A woman finally claims she was the first target of infamous ‘Son of Sam’ killer David Berkowitz, while revealing that playing dead likely saved her life.
Wendy Savino said Berkowitz, who admitted to killing six people, shot her five times in her car on April 9, 1976, and has been trying to confirm that she was the initial victim.
In the 1970s it was believed that the man who shot him, contrary to Savino’s belief, was murdered not far from his home.
However, one YouTuber requested all the files on the murders and eventually discovered a link to Berkowitz, before contacting a Bronx homicide detective, who spoke with Savino in Rockland County this week.
“I’m very happy that they named him as my attacker,” said Savino, who lost his right eye in the shooting.
Wendy Savino said Berkowitz, who admitted to killing six people, shot her five times in her car on April 9, 1976, and has been trying to confirm that she was the initial victim.
“For many years, if someone asked me what happened to me, I would say, ‘Sam’s son shot me,’ and I would say, ‘Oh, sure, I sure did.’ So I’m very happy to be included as one.” of its survivors.”
Berkowitz, who has claimed responsibility for a half-dozen murders and calls himself a born-again Christian in prison, was confronted about shooting Savino.
However, sources said the new york post They were able to trip him up into admitting to shooting him in an interview and now they think they have enough to connect him to shooting Savino.
The victim, now 87, believes the shooting was never properly investigated because the Democratic district attorney was a political rival of her husband, who chaired the Bronx Republican Party at the time.
‘From the day I was shot, the NYPD made sketches of me and I carried them in my bag every day. I didn’t know his name, but I certainly knew what he looked like. I said ‘this is the man who shot me.’ And, of course, once he was arrested, I knew my sketch was David Berkowitz,” he said.
At one point, he lived under a pseudonym and moved to the United Kingdom out of fear of the shooter.
‘I was absolutely terrified. He wouldn’t go out in the dark. My children would play on the cricket field during the day and I would say to them, ‘If you don’t come before dark, I won’t go out and look for you.’
‘I wouldn’t answer the phone. I wouldn’t open the front door. When I went shopping, if I was afraid, I would leave my shopping basket in the parking lot after paying for it. I would run a red light if I went through one. I was terrified.’
A woman finally claims she was the first target of infamous ‘Son of Sam’ killer David Berkowitz, while revealing that playing dead likely saved her life.
In the 1970s it was believed that the man who shot him, contrary to Savino’s belief, was murdered not far from his home.
He lived in Britain with his sister and brother-in-law, while his children were sent to Florida.
Police now suspect that Savino’s survival of the shooting led Berkowitz to purchase a more powerful weapon to continue his reign of terror.
She said he walked toward her smiling as he approached to shoot her, while she unsuccessfully tried to protect herself with her left arm.
“My chest exploded,” he said. ‘She stood at my window, to the left of the driver’s door. The second bullet went through my arm, ricocheted off the dashboard, and went through my right eye.
‘The third bullet entered my shoulder, traveled, made a hole in my windpipe and settled in my spine. At that point my head is on the passenger side. They were bucket seats in a 1976 silver Jaguar.
He said he had eight pieces of glass in his left eye and a bullet in his right and described being left gasping for air.
Savino decided that his best chance to survive was to pretend that he had already finished the job.
“I said, ‘I can’t let it get to me before I can get out.’ So I stayed there with my head in the bucket, pretending I was dead and with my eyes closed, but looking out of the one eye I still had. I could see.’
Police now suspect that Savino survived the shooting and led Berkowitz to purchase a more powerful weapon to continue his reign of terror.
Berkowitz shot and killed six people and wounded eight others during his year-long killing spree.
The shooter fired two more times into Savino’s back.
‘Now I have five bullets in my back. And I told her: ‘She’s going to take my jewelry’, but she didn’t try, so I said to myself: ‘Of course, she wants you dead.’ Just stay here and wait for her to leave before you pass out.
She began to hear him walk away, opened the door and entered the parking lot and tried to crawl as far as she could until she found a wall.
Savino was outside a restaurant at the time and attempted to enter the kitchen, where he was faced with an almost darkly comic scene.
‘All the waiters and everyone just threw their hands in the air and all their pots and pans, screaming. So I said, ‘You’re not going to get anywhere here, are you?’ And I went directly into the dining room.
“There was a big reaction when I walked into the dining room and they put a white tablecloth over my head. I took it off and said, ‘Please don’t do that, I can’t breathe.’
She then found a wooden chair to sit near and took off her jewelry and told a waitress or bartender to give it to her husband.
Finally, a police officer came through the restaurant’s front door and told him, “Stay with me” while Savino wanted to go to sleep.
Police mugshot showing the front view and profile of convicted New York City serial killer David Berkowitz, known as the ‘Son of Sam.’
Berkowitz owned a 1970 Ford Galaxy, seen above in the garage of the NYPD headquarters in Manhattan on August 11, the day after his arrest.
She was taken to the hospital, where she was finally cured and was able to find a ketch from the shooter.
All this time, he says, police have refused to believe that his attacker was Berkowitz.
“No one believed me, even though I showed them the sketch of his face that I had,” he said.
What would you say to him if you met him face to face? “You’re a rotten bastard.”
In 2017, Berkowitz said he now rejects the ‘Son of Sam’ nickname with which he made headlines during his murder and shooting that left six dead and seven wounded between 1976 and 1977.
“As far as I’m concerned, that wasn’t me,” Berkowitz said during the interview with CBS News. ‘That was not me. Even the name, I hate it, I despise it.’
The nickname was taken from a mocking letter Berkowitz wrote to authorities and left at the crime scene, in which he identified himself as the “Son of Sam”, whose father, “Sam”, he ordered him to kill.
Berkowitz, now a born-again Christian, said that the ‘Son of Sam’ was actually ‘a demon.’
Above, a mug shot of Berkowitz from March 2003. According to Bustle, he is serving his sentence at the maximum-security Shawangunk Correctional Facility in Ulster County, New York.
After his arrest, Berkowitz told authorities that a dog named Sam ordered him to commit the murders, a story he later recanted in 1979 in an interview with reporters, according to The New York Times. Above, Berkowitz at his arraignment on August 11, 1977
His murderous rampage in New York came at a particularly tense time for the city’s residents, already facing a period of financial crisis, brutally hot weather, and a citywide blackout that resulted in mass looting.
Under the nicknames ‘Son of Sam’ and ‘.44 Caliber Killer,’ Berkowitz made local and national daily headlines for shocking, seemingly random and unstoppable shootings, particularly of couples in parked cars and women with shoulder-length brown hair, which appeared to be linked to demonic cult activities.
The act of leaving mocking notes for police at crime scenes and sending letters directly to local media only added fuel to the sensational fire.
Berkowitz was eventually captured during one of the largest manhunts in New York City history.
Now that the Savino shooting is linked to him, he officially killed six people and injured eight others.