The parking ticket that led police to Son of Sam's door
The ticket was for parking, issued near one of the attacks.
It led officers to a car registered to David Berkowitz, a 24-year-old postal worker.
That was the breakthrough.
For a year, the investigation summary says, police struggled to connect the shootings.
The attacks spanned the Bronx, Queens, and Brooklyn.
They all came from a .44-caliber revolver.
Young couples in parked cars. Lone women. Six people killed, seven wounded.
No link between them, not at first.
The borough units did not coordinate.
Then a mundane piece of paper, a parking ticket, gave them a name and an address.
The exact location and date of that ticket are not in the record.
What is in the record: on August 10, 1977, police arrested Berkowitz outside his apartment in Yonkers.
He was 24. He worked for the post office.
The car was his. The gun, ballistics later matched, was his.
How did a ticket crack a case that had stumped the city for a year?
A car near the scene. A name on the registration. An address.
That would require evidence.
The record holds the ticket, the car, the arrest.
It does not hold the moment of recognition.
She was on the ground below the apartment. The street was ordinary.
The ticket was ordinary too.
THE FIRST SHOTS
The first attack came on July 29, 1976, in the Bronx.
Donna Lauria was killed and Jody Valenti was wounded as they sat in a car.
The shootings targeted young couples in parked cars and lone women.
They happened in the Bronx, in Queens, in Brooklyn.
One borough, then another, then another.
The same .44-caliber revolver, the source records, was used in each attack.
The shooter left taunting letters at crime scenes.
He left one with a newspaper columnist.
The letters called him "Son of Sam."
Police did not connect the dots quickly.
The shootings spanned boroughs, and the borough units did not talk to each other.
According to the investigation summary, a task force was formed only after the attacks escalated.
Not because the pattern was clear.
Because the pattern had become impossible to ignore.
The exact number of letters is not detailed in the source.
Their contents are not detailed either.
What is documented is the name: Son of Sam.
What is documented is the terror.
Six people would be killed, seven wounded, before the ticket.
That came later.
For now, the shooter moved between boroughs, and the investigation lagged behind him.
THE FINAL ATTACK
The final attack came on July 31, 1977, in Brooklyn.
It killed a young woman and wounded the man beside her.
The source names them in the record of what happened, but this section will not.
The shooting came just over a year after the first, a year that had already taken five lives.
Six people were dead now, and seven wounded total, the source reports.
The shooter left taunting letters, called himself "Son of Sam," and moved between boroughs while the investigation lagged.
Then came the ticket.
A parking ticket issued near one of the attacks led officers to a car registered to David Berkowitz.
Which attack? The source does not say.
The record does not identify the specific attack near which the ticket was issued.
That remains unestablished.
What the record does establish: ballistics matched the .44-caliber bullets to a revolver Berkowitz owned.
The bullet, the gun, the car, the name.
The pieces finally fit.
Berkowitz was arrested on August 10, 1977, outside his apartment in Yonkers.
The terror ended there, but the final victims paid for the delay.
The woman was on the ground below, and the man she was with was wounded beside her.
The ticket broke the case open; the gun tied it shut.
It took a year of shootings to get there, and a piece of paper to finish it.
THE CONFESSION
He confessed in detail to all the shootings.
The investigation summary records that confession, given after his arrest on August 10, 1977.
He also claimed a neighbor’s dog, possessed by demons, had ordered him to kill.
Prosecutors and psychiatrists treated that claim as a delusion.
The record does not establish the exact nature of the confession — whether it was videotaped or written.
That detail is simply not in the record.
Berkowitz later maintained that his demonic possession claims were a hoax.
He said so in later statements, according to where things stand.
No other suspects were publicly named.
No other suspects were publicly cleared.
The confession named one shooter, and one shooter only.
He was a 24-year-old postal worker.
He was the man the parking ticket led to.
He was the man the ballistics matched to the .44-caliber revolver.
The demon-dog story was bizarre.
The retraction was plain.
Which version was true?
Which version a jury might have heard?
That would require evidence.
There was no trial.
He pleaded guilty on May 8, 1978.
The confession closed the case.
The retraction opened a question.
The question remains unanswered in the record.
AND THE STORY STILL ISN'T OVER
Berkowitz pleaded guilty to all charges on May 8, 1978, in Kings County Supreme Court.
He was sentenced to 25 years to life for each of the six murders, served consecutively, plus additional terms for the attempted murders.
He waived his right to appeal.
No trial occurred.
The plea closed the case.
The sentence closed the courtroom.
It did not close the story.
Berkowitz has been incarcerated since 1977.
Initially at Attica Correctional Facility.
Later at Sullivan Correctional Facility in New York.
He has been denied parole multiple times.
Most recently, in 2023.
He has expressed remorse in later statements.
He has also maintained that his claims of demonic possession were a hoax.
The surviving victims and the families of the deceased have largely stayed out of public view.
Some have spoken at parole hearings.
They spoke to oppose his release.
Their voices continue where the verdict ended.
The specific parole hearing dates and outcomes beyond 2023 are not in the record.
What remains is not a question of guilt.
That was settled by the plea.
What remains is the weight of the sentence, and the people who carry it.
The sentence is life.
The pain is not over.
It is not established when the next hearing will come.
It is not established what the parole board will decide.
It is established that six people are dead.
It is established that seven were wounded.
It is established that one man pleaded guilty to all of it.
That is the record.
The record does not include an ending.
It includes a sentence, a waiver, and a long corridor of denied releases.
She was on the ground below — that was the first victim, and the pattern held.
The confession closed the case.
The retraction opened a question.
The question remains unanswered in the record.
The story still isn't over.
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