New York detective led 300 officers in the hunt for serial killer Son of Sam
The death of Donna Lauria stood out, even by the bloodstained standards of New York City in 1976, when the metropolis averaged more than four murders a day. It was just after 1am on July 29 and the
18-year-old was sitting in an Oldsmobile outside her apartment in the Bronx and discussing holiday plans with a friend. A stranger walked up to the car, pulled a gun out of a paper bag and fired through the passenger window. Lauria died almost immediately; her friend, Jody Valenti, was shot in the thigh, but survived.
Police struggled to determine a motive for the attack, but in a fraying city so roiled with violence, senseless shootings were not uncommon.
Almost three months later, Carl Denaro,
20, was shot in the head as he sat in a car with his girlfriend in the borough of Queens. He lived, but needed surgery to attach a metal plate to his skull.
More shootings followed, their similarities drawing police to an alarming realisation: a serial killer was stalking the city at night, preying on young couples and pairs of friends. As chief of detectives at the New York City police department, it fell to John Keenan to direct the hunt for the man who became known as the ‘‘Son of Sam’’.
That was the name the killer gave himself in bizarre, taunting notes left by the bodies of victims or sent to Jimmy Breslin, a prominent newspaper columnist. To Keenan – who has died aged 99 – he was the ‘‘.44 calibre killer’’, a reference to his weapon of choice.
The febrile, frightened atmosphere in the city in the summer of 1977 represented a test of character even for a man as methodical and calm under pressure as Keenan, only recently promoted to chief after impressing in an internal affairs unit.
By the end of June 1977, five people were dead and six injured, some seriously. Many young women stayed at home in the evenings; some cut their hair or dyed it blond, believing the killer was targeting long-haired brunettes.
Keenan was frank in media interviews about the lack of leads. ‘‘He can strike at will, whenever and wherever he wants, and for no particular reason. He’s holding all the cards.’’
He stepped up patrols, assigned 300 officers to the case and sent each police station a dossier with a description of the suspect – white, 20 to 35 years old, of medium height and build – with his methods and a psychological profile. This assessed him to be ‘‘neurotic, schizophrenic and paranoid, with religious aspects to his thinking process’’.
The analysis proved largely accurate. After another fatal shooting, police ran checks on every car that had received a traffic ticket in the vicinity. This led them to David Berkowitz, a 24-year-old mail sorter for the postal service. The serial killer who terrorised a city was brought to justice because he parked too close to a fire hydrant.
John Keenan was born in 1919 to Irish parents, Sabina and John, who worked as a steamfitter. They lived in New York, although Sabina gave birth to John in Co Durham during a brief visit to England.
Keenan was a bright student and an avid reader, but his family were too poor to send him to university. Instead he joined the New York police department, although his career was soon interrupted when he was drafted into the military.
Alieutenant in the Counter Intelligence Corps (CIC), he landed in Normandy on D-Day, helped to liberate Paris and fought in the Battle of the Bulge. He also became firm friends with a fellow CIC serviceman who was developing his writing skills in his spare time: JD Salinger.
Salinger and Keenan reportedly captured a French Nazi collaborator only for a mob of
Parisians to wrest the man away and beat him to death. While Keenan was able to put the horrors of war behind him and return to police work, the author of The Catcher in the Rye was left emotionally scarred by his experiences.
To Keenan, though, Salinger was not the eccentric recluse often portrayed in the media. ‘‘He’s a kind, sensitive man, a good person to be with, with a good sense of humour,’’ Keenan once said.
Salinger travelled to New York from his secluded home in New Hampshire in 1978 to make a surprise appearance at Keenan’s retirement party. The author mixed happily among the many well-lubricated guests and gave a speech that paid tribute to Keenan’s calmness and companionship under fire.
Keenan leaves behind his wife of 73 years, Sara, whom he met on a US army base in New York where they worked during World War II, and their daughter, Joan. Two other daughters, Mary Ellen and Sara, predeceased him. –