Irish cop who captured a killer
IN Kerry any reference to Sam is likely to mean the Sam Maguire Cup.
But a forthcoming documentary is set to tell an unlikely Kerry success story, the tale of the Irish cop who put one of America’s most notorious serial killers behind bars.
David Berkowitz – aka ‘Son of Sam’ – killed six people and wounded seven others in a spate of shootings in New York. The killings began in the summer of 1976 when he opened fire on two young women parked outside an apartment in the Bronx.
Forty years after the killings, journalist Seán Mac an tSíthigh travels through the boroughs of New York to meet those who worked alongside the Castlemaine-born NYPD cop, Timothy J Dowd, who led the largest manhunt New York had ever seen, and that ultimately put an end to the rampage.
The cat-and-mouse game that was played out during the investigation fuelled the media fascination with the killings. Berkowitz sent letters directly to Mr Dowd and wrote letters to journalists about the killings which were published before police were made aware of them. Berkowitz gave himself the name ‘Son of Sam’ in a letter he left behind for the authorities at the scene of one of his murders in April 1977. Mr Mac an tSíthigh said he couldn’t believe someone who had achieved so much in life, like Mr Dowd, had received such little credit. ‘I came across his obituary online in the New York Times and I hadn’t heard about him before and I suppose, coming from Kerry, I was surprised that this man wasn’t known locally despite his achievements. He was a humble man so I suppose that was the reason.’ The documentary features interviews with some of the detectives who worked with Mr Dowd on the case and have never spoken about it publicly until now.
‘These guys were hardened detectives who would have been working on homicide cases for years but we always got the sense that this case was different for them, this case above all others affected them emotionally because I suppose the killer was targeting young women in particular. Many of these lads would have had teenage daughters and I suppose there was the added connection there, and the killings were quite callous and cold,’ said Mr Mac an tSíthigh.
Son of Sam, Son of Kerry airs on TG4 on Wednesday May 16 at 9:30pm.