
The record does not establish the ticket's exact words or its exact minute.
It establishes the path.
THE FIRST SHOTS
It began with a car parked on a quiet Bronx street.
On July 29, 1976, a gunman fired into that car, killing Donna Lauria, 18, and wounding her friend Jody Valenti, 19.
The case summary records it as the first attack.
There would be six dead and seven wounded between that night and July 31, 1977.
Most of the targets were young couples sitting in parked cars.
The randomness was the terror.
A couple in Queens. A couple in Brooklyn. A couple in the Bronx again.
The record does not itemize the exact dates of each intermediate shooting beyond the first and the last.
What the record does show is a city losing its certainty.
The killer wrote letters.
One was addressed to columnist Jimmy Breslin, and it was signed "Son of Sam."
Police chased false leads.
The public panic grew.
Every parked car became a question.
Was that shadow a man with a .44?
Was that engine a getaway?
The killer kept moving.
Queens, Brooklyn, the Bronx — the geography of fear spread across boroughs.
The case summary lists the names: a woman killed in January, a man wounded beside her.
A woman killed in March.
A woman killed in April, her companion wounded.
Two more wounded in June.
Each attack was a fresh wound in the city's sense of safety.
The letters kept coming.
The signature stayed the same.
"Son of Sam."
Police had a name for the killer, but no face.
That would require evidence.
The first attack was almost a year behind them when the final night came.
THE FINAL NIGHT
The final attack came on July 31, 1977, in Brooklyn.
It killed a woman and wounded a man, according to the case summary.
A witness to that shooting described a car parked nearby.
That description led police to trace a parking ticket.
The ticket belonged to David Berkowitz, a 24-year-old postal worker in Yonkers.
Officers went to his apartment and found a rifle in his car, according to the investigation evidence.
They arrested him on August 10, 1977, outside that apartment.
Ten days had passed since the last shooting.
Months of false leads had collapsed into a single parking ticket.
Berkowitz confessed to all the shootings.
He confessed to writing the taunting letters, including the one to columnist Jimmy Breslin.
He provided details that matched the crime scenes, the investigation evidence states.
The witness's name is not in the record.
The exact sequence of the arrest is not in the record either.
What the record shows is the acceleration: a description, a ticket, a rifle, a confession.
Police had a name for the killer.
Now they had his voice on tape, his signature in the letters, his rifle in evidence.
The case broke open in days.
It broke open because of a parking ticket, not because of a demonic dog.
That dog would come later, in the telling.
That would require evidence.
THE CONFESSION AND THE CLAIM
On May 8, 1978, David Berkowitz stood in a Brooklyn courtroom and pleaded guilty to all charges.
He had initially indicated a plea of not guilty by reason of insanity.
That was abandoned.
The plea was part of a deal that resulted in six consecutive life sentences, one for each murder.
The confession was on the record.
The details matched the crime scenes.
The letters were his.
Then the story changed.
Berkowitz later claimed that his insanity defense was a sham.
He said he had fabricated the story about demonic commands from Sam Carr's dog.
Did he believe in the commands?
Did he invent them?
Did he know the difference?
That would require evidence.
The record shows the confession and the guilty plea.
It does not show what Berkowitz believed.
It shows what he claimed, in court, and what he claimed later.
The demonic-dog story is his later claim, not established fact.
Whether he actually believed in the demonic commands is not established.
It is his own later claim that he fabricated it.
The parking ticket broke the case.
The confession sealed it.
The dog came later, in the telling.
AND THE STORY STILL ISN'T OVER
He is still there.
David Berkowitz remains in prison, serving six consecutive life sentences, one for each murder.
He has said he is sorry.
He has said it repeatedly, and he has become a born-again Christian while incarcerated.
Parole has been denied to him multiple times.
His most recent parole hearing ended in a denial.
When the next hearing will be is not in the record.
The case has not faded.
It remains one of the most studied serial killer investigations in American history.
Berkowitz has cooperated with some researchers and authors over the years.
He has answered questions about the shootings, about the letters, about the dog.
The dog.
The demonic commands were his later claim.
The record does not establish them.
The parking ticket broke the case.
The confession sealed it.
The dog came later, in the telling.
And the telling continues.
Researchers still study the investigation.
Authors still ask him questions.
He still answers, sometimes.
The streets of Queens and Brooklyn and the Bronx are quieter now.
The parked cars are just parked cars.
The story is a case file, a plea, a sentence.
It is also a man in a cell, waiting.
He has been denied parole multiple times.
His most recent parole hearing resulted in a denial.
That is where things stand.
That is the whole of the record.
The rest is what he said, and what he said later, and what the evidence did not prove.
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