August 14, 2025 • 14 mins
Netflix hit series, Conversations With A Killer, has a new episode called “The Son of Sam Tapes.” Why revisit this case nearly fifty years later? We visit with director Joe Berlinger about the new developments and clues to understanding the mental health crises we face today.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Joe, delighted to have you with us.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
Nice to be with you.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
How are you doing. I'm doing terrific. You know.
Speaker 3 (00:05):
My wife is obviously fascinated with all things. I've started
with the movie Copycat and then her fascination, and I've
gone along the journey with her. Spike Lee did the
movie Summer of Sam that covers this, as Spike Lee
and Hollywood would but you the documentary. This is important
because for a lot of people to think, well, what
don't we know about Berkowitz, A lot has come up, right.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
Yeah, no, Well, first of all, you know, I do
these shows for Netflix, and Netflix has a huge, global,
youthful audience, so you know, I try to do the
show both for people who believe it or not have
never heard of this shows with large part of the audience,
and then for those who do. I want to make
(00:49):
it the definitive kind of telling. And there's some there's
some new information in this show. We have new tapes
that have emerged that really provide an incredible sight into
the mind of the killer, you know, around the time
of the commission of the crimes. These were recorded in
nineteen eighty and also there's a new victim of son
(01:09):
of Sam, a surviving victim that's been a NYPD has
finally closed a case that's been open for you know,
almost fifty years, and it's been determined that Berkowitz is
this This would have been his first attempted murder, his
first shooting. Berkowitz of course denies that I shouldn't say.
(01:30):
Of course, I was actually surprised he It was so
important to him when I spoke to him, because he's
still alive, that he denied this one but admitted to
the others. It's interesting. There are reasons for that that
we can go into. But yeah, I know, I've always
been fascinated by this case. I was a teenager at
the time, living in the suburbs of New York and
(01:52):
when I would take the train into the city, going
through Harlem, for example, the city was just like a
burnt out mess. Half police force was laid off because
New York was in a financial crisis. You know, people
don't remember just what a what a you know, what
shape New York was in in the mid seventies, and in.
Speaker 3 (02:12):
New York City at its lowest point ever, one of
its hottest summers ever. But I think what really sets
this apart, Joe, and I know it comes out in
the documentary. One man was able because they knew they
were having problems with police, They knew they were having
problems with crime. But one man brought the whole city
to its knees. That's what made this different.
Speaker 2 (02:34):
Absolutely, it's fascinating and for me, that's one of the
reasons I wanted to tell the story again for a
new audience is that to me, this is one of
the foundational cases and why we're obsessed with true crime,
because no other serial killer baited the press and held
a city of seven million people in total fear and
(02:57):
used the press to do that. And so I think
one of the reasons we're obsessed with true crime today
you can trace all the way back to this case
and how the media was very willing to play along
with the serial killer, and the serial killer, you know,
brilliantly manipulated the press. So yeah, the whole city kind
of shut down for a year. You know, it was
(03:18):
the age of disco, and nobody wanted to go out
and dance and go out, and young people were totally
frozen in fear.
Speaker 3 (03:27):
Joe Berliner is joining us conversations with a killer the
Son of Sam tapes, and the tapes are very compelling
because you're hearing Burkowitz's voice in and of itself. Let's
do this for the young people, Joe, just that aren't
familiar with the case. Walk us through what make Berkowitz unique.
(03:47):
He would target lovers sitting in their car, but you know,
give them, give them a sense. We covered some of
what was going on in New York City in seventy seven,
but his crimes in particular, so.
Speaker 2 (03:57):
Burkowitz had a lot of rage in him kind of
liken him more to the school shooter of today, the alienated,
raging guy who felt so alienated he had to take
out his vengeance on unsuspecting random people, as opposed to
the kind of serial killer like Ted Bundy or John
(04:18):
Wayne Gacy who really wanted to be intimate with their killer,
who void watching people die in their hands. This for Berkowitz,
he really if he had any kind of human contact
with them, you know, he let his guard down. For example,
there's an anecdote in the show where he came upon
(04:38):
he had a gun in his pocket and he came
upon a couple stuck in the snow, and instead of
shooting them, he decided to help push them out of
the snowbank because he saw them finally as three years.
Speaker 1 (04:48):
If he saw him as human, he wouldn't do it.
Speaker 2 (04:50):
Exactly, which is unlike you know most serial killers. Most
serial killers want to be up close and personal with
their victim and watch them die in their hands. But this,
this is what held New York in fear. There was
a string of random shootings, but it took forever for
the New York Police Department to figure it out because
back in those days, police departments didn't share information, as
(05:14):
silly as that sounds, even within the one. You know,
New York Police Department is one police department, but they
have different boroughs, you know, Brooklyn, Bronx, Queens, and those
precincts didn't communicate with each other. But this guy was
targeting young lovers parked in lovers lanes type of situations,
you know, people in their you know, early twenties, making out,
(05:34):
you know, having a date. And despite the fact that
he used a very particular gun that should have made
the police connect the dots sooner, they just the police
departments didn't communicate. And he used this forty four caliber
Bulldog gun, which is a very unusual gun. The police,
(05:56):
for example, use a thirty two caliber most people had
thirty two caliber guns, and the forty four Bulldog produces
a very distinct, large metal slug after the gun goes off,
and so different precincts around New York were finding these
(06:18):
random shootings with the slug. But they no one was
talking to each other for a.
Speaker 1 (06:22):
Good period of time.
Speaker 3 (06:22):
They didn't know they had a serial killer. They didn't
know they were linked exactly.
Speaker 2 (06:25):
And then about six months into it, a task force reformed.
They realized, you know, they started to talk. And one
of the legacies of this case is now police departments
routinely share information, which they didn't do in that day,
and there was no computerized information. Now everything is the share.
When they finally realized they had a serial killer, Berkowitz
(06:47):
wanted notoriety, so he started leaving letters to First, he
started writing to the head of the task force, this
guy named Captain Joe Barelli, baiting him on, and those
letters got published. And then, wanting even more attention, burker
Witz started writing with Jimmy Breslin, the famous New York
(07:08):
Daily news column in New York, you know, and they
started an exchange of letters, which you know, remember this
is before the era of social media, before the iPhone,
before the twenty four hour news cycle, when newspapers were
king and the entire city.
Speaker 1 (07:24):
Was following every day. Yeah, appointment.
Speaker 2 (07:27):
We couldn't wait for the next edition of the paper
to come out, So it was it was a crazy story.
Berkerwitz says that, you know, he he decided it was
time to get caught, and he purposefully allowed his car
to get a traffic ticket after he committed one of
the crimes, and that led ultimately to his arrest. He
(07:48):
claims he did it on purpose. I'm not one hundred
percent sure about that. But when he got arrested, he
then told this insane story because he signed all these
letters is the son of Sam in a very cryptic way,
and the letters were very graphic in what he was
thinking of the city and what he wanted to do
to people. And when he was caught, they found his
(08:12):
apartment looked like the apartment of a madman, with scrawls
all over the scrawlings all over the walls, and he,
you know, he claimed that he was being instructed to
kill by a six thousand year old demon who was
speaking to him through his neighbor's dog.
Speaker 3 (08:36):
I want to cut to the chase with you. Joe
Berlinger's joining us. He's a director of conversations with the
killer almost fifty years later, the son of Sam tapes,
and that we have some new audio with your conversations
with Berkowitz. We have new information and new victim, as
you mentioned. But I want to cut to the chase
that you're talking about, which is not evil, and bring
(08:56):
up the demon. I lean towards evil. He would tell
you wild imagination, which I think is bizarre.
Speaker 2 (09:04):
Yeah, I mean, you know, he has flip flopped and
told many stories over the years as he continues to
seek attention. You know. In the tapes, what's so revealing
is he said he actually staged his apartment the week
before the arrests and made his apartment look like that
of a madman. He acknowledges that the six thousand year
(09:27):
old demon was just a ruse to make him look crazy.
So I think he was you know, evil. Evil is
a hard word to use. I mean, I think he
was a deeply I mean, what he did was evil,
you know, but I think he was just a deeply disturbed, troubled,
alienated person. And again different, different approach to killing than
(09:52):
the typical serial killer. And I think it had a
lot to do with this inner rage that he had
to the only way he could express it was by
shooting people. And you know, we have a mental health
crisis with young men feeling alienation and rage, and so
I think it's important for people to understand the clues
(10:13):
of what that looks like and hopefully things can, you know,
stop before it reaches a terrible tragedy. In fact, one
of the unknown details of or lesser known details of
the Berkowitz saga is, you know, before he was arrested,
he actually drove out to the Hamptons, you know, famous
(10:33):
beach area on Long Island for those who don't know,
and he brought with him for the first time, a
semi automatic weapon, and he was planning on doing a
mass shooting on a beach in the Hamptons and kind
of go out in a blaze of glory, and he
was it just started pouring rain when he was out there,
(10:54):
so he turned around and went home, and then shortly
thereafter he was arrested. So you know, he had the
potential for this kind of mass shooting situation. So again
for me, it's very important that people who watch the show,
if they themselves are feeling some rage or you know,
somebody like that, like these people can things can turn
(11:16):
around if people are given help.
Speaker 3 (11:19):
Yeah, it's interesting. You know, you hit the nail right
on the head. This is Berkowitz as we look back
seeing his apartment, whether he did it after the factor,
before the fact, telling his stories, whether that was mental
illness or he would say wild imagination or hearing from
(11:39):
the dog by way of a demon. But the truth
of the matter is he's walking all around New York,
involved in people's life and nobody's noticing. So, you know,
you bring up finding. It's important to explore these stories
so that we can see these clues, especially in this
day of everybody isolated on social media with mental illness,
(11:59):
loneliness and looking for some kind of an identity without
human connection. But I mean, he was in plain sight
interacting with people and nobody had a clue. So can
we look back at that and learn something? Was he
giving clues? We just did not I look for him?
And how did you connect those dots?
Speaker 2 (12:14):
As a final question, well, it's you know, I have
you know, doing thirty years of crime. The thing that
always stands out to me that people don't seem to
fully appreciate is that the people who do evil in
this world are usually the people you least expect and
most often trust. Whether it's a priest who commits pedophilia,
(12:36):
I mean, what a violation of trust, or a high
school coach who does bad things, or Bernie Madoff. I
did a show about Bernie Madoff. He resents himself as
being like your favorite uncle, and yet he's plucking every
penny from every widow he can meet. Epstein Epstein exactly. So,
you know, we want to think that serial killers look
(12:59):
and act evil all the time because it gives us
this false sense of comfort that we can somehow avoid
their fate. And the reason I like to tell these
stories and remind the younger generation is that just because
somebody looks trustworthy doesn't mean you should just implicitly give
them your trust because it is you know, Bundy famously,
(13:19):
you know, encourage young women to you know, he'd walk
into a library at the University of Washington with a
fake cast and a stack of books, and he'd ask
a young girl, Hey, can you help me bring these
books to my car? And then he would kill the girl.
So it's you know, serial killers often are regular people
who walk amongst us, which is, you know, not the
(13:41):
most reassuring thing to say, and it's why I say, like,
you know, your people really need to earn your trust
before you should be alone with somebody.
Speaker 3 (13:49):
Conversations with the Killer a huge series for Netflix. As
I mentioned at the beginning of the interview, I see
it by way of my wife and they're very well
done and they're fascinating and the latest and it'd be
the fourth installment, the Son of Sam Tape. She did
a terrific job with this and I think fifty years later,
it's important and the new information is certainly very compelling
for people that followed it when it happened. Thank you
(14:11):
so much for your work, and thank you so much
for joining us.
Speaker 1 (14:14):
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (14:14):
I appreciate it. I have a great Bay
Joe, delighted to have you with us.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
Nice to be with you.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
How are you doing. I'm doing terrific. You know.
Speaker 3 (00:05):
My wife is obviously fascinated with all things. I've started
with the movie Copycat and then her fascination, and I've
gone along the journey with her. Spike Lee did the
movie Summer of Sam that covers this, as Spike Lee
and Hollywood would but you the documentary. This is important
because for a lot of people to think, well, what
don't we know about Berkowitz, A lot has come up, right.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
Yeah, no, Well, first of all, you know, I do
these shows for Netflix, and Netflix has a huge, global,
youthful audience, so you know, I try to do the
show both for people who believe it or not have
never heard of this shows with large part of the audience,
and then for those who do. I want to make
(00:49):
it the definitive kind of telling. And there's some there's
some new information in this show. We have new tapes
that have emerged that really provide an incredible sight into
the mind of the killer, you know, around the time
of the commission of the crimes. These were recorded in
nineteen eighty and also there's a new victim of son
(01:09):
of Sam, a surviving victim that's been a NYPD has
finally closed a case that's been open for you know,
almost fifty years, and it's been determined that Berkowitz is
this This would have been his first attempted murder, his
first shooting. Berkowitz of course denies that I shouldn't say.
(01:30):
Of course, I was actually surprised he It was so
important to him when I spoke to him, because he's
still alive, that he denied this one but admitted to
the others. It's interesting. There are reasons for that that
we can go into. But yeah, I know, I've always
been fascinated by this case. I was a teenager at
the time, living in the suburbs of New York and
(01:52):
when I would take the train into the city, going
through Harlem, for example, the city was just like a
burnt out mess. Half police force was laid off because
New York was in a financial crisis. You know, people
don't remember just what a what a you know, what
shape New York was in in the mid seventies, and in.
Speaker 3 (02:12):
New York City at its lowest point ever, one of
its hottest summers ever. But I think what really sets
this apart, Joe, and I know it comes out in
the documentary. One man was able because they knew they
were having problems with police, They knew they were having
problems with crime. But one man brought the whole city
to its knees. That's what made this different.
Speaker 2 (02:34):
Absolutely, it's fascinating and for me, that's one of the
reasons I wanted to tell the story again for a
new audience is that to me, this is one of
the foundational cases and why we're obsessed with true crime,
because no other serial killer baited the press and held
a city of seven million people in total fear and
(02:57):
used the press to do that. And so I think
one of the reasons we're obsessed with true crime today
you can trace all the way back to this case
and how the media was very willing to play along
with the serial killer, and the serial killer, you know,
brilliantly manipulated the press. So yeah, the whole city kind
of shut down for a year. You know, it was
(03:18):
the age of disco, and nobody wanted to go out
and dance and go out, and young people were totally
frozen in fear.
Speaker 3 (03:27):
Joe Berliner is joining us conversations with a killer the
Son of Sam tapes, and the tapes are very compelling
because you're hearing Burkowitz's voice in and of itself. Let's
do this for the young people, Joe, just that aren't
familiar with the case. Walk us through what make Berkowitz unique.
(03:47):
He would target lovers sitting in their car, but you know,
give them, give them a sense. We covered some of
what was going on in New York City in seventy seven,
but his crimes in particular, so.
Speaker 2 (03:57):
Burkowitz had a lot of rage in him kind of
liken him more to the school shooter of today, the alienated,
raging guy who felt so alienated he had to take
out his vengeance on unsuspecting random people, as opposed to
the kind of serial killer like Ted Bundy or John
(04:18):
Wayne Gacy who really wanted to be intimate with their killer,
who void watching people die in their hands. This for Berkowitz,
he really if he had any kind of human contact
with them, you know, he let his guard down. For example,
there's an anecdote in the show where he came upon
(04:38):
he had a gun in his pocket and he came
upon a couple stuck in the snow, and instead of
shooting them, he decided to help push them out of
the snowbank because he saw them finally as three years.
Speaker 1 (04:48):
If he saw him as human, he wouldn't do it.
Speaker 2 (04:50):
Exactly, which is unlike you know most serial killers. Most
serial killers want to be up close and personal with
their victim and watch them die in their hands. But this,
this is what held New York in fear. There was
a string of random shootings, but it took forever for
the New York Police Department to figure it out because
back in those days, police departments didn't share information, as
(05:14):
silly as that sounds, even within the one. You know,
New York Police Department is one police department, but they
have different boroughs, you know, Brooklyn, Bronx, Queens, and those
precincts didn't communicate with each other. But this guy was
targeting young lovers parked in lovers lanes type of situations,
you know, people in their you know, early twenties, making out,
(05:34):
you know, having a date. And despite the fact that
he used a very particular gun that should have made
the police connect the dots sooner, they just the police
departments didn't communicate. And he used this forty four caliber
Bulldog gun, which is a very unusual gun. The police,
(05:56):
for example, use a thirty two caliber most people had
thirty two caliber guns, and the forty four Bulldog produces
a very distinct, large metal slug after the gun goes off,
and so different precincts around New York were finding these
(06:18):
random shootings with the slug. But they no one was
talking to each other for a.
Speaker 1 (06:22):
Good period of time.
Speaker 3 (06:22):
They didn't know they had a serial killer. They didn't
know they were linked exactly.
Speaker 2 (06:25):
And then about six months into it, a task force reformed.
They realized, you know, they started to talk. And one
of the legacies of this case is now police departments
routinely share information, which they didn't do in that day,
and there was no computerized information. Now everything is the share.
When they finally realized they had a serial killer, Berkowitz
(06:47):
wanted notoriety, so he started leaving letters to First, he
started writing to the head of the task force, this
guy named Captain Joe Barelli, baiting him on, and those
letters got published. And then, wanting even more attention, burker
Witz started writing with Jimmy Breslin, the famous New York
(07:08):
Daily news column in New York, you know, and they
started an exchange of letters, which you know, remember this
is before the era of social media, before the iPhone,
before the twenty four hour news cycle, when newspapers were
king and the entire city.
Speaker 1 (07:24):
Was following every day. Yeah, appointment.
Speaker 2 (07:27):
We couldn't wait for the next edition of the paper
to come out, So it was it was a crazy story.
Berkerwitz says that, you know, he he decided it was
time to get caught, and he purposefully allowed his car
to get a traffic ticket after he committed one of
the crimes, and that led ultimately to his arrest. He
(07:48):
claims he did it on purpose. I'm not one hundred
percent sure about that. But when he got arrested, he
then told this insane story because he signed all these
letters is the son of Sam in a very cryptic way,
and the letters were very graphic in what he was
thinking of the city and what he wanted to do
to people. And when he was caught, they found his
(08:12):
apartment looked like the apartment of a madman, with scrawls
all over the scrawlings all over the walls, and he,
you know, he claimed that he was being instructed to
kill by a six thousand year old demon who was
speaking to him through his neighbor's dog.
Speaker 3 (08:36):
I want to cut to the chase with you. Joe
Berlinger's joining us. He's a director of conversations with the
killer almost fifty years later, the son of Sam tapes,
and that we have some new audio with your conversations
with Berkowitz. We have new information and new victim, as
you mentioned. But I want to cut to the chase
that you're talking about, which is not evil, and bring
(08:56):
up the demon. I lean towards evil. He would tell
you wild imagination, which I think is bizarre.
Speaker 2 (09:04):
Yeah, I mean, you know, he has flip flopped and
told many stories over the years as he continues to
seek attention. You know. In the tapes, what's so revealing
is he said he actually staged his apartment the week
before the arrests and made his apartment look like that
of a madman. He acknowledges that the six thousand year
(09:27):
old demon was just a ruse to make him look crazy.
So I think he was you know, evil. Evil is
a hard word to use. I mean, I think he
was a deeply I mean, what he did was evil,
you know, but I think he was just a deeply disturbed, troubled,
alienated person. And again different, different approach to killing than
(09:52):
the typical serial killer. And I think it had a
lot to do with this inner rage that he had
to the only way he could express it was by
shooting people. And you know, we have a mental health
crisis with young men feeling alienation and rage, and so
I think it's important for people to understand the clues
(10:13):
of what that looks like and hopefully things can, you know,
stop before it reaches a terrible tragedy. In fact, one
of the unknown details of or lesser known details of
the Berkowitz saga is, you know, before he was arrested,
he actually drove out to the Hamptons, you know, famous
(10:33):
beach area on Long Island for those who don't know,
and he brought with him for the first time, a
semi automatic weapon, and he was planning on doing a
mass shooting on a beach in the Hamptons and kind
of go out in a blaze of glory, and he
was it just started pouring rain when he was out there,
(10:54):
so he turned around and went home, and then shortly
thereafter he was arrested. So you know, he had the
potential for this kind of mass shooting situation. So again
for me, it's very important that people who watch the show,
if they themselves are feeling some rage or you know,
somebody like that, like these people can things can turn
(11:16):
around if people are given help.
Speaker 3 (11:19):
Yeah, it's interesting. You know, you hit the nail right
on the head. This is Berkowitz as we look back
seeing his apartment, whether he did it after the factor,
before the fact, telling his stories, whether that was mental
illness or he would say wild imagination or hearing from
(11:39):
the dog by way of a demon. But the truth
of the matter is he's walking all around New York,
involved in people's life and nobody's noticing. So, you know,
you bring up finding. It's important to explore these stories
so that we can see these clues, especially in this
day of everybody isolated on social media with mental illness,
(11:59):
loneliness and looking for some kind of an identity without
human connection. But I mean, he was in plain sight
interacting with people and nobody had a clue. So can
we look back at that and learn something? Was he
giving clues? We just did not I look for him?
And how did you connect those dots?
Speaker 2 (12:14):
As a final question, well, it's you know, I have
you know, doing thirty years of crime. The thing that
always stands out to me that people don't seem to
fully appreciate is that the people who do evil in
this world are usually the people you least expect and
most often trust. Whether it's a priest who commits pedophilia,
(12:36):
I mean, what a violation of trust, or a high
school coach who does bad things, or Bernie Madoff. I
did a show about Bernie Madoff. He resents himself as
being like your favorite uncle, and yet he's plucking every
penny from every widow he can meet. Epstein Epstein exactly. So,
you know, we want to think that serial killers look
(12:59):
and act evil all the time because it gives us
this false sense of comfort that we can somehow avoid
their fate. And the reason I like to tell these
stories and remind the younger generation is that just because
somebody looks trustworthy doesn't mean you should just implicitly give
them your trust because it is you know, Bundy famously,
(13:19):
you know, encourage young women to you know, he'd walk
into a library at the University of Washington with a
fake cast and a stack of books, and he'd ask
a young girl, Hey, can you help me bring these
books to my car? And then he would kill the girl.
So it's you know, serial killers often are regular people
who walk amongst us, which is, you know, not the
(13:41):
most reassuring thing to say, and it's why I say, like,
you know, your people really need to earn your trust
before you should be alone with somebody.
Speaker 3 (13:49):
Conversations with the Killer a huge series for Netflix. As
I mentioned at the beginning of the interview, I see
it by way of my wife and they're very well
done and they're fascinating and the latest and it'd be
the fourth installment, the Son of Sam Tape. She did
a terrific job with this and I think fifty years later,
it's important and the new information is certainly very compelling
for people that followed it when it happened. Thank you
(14:11):
so much for your work, and thank you so much
for joining us.
Speaker 1 (14:14):
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (14:14):
I appreciate it. I have a great Bay
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Football’s funniest family duo — Jason Kelce of the Philadelphia Eagles and Travis Kelce of the Kansas City Chiefs — team up to provide next-level access to life in the league as it unfolds. The two brothers and Super Bowl champions drop weekly insights about the weekly slate of games and share their INSIDE perspectives on trending NFL news and sports headlines. They also endlessly rag on each other as brothers do, chat the latest in pop culture and welcome some very popular and well-known friends to chat with them. Check out new episodes every Wednesday. Follow New Heights on the Wondery App, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to new episodes early and ad-free, and get exclusive content on Wondery+. Join Wondery+ in the Wondery App, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. And join our new membership for a unique fan experience by going to the New Heights YouTube channel now!
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