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A criminal’s reasoning for committing a crime begins with the psychological study and environment of the criminal. Usually they have specific abnormal characteristics and were raised in an unhealthy environment as a child. David Berkowitz also known as the Son of Sam, is a serial killer who is currently imprisoned for committing six murders and several injuries to others around New York City in 1976-1977. He focused his killings on young women and young couples. As a new born, David was adopted and grew up a troubled child. He grew up with the thought that his biological mother had died during childbirth with him and he lived with the guilt and anger of that which is believed to have caused his mental illness. He suffered from depression …show more content…
This was due to the shortage of time spent with his adoptive mother, and knowing his biological mother wasn’t really deceased at childbirth, and just gave him up for adoption. This caused the anger that he had towards women. David’s biological father was also deceased which made him different from everyone else around him. He didn’t have parent role models in his environment, which is the norm for other children and families. He desired attention, which most serial killers do. David Berkowitz should have received mental help at a young age because it was needed, but it was not up until after his murderous actions where he was diagnosed with a mental …show more content…
His first murder committed was to a young fifteen year old girl who he stabbed. Next was the shooting of two women in the Bronx. After three months, he targeted a couple who was sitting in their parked car, and two girls just walking on the street leaving one paralyzed. The winter time came around in the beginning of 1977 and David’s crimes did not stop here. He approached another couple sitting in their car, and shot them with a .44 caliber just as he used in all of the other crimes, so the cops were finally able to link all crimes that were being committed to one criminal. The next victim was in March of 1977. She was a young female college student who was shot by the killer on her way home from class. The following month, another couple sitting in a parked car was killed by David, but this time he began leaving letters for police, taunting them how he would not be caught and he referred to himself as the Son of Sam. The last and final attack before David was caught took place in Brooklyn on August 10th, 1977, with the shooting of another couple. Of all these people injured and shot by David, six of them were killed. (David Berkowitz
First, David’s mother gave him enough courage to keep hope his father would be all right after the Nazis arrested him. Because their own house was no longer safe from Nazi invasion, David’s family was staying with friends. However, Nazis burst into the house they were staying in on...
I can see where this could have the family thinking differently now that they know someone was outside that looked suspicious but the blood spatter on David’s clothes does in fact places him at the scene while Molly was being beat to death so I believe he did do the crime or was there watching her get murdered. So no matter what the family says David is right where he needs to be and that is behind bars with the other murderers and violent crime
The first shooting occurred on July 29, 1976 and the second months later; and the third one month after the second. At this point, Berkowitz had shot six people but the New York Police Department did not see any relation between the shootings. In January 1977, Berkowitz struck again by shooting a couple while sitting in a car. This event caused police to start a search for a .44 caliber killer. A .44 caliber gun is the type of gun that Berkowitz used in all of his murders. He continued to elude police, he even began taunting them. Berkowitz started leaving note addressed to the NYPD captain near all of his crime scenes. In the letters he spoke to police telling them of how he was recruited to commit the murders and addressed himself as the “Son of Sam”. This is how Berkowitz attained the name The Son of Sam Killer.
Loving God and hating his own mother kept David strong. David loved God, he prayed every night to God. He hated his mother so much he wanted to outthink her tricks, he did. He used different tactics like over exaggerating his pain when he got beat, putting a wet cloth over his mouth when his mother put cleaning products in a room with him. David kept counting time in his head in order to make the time pass faster.
He lived a perfect life and was blessed with perfect parents. Everyday is a new adventure filled with fun. He loved his life and his family. After Abuse: a. David came to believe that there was no god because "No God would leave me like this" Pg.131. He had totally disconnected himself from all the physical pain.
A loss of David’s innocence appears during his killing of a magpie. This “it can be done in a flick of the finger”. The particular significance about this plays an important part in his as he considers that he also is capable of committing such unfortunate yet immoral things. “Looking in the dead bird’s eye, I realised that these strange, unthought of connections - sex and death, lust and violence, desire and degradation - are there, there, deep in even a good heart’s chambers”.
6. I think that his mother just randomly decided to abuse David. Since she was an alcoholic she did not always realize what she was doing to him. She also probably didn’t want to do all the things around the house and thought it was too much to do so she had David do all the chores. She punished him by doing dreadful things.
He killed women in several different states. The number of victims he had is still unknown to day but some believe it ranges from 30 to 100 women. Also, no one knows exactly why he began his killing. Psychologists have a few leads and theories of what may have set him off. They believe maybe it was because of the way he was raised and the environment he grew up in. Another, reason he could have become such a prominent murderer in the US is because of his broken relationship he had with a girl in college. The most possible motive he had may have been his obsession for
"DAVID BERKOWITZ (SON OF SAM)." Crime and Investigation Network. N.p., n.d. Web. 25 Feb. 2014. .
David growing up as a child lived in a house where there was no love shown or caring relationships. He grew up not knowing what good relationships looked like or felt like. David did not think too highly of his dad or aunt and always had
Abnormal Psychology Abnormal psychology in the area within psychology that is focused on maladaptive behavior-its causes, consequences, and treatment. Abnormal psychology deals with how it feels to be different, the meanings the get attached to being different, and how society deals with people whom it considers to be different. The spectrum of differences is wide, ranging from reality defying delusions and severe debilitations to worries and behavioral quirks that we would be better off not having but do not significantly interfere with our daily lives. An example of the milder end of the spectrum is a man who was an eminently successful district attorney, was elected governor of New York on three occasions, and was almost elected president of the United States in 1948. This man, Thomas E. Dewy, reached the pinnacle of success, displaying such qualities as rectitude, efficiency, precision, and nearly limitless capacity for hard work.
his father and dead mother. David's father has an idealized vision of his son as
Jeffrey Dahmer’s last crime occurred over twenty years ago, but his name will forever be known. Jeffrey Dahmer started killing for the first time right after he graduated from Revere High School in 1978. Eighteen year old Steven Marks Hicks was hitchhiking to a concert close by Chippewa Lake Park in Wisconsin. His parents knew he was a night-owl, so when they never received a call from Hicks, they assumed he was fine and did not call because he simply forgot. “After killing Steven, he dismembered the body with a carving knife.
David Berkowitz, otherwise known as the “Son of Sam”, was notorious for his crimes committed between 1976 and 1977 that ended the lives of six innocent victims and wounded several others in New York (“David Berkowitz Biography”, n.d.). At first, police did not make a connection between the murders because there was nothing unusual about them; all the victims were shot with a 40 caliber gun, not fairly unusual during this time or place especially since the killings were over an extended period of time. Police finally made the connection when Berkowitz began to live behind notes that were meant to tantalize authorities since they had yet to catch him (“David Berkowitz| Son of Sam Killer,” 2015). Often times, the psychological structure of a human
Introduction: On the spectrum of criminal activity, serial killers are rather rare. Rarer still is a serial killer like Ted Bundy. Bundy confessed to killing 28 women in the 1970s in ghastly fashion and some believe he may have killed far more. It is hard to imagine what could cause any person to cross the mental boundary into such macabre behavior as Bundy perpetrated. Nevertheless, it is important to try to understand that behavior because only though such an understanding would society be able to identify and deter mass murderers in order to save lives.