Conversations with a Killer: The Son of Sam Tapes

Director Joe Berlinger joins the Kendall and Casey show to discuss his new docuseries "Conversations with a Killer: The Son of Sam Tapes" that delves into the chilling story of serial killer David Berkowitz, featuring previously unreleased interviews and insights into his psyche. 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
There is a new documentary out on Netflix. It's a
three part series, Conversations with the Killer, The Son of
Sam Tapes, and it is fascinating. It's Kennell and Casey Show,
and Rob Casey's here joining us now in the WIBC hotline.
Joe Berlinger. He is the Emmy Award winning, an OSCAR
nominated filmmaker who put it together. Joe.

Speaker 2 (00:22):
Hello, Hey, nice to talk to you guys. How you
doing great?

Speaker 1 (00:27):
So tell us about this three part docuseries, Conversations with
the Killer, The Son of Sam Tapes. Tell us what
it's all about.

Speaker 2 (00:34):
Yeah, Well, I have an ongoing series at Netflix called
Conversations with the Killer. Previous seasons have been Ted Bundy,
John Wayne Gacy, Jeffrey Dahmer. This season, season four is
David Berkowitz, The Son of Sam. The series revolves around
recordings by the serial killer around the commission of the crime.

Speaker 1 (00:57):
So these were.

Speaker 2 (00:57):
Tapes that were we've discovered that were recorded in nineteen
eighty and so we tell the whole story of Son
of Sam, and young people may not Younger people may
not remember the story or you know, or the condition
of New York City at the time. But New York
City in the mid seventies was just an utter wreck.
It was going through a financial crisis. Half the police

(01:20):
force was laid off. There was ramp and crime like
you can't imagine. The city was in a state of disrepair.
And into this healthscape walked a random shooter, David Berkowitz,
who called himself the Son of Sam. And he would
stick a gun into the car window of young couples,
you know, making out in a lover's lane, you know,

(01:43):
very very random shootings. And he ended up killing six
Injuring seven and it took a year for him to
be caught, and New York was gripped in fear like
it never has been, you know, people, even though statistically
the chance of getting you know, in the city of
seven million people was low. Literally the city was paralyzed.

Speaker 1 (02:06):
Hey Joe, Joe the Hey Joe, real quick. I was
just gonna ask you. I just want to introduce you again.
Our guests were just shooting at Joe Burlinger. He's the
Emmy Award winning an OSCAR nominated filmmaker. His brand new docuseries,
Conversations with the Killer The Son of Sam tapes available
on Netflix. How do you get these tapes, because every
one of these series you've done on the aforementioned famous

(02:27):
serial killers is fascinating. How do you come into these tapes?

Speaker 2 (02:31):
You know a lot. I have to be honest. I
wish I could say that I'm some amazing detective who's
dug up amazing material. But the first time we did
this for Ted Bundy, an author named Stephen Michaux who
wrote a book that came out in nineteen eighty nine,
you know, called Ted Bundy Conversations with a Killer, reached

(02:54):
out to me because he had for this book that
came out in nineteen eighty nine, he had audio recordings
of Bundy that he used for his research. He interviewed
Bundy on.

Speaker 1 (03:06):
Death Row before shortly before his.

Speaker 2 (03:08):
Execution, and turned it into a book. And in twenty eighteen,
so decades later, he was a fan of my film
Paradise Lost, and he reached out and he said, hey,
I found these tapes in my closet cleaning out my office.
You know, they were my research tapes from my book.
Do you think there'd be an interesting documentary there? And

(03:29):
I said, well, you know, Ted Bundy has been told
many times, but you know, let me take a listen
to the tapes, and I was fascinated with the point
of view and the perspective that the tapes provide. So
I pitched it to Netflix, not even sure that they
would want to do something like this, and it ended
up being the number one show on Netflix that year,
number one documentary show, and so they've asked for more

(03:50):
and once once that show hit, like, you can't believe
how many people reach out to me and say, hey,
I have these tapes of the serial killer, you know,
and some of the tapes are just not worth you know,
I don't find that I've turned some people down because
the tapes aren't that revealing, But the ones that I
say yes to are these incredibly revealing recordings. You know,

(04:11):
Generally speaking, serial killers are unreliable narrators and they like
to be in a good tale. But in each of
these instances, the tapes are pretty are pretty compelling, and
you know, we only include material that we can corroborate. Joe, Obviously,
they're fairly.

Speaker 3 (04:30):
I was gonna say truth.

Speaker 2 (04:31):
There, they're fairly truthful, but go ahead.

Speaker 3 (04:33):
True true crime is obviously very popular, but there's also
people who are critical of it, saying that it does
give these serial killers a platform. So how do you
balance the storytelling with the investigation.

Speaker 2 (04:47):
Yeah. Now, look, there's a lot of irresponsible true crime
that while is in the misery of others, without any
larger social context or social justice. There's a lot of
shows that don't take the victims into account because of
an irreverent tone, things like that. So I think these

(05:08):
are very important stories to tell, especially for a younger
audience as a cautionary tale. You know, when I was
doing the Bundy tapes, both of my daughters were college aged,
prototypical Bundy victims, collegiate women with long hair. And at
the Thanksgiving table, I asked both of my daughters, who
are home from college, do you know who Ted Bundy is?

(05:31):
And neither one of them did, And I said, hey,
text your friends, and no one knew who Ted Bundy was.
And of course, the lesson of Ted Bundy is that
just because somebody is charming and good looking, it doesn't
mean you should trust them, because a lot of young
collegiate women women trusted Bundy only to be murdered by him.

Speaker 1 (05:47):
Joe, Joe, Joe, can you say that again? That just
what did you say just because someone's charming and good
looking doesn't mean you should trust him. That's the greatest
life advice I've ever heard.

Speaker 2 (05:58):
Well, that's the lesson of That's the lesson of Bundy,
and I wanted to put that out for my daughter's generation.
So true crime. You know, a lot of people do
criticize people for there's a knee jerk reaction about about
crime storytelling. But you know, human beings are the only
entities on this planet that kill for any other reason

(06:19):
than survival or for eating, and so it's part of
the human condition, and we certainly don't tell people, don't
make stories about greed, don't make stories about adultery, you know,
making stories about murder is sadly, it's part of the
human condition and there's things to learn from it. So
I reject this idea that just any show about a

(06:41):
serial killer is giving them a platform. It's lessons we
have to learn, Guest, I do agree. You have to
do it responsibly, definitely. You know there are very irresponsible
versions of true crime out there.

Speaker 1 (06:53):
He's got a brand new three part Netflix Docusaries Conversations
with the Killer, The Son of Sam tapes before I
Let You Go. I'm fascinating how long does it take
you to put this together?

Speaker 2 (07:05):
It's about a year process. You know. We researched for
a couple of months, we filmed for a couple of months,
and then we edit for about six months. It takes
it takes about a year to put it all together.

Speaker 1 (07:15):
What's the big reveal? Why should people watch this three
part docu series? What's something you think they're going to
learn or see that makes it worth the time?

Speaker 2 (07:27):
Well, I think it's excellent storytelling, of course, so that's
that's fun, that's worth it. But I look at this,
I look at this case as kind of the foundational
case to why we are all obsessed with crime now.
You know, true crime programming has never been more popular.
And because David Berkowitz in an era without social media,

(07:48):
in an era before the big twenty four hour cable
news cycle that just blew up you know, news, before
all of this, Berkowitz had the city gripped in fear
because of how we interacted with the media, and the
media was only too willing to comply. And so out
of this, I think grew this codependency of media and

(08:11):
true crime fans, you know, never being satisfied with enough
and wanting more and more, and that's kind of where
we are today. I've never seen so much interest in
true crime, and I trace it back to this case.

Speaker 1 (08:23):
All right, Joe, the other three that you mentioned are phenomenal.
I'm really excited to see this when you guys do
great work with this. The Conversations with the Killer, The
Son of Sam tapes on Netflix. Thank you for your
time and great work that you guys do here.

Speaker 2 (08:37):
Appreciate it.

Speaker 3 (08:38):
You're listening to Kenvil and Casey. It's ninety three WIBC.