In the early hours of July 29, 1976, 18-year-old medic-in-training Donna Lauria and her friend Jody Valenti, then a 19-year-old nurse, were sitting in Valenti’s blue two-door Oldsmobile Cutlass in the Bronx, after a night dancing at a disco. Without warning, a man approached their vehicle, pulled a gun from a paper bag, and fired multiple shots, striking Lauria in the back and killing her instantly. Valenti was shot and wounded in her leg, but survived the attack. This brutal and seemingly random crime marked the beginning of a violent spree of attacks that would keep a terrified New York on edge for more than a year until David Berkowitz, originally known as the “.44 Caliber Killer” because of his weapon of choice, was captured by authorities in August 1977.
Berkowitz later became notoriously known as the “Son of Sam” serial killer, after the pen name with which he signed letters he left at the scenes of his crimes for police or mailed to journalists. In 1978, he was convicted of the murders of two men and four women, ranging in age from 18 to 25, and sentenced to six consecutive life sentences in prison, which he is still serving.
The Son of Sam Tapes, the fourth chapter in the Conversations with a Killer series, revisits the killings that haunted New York during an already tumultuous period of crime and underinvestment. The series delves into the mind and troubled past of Berkowitz, featuring newly unearthed audio interviews recorded with him by reporter Jack Jones in 1980 at Attica Correctional Facility in Wyoming County, New York.
Alongside interviews with detectives, journalists, and survivors of Berkowitz’s attacks, the three-part series offers new insights into the investigation and the enduring impact of Berkowitz’s crimes on the local community. The series is directed and produced by Emmy-winning and Academy Award-nominated director Joe Berlinger (Cold Case: Jon Benet Ramsey, Crime Scene: The Texas Killing Fields, and Hitler and the Nazis: Evil on Trial).
“At the heart of Conversations with a Killer lies a commitment to unraveling the complex minds of notorious criminals while providing a space for those closest to the crimes to find closure,” Berlinger tells Netflix. “With The Son of Sam Tapes, we delve into the world of David Berkowitz and his chilling influence on 1970s New York City. These rare tapes reveal unnerving insights into his psyche, shedding light on the intricate details of the case and the pervasive fear that gripped the city. Through these tapes, we hope to not only revisit history, but to bring clarity and depth to a narrative that has long intrigued and unsettled the public.”
The three-part docuseries premiered on July 30, 2025.
Get a glimpse inside the mind of David Berkowitz and hear from those closest to the case in the trailer at the top of the page.
Before being identified, the “.44 Caliber Killer” was also known as the “Son of Sam” for the signature he left on letters at crime scenes and sent to media outlets. After Berkowitz was apprehended and put on trial, he claimed that his neighbor’s dog, named Sam, was possessed by a demon and commanded him to kill. In the 1980 audio interviews featured in the series, Berkowitz reveals that he fabricated this story to create confusion and evade capture. He later admitted that the story was a ruse to manipulate the media and law enforcement.
While “[Berkowitz] was a master manipulator of the media…he is emblematic of isolation, loneliness, feeling unimportant, and gaining importance through getting attention,” Berlinger tells Tudum.
To hear Berlinger’s takeaways from his interview with Berkowitz, head over to the You Can’t Make This Up Podcast. “He’s the one killer who is alive that we’ve profiled [in the Conversations with a Killer series],” Berlinger told host Rebecca Lavoie. “I said, if you could go back…what would you say to young David of this era?”
Berkowitz was captured by authorities in August 1977, confessed to the murders and was sentenced to six consecutive life sentences in 1978. When his year-long killing spree came to a close, it became a defining moment at the intersection of public interest, media, and true crime.
Despite Berkowitz's confession and conviction, conspiracy theories have persisted over the years, suggesting that there may have been multiple perpetrators involved in the “Son of Sam” killings. This theory, popularized by journalist Maury Terry in his book The Ultimate Evil, posits that Berkowitz was part of a satanic cult and that other members were also responsible for some of the murders.
“We live in an era of conspiracy theory,” Berlinger says. “[Terry’s] book was part of a number of things that happened in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s that fueled this phenomenon called The Satanic Panic that destroyed and trapped a lot of people…my most well-known work is the Paradise Lost trilogy, about the West Memphis Three case, and that was all about Satanic Panic, and so the Son of Sam conspiracy theory that grew out of the 1987 book — that whole movement was incredibly destructive to people's lives.”
“If you look at the facts, nobody died after Berkowitz was put in prison,” Berlinger concludes. “None of the forensics pointed to another suspect involved.”
The Son of Sam case, Berlinger says, “is a way to understand how the modern true crime genre was born. We had media manipulation from a killer, we had fear-driven politics…Son of Sam was the first modern case that engaged with the media in this way…this is a seminal case in the history of true crime.”
Conversations with a Killer: The Son of Sam Tapes is streaming on Netflix.
