An Urge to Kill

Son of Sam pleads guilty

Did you have a purpose?"

"To kill somebody."

"Did you have any particular person in mind?"

"No."

"What consequences did you expect?"

"That I'd be arrested and put in jail."

Speaking calmly and without hesitation, David Berkowitz, 24, also known as "Son of Sam," took just 21 minutes last week to complete the macabre litany required by Brooklyn Supreme Court Justice Joseph R. Corso. Its purpose: to establish Berkowitz's understanding of his plea and its consequences, regarding the yearlong spree of .44-cal. shootings that left six victims dead, seven wounded, and made Son of Sam a watchword of terror in New York City. Once the questioning was over, Justice Corso had established that the quiet former postal clerk understood the charges, and knew that what he had done was wrong. He then accepted the defendant's plea on the first of six counts of second-degree murder: guilty.

By convincing the judge that he was competent to plead and then admitting guilt, Berkowitz may have started a new series of legal developments. Both his defense lawyers protested his plea, saying that he was denying himself the chance to be found not guilty by reason of insanity. They promised to appeal, but first Berkowitz will probably be sentenced to from 25 years to life on each of the six counts next week.

Few killers in recent memory have seemed as psychotic as Berkowitz, who also called himself "The Duke of Death," "The Wicked King Wicker," "The Twenty-Two Disciples of Hell" and "John Wheaties, Rapist and Suffocator of Young Girls." When finally captured last August, Berkowitz explained that he received orders to kill via a black Labrador retriever. The messages actually came, he explained, from a 6,000-year-old demon reincarnated as Berkowitz's next-door neighbor, Sam Carr. He even may have been, in addition to his killings, a mass arsonist. Introduced in evidence at the hearing were the murderer's diaries listing 1,400 fires, most set in The Bronx between 1974 and his capture in 1977. While it was not established that he actually set them, Berkowitz told his lawyers that he did, and that the number of fires was closer to 2,000.

The self-declared killer's calm demeanor in court was evidently due, at least in part, to a religious conversion that he underwent while in custody. He had been visited in prison, at the behest of one court-appointed psychiatrist, by a Pentecostalist known as "Sister Smith"--Ollie Smith, 58, a beautician who serves part time as a volunteer prison worker. According to in camera testimony obtained by the New York Daily News, the psychiatrist described Berkowitz as "ecstatic, radiant, quoting Scripture right and left" after their talks. He also said that Berkowitz saw the guilty plea as a way to confess his "sins" and to avoid stirring up his personal demons again.

Under the terms of his probable sentence, Berkowitz will be eligible for release in 30 years. Such a prospect seems certain to increase support for proponents of the death penalty, who only two weeks ago failed by just one vote in the New York State senate to overturn Governor Hugh Carey's veto of a bill to reintroduce capital punishment. In that sense. Son of Sam and his demons may haunt New York for some time to come.

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