The Nation: Sam Told Me To Do It... Sam Is the Devil

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After the capture, the twisted killer's life unfolds

"Kill! Kill!" chanted the vengeful crowd outside Brooklyn's Central Court Building, even though the object of their hatred was nowhere in sight.

"That's the father! That's the father!" shouted others as scores of people mistakenly closed in on Leon Stern, a frightened defense attorney who fled into the courthouse.

"I want five minutes alone with the guy. I'd wipe the floor with the guy!" said Jerome Moskowitz, father of Stacy, one of Son of Sam's 13 shooting victims. Added Neysa Moskowitz, mother of the slain girl: "I must see the face of this animal, this beast, this worthless human who took my baby's life. I don't know a death too horrible for this man."

The fury was directed at David Berkowitz, 24, a U.S. mail sorter, who was captured by police and identified as the lone gunman who had terrified much of New York in a yearlong series of eight nighttime attacks in quiet residential neighborhoods. But as the city's most massive manhunt ended, the killer of six young people (seven others survived their wounds) did not fulfill public expectations of the type of man who would automatically arouse suspicion, fear and hate.

To be sure, the thin half-smile he wore as flashbulbs assailed him was infuriating. But the paunch, the round and smooth face, the short, curly hair and calm manner all seemed far from menacing. Rather than sinister, Berkowitz looked innocuous, an unexceptional figure unlikely to attract attention anywhere. As the facts of his life began to emerge, the much-sought gunman turned out to be the loner the psychologists had predicted. He had apparently abandoned the few friends acquired in his earlier years, lived alone in a sparsely furnished apartment in suburban Yonkers, got along comfortably with fellow postal workers but rarely initiated a conversation, and kept his personal feelings to himself.

Even as police finally grilled the man who had caused them so many hours of frustration and drudgery, he was neither sullen nor hostile. He talked readily of his crimes, showing amazing recall of each attack, correcting police on details that only he could know, never refusing to answer their impatient questions.

But then that twisted side of the mild-mannered killer's mentality exposed itself. Why, why had he murdered? "It was a command," he said in a soft, nonaggressive voice. "I had a sign and I followed it. Sam told me what to do and I did it." Again: "Sam told me to do it. Sam sent me on an assignment. I had to do what I had to do. I had my orders. Sam sent me." Who is Sam? Berkowitz said Sam is at the moment a neighbor of his named Sam Carr, but "really is a man who lived 6,000 years ago. I got the messages through his dog. He told me to kill. Sam is the Devil."

Clearly Berkowitz is crazy or, much less likely, feigning insanity. At his arraignment in the Brooklyn court, the judge ordered psychiatric examinations to determine whether he is sane enough to be prosecuted. Chances are he will spend the rest of his life in a mental institution.