44 Serial Killer Research Paper

It wasn’t until the final murder, the death of Stacy Moskowitz and brutal attack of Robert Violate where police officers had the most eye witness help. It was from this case, that the Son of Sam serial killer was eventually caught. David Berkowitz was interrogated for about 30 minutes before he willingly admitted that he was the Son of Sam. (Aden 2014)

According to the “Hare Psycopathy Checklist” a psychopath is a person who knows right from wrong in our society but often feels no guilt, remorse or empathy when they engage in wrong actions. They lie easily, blame others for their actions and often hurt people who are close to them. David Berkowitz meets the criteria of Hare’s checklist and is believed to be a true psychopath. Berkowitz is known as the “Son of Sam”, a thrill seeking serial killer who terrorized the city of New York for over a year. Information about David Berkowitz’s background, personality traits and lifestyle and his serial killer profile help to prove that he is in fact a psychopath. In conclusion, this essay will prove to readers that David Berkowitz is a notorious

On September 9, 1995, two officers Nolan and Harvey worked as uniformed officers in special operations for the Chicago Police Department. The expectations for entering this area was to find a crowd of people in the area, including lookouts and customers. Upon arriving to the area, Officer Nolan observed Wardlow standing next to a building holding an opaque bag. Wardlow looked in the direction of the officers and fled. Nolan and Harvey pursued in chase and cornered Wardlow on the street. Nolan exits the car and approaches Wardlow, and conducted a protective pat down search for weapons. In doing so, Officer Nolan found a .38-caliber handgun with five live rounds of ammunition. The officers arrested Wardlow. Wardlow was convicted of unlawful use of a weapon by a felon.

A serial killer is traditional defined as the separate killings of three or more people by an individual over a certain period of time, usually with breaks between the murders. (Angela Pilson, p. 2, 2011) This definition has been accepted by both the police and academics and therefore provides a useful frame of reference (Kevin Haggerty, p.1, 2009). The paper will seek to provide the readers with an explanation of how serial killers came to be and how they are portrayed in the media.

David Berkowitz and Jack the Ripper were two completely different types of killers, but they

From 1976 to 1977 David Berkowitz terrorized the New York City area with a string of murders. With his Charter Arms Bulldog 44 Berkowitz killed six people and wounded seven in eight different shootings throughout New York, because of his weapon the news called him "The .44 Caliber Killer" however he eventually dubbed himself with the name “Son of Sam” after sending taunting letters to both the NYC police and renowned journalist Jimmy Breslin One of the first letters that Berkowitz sent that referred to himself as the Son of Sam said, “But I am a monster. I am “the Son of Sam.” I am a little “brat”” throughout these letters David Berkowitz continued to refer to himself a the son of sam.

4. Serial killers also show signs of a psychopath though this is not always the case. Psychopaths lack empathy and guilt, are egocentric and impulsive and don’t conform to social, moral, or legal norms. Psychopaths have a distinct set of rules for themselves. They appear normal and are often very charming and charismatic.

Richard Kuklinski was a convicted murderer and contract killer who was born on April 11 in 1935. Kuklinski claims to have killed over 200 people over the course of his “career” during 1949 to 1986. At first, he would simply kill people who annoyed him, got on his nerves, or who he ‘needed’ to kill. When the mob caught wind of a man who killed as frivolously as Kuklinski, they began to hire him out as a contract killer. He lived in New Jersey and New York and committed most of his crimes in that area. In 1988, he was caught and sentenced to life in prison -- he later died in prison in March of 2006

Wuornos’ 6th victim was 50-year old delivery driver named Eugene Burress. A few days after being pronounced missing, his work truck along with his body was found by a family picnicking. He had been shot twice with a .22-calibre pistol. A month later, former police chief Dick Humphrey was reported missing by his wife. A week later his body was found in Marion County. He had been shot seven times with a .22 pistol. After two months, the Wuornos’ eighth victim, a 60-year-old truck driver named Walter Antonio body was found in Dixie Count, naked on the side of the road. Examiners concluded he was, shot three times in the back and once in the head, also with a .22 firearm and has been dead less than 24 hours (Reynolds, 2004).

David Berkowitz murder spree began in late July in 1976 when he killed Donna Lauria and injured Jody Valenti while they were sitting in Valenti’s car in the Bronx area (Biography.com Editors, 2017, para. 4). Berkowitz shot at both of them with his .44 caliber handgun around 1:00 am.

Kachellek, Adam Heyer, John May, Albert Weinshank, Reinhardt Schwimmer, and Frank Gusenburg who made it to the hospital where the Chicago PD attempted to question him. When asked who shot him, his reply was “no one shot me.” Police say he had 4 bullet wounds. He died late last night in the hospital.

Berkowitz by mere chance. If it were not for a witness on his first murder he might have been able to keep killing and get away. The witness said that she saw a man walking by a female with his arm unusually as if hiding an object in his sleeve. She was able to recall a police officer putting a ticket on a car and it happened to be Mr. Berkowitz car. The officers were wondering why this man was 25 miles away from his house at 2:30 am. When the officers approached Mr. Berkowitz he pleaded guilty before they actually had a chance to thoroughly question him.” Rothman, L. (2015, August 10). How the Son of Sam Serial Killer Was Finally Caught. Retrieved August 30, 2015, from

There were ten victims killed by Dennis Rader between 1974 and 1991, the first four of these being killed on one night. Rader created a nickname for himself the BTK killer; he chose this name because of the style in which he killed his victims, which involved binding, torturing and killing his female victims. He had many other aliases, most of which were self named. These included The Wichita Strangler, The Poetic Strangler and The Asphyxiater just to name a few. Rader talked about his need for acknowledgment and tormented the police by sending notes, poems, pictures and puzzles explaining his crimes in graphical detail. Rader took breaks from killing around the times both his children were born as he didn’t have the free time he needed to

The statistics that are acquired for the "justifiable homicides" list is done so by letting the 17,000 law enforcement agencies choose whether or not to self-report any case involving an officer shooting a firearm. The list has not been published since 2013, the previous 5 years to that, the numbers that were stated came to be an average of around 400 justifiable homicides a year. So if the list is incomplete, the question now becomes how many people really do get killed by law enforcement each year, and do people attempt to track it? the answer is yes people attempt to track it, and yes it is indeed a much higher number than the FBI 's previously stated number. The definition for the list is "the justified killing of a felon by a peace officer in the line of duty." New York does not report any of their "justifiable homicides" at

At midnight on January 1 a call comes in of multiple gunshots fired at 123 ABC Blvd. Officer Black responds to the call and is the first on the scene. Upon his arrival Officer Black notices a white male lying in a pool of blood with multiple gunshots. He notated that the shell casings were of .38 caliber and 9mm. Officer Black secures the crime