The war hero who led the hunt for the ‘Son of Sam’

In early 1977, NYPD chief of detectives John L. Keenan assembled a 30-member task force to track down a serial killer who was haunting his city’s streets. The murderer had begun his killing spree the previous summer, and during his 13-month reign of terror would shoot dead six young people—all but one of them women—in nighttime ambushes. He taunted the police in rambling letters to the media signed “Son of Sam.” In August 1977, Keenan’s task force made a breakthrough, tracking a parking ticket issued near one murder scene to the Yonkers home of David Berkowitz, a 24-year-old postal worker. Keenan was on the scene for Berkowitz’s arrest, and he’d recount their meeting many times over the years. “I know you. You’re a detective—Chief Keenan,” said Berkowitz. “Yeah. Who are you?” Keenan asked. “I’m the Son of Sam,” Berkowitz replied.

Raised in Brooklyn and Long Island, Keenan “started with the NYPD in 1941,” said the New York Post. Drafted into the Army the following year, he “stormed Normandy on D-Day and fought in the Battle of the Bulge.” Keenan served alongside J.D. Salinger, who was writing The Catcher in the Rye between firefights and who became a lifelong friend.

Back in the U.S., Keenan rose quickly through the ranks of the NYPD, said The New York Times. During the Son of Sam manhunt, his task force grew to some 300 officers, and he used the media to talk directly to the killer. “We wish to help you,” he said at one televised press conference. “It is not too late.” The arrest of Berkowitz capped Keenan’s police career: He retired the following January “after more than 30 years on the force.”