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

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That knowledge apparently followed the tip that broke the case. It came from Cacilia Davis, 49, a terrified woman who told a belated story to New York police. Davis, who lives near the Gravesend Bay site where Stacy Moskowitz was killed, said she was walking her dog Snowball near her apartment at 2:30 a.m. on the night of the murder. A young man "who walked strange, like a cat" approached her on the sidewalk, looked directly into her face, then passed. She said he held his right arm down stiffly, as though he were carrying something partly up his sleeve. Five minutes later she heard shots and the wail of a car horn. Next day, learning of the double shooting, she was certain the passing stranger had been the killer. When detectives questioned her, she recalled another vital detail: she had seen a cop tagging a cream-colored car parked illegally near a fire hydrant one block from the murder site.

Incredibly, Berkowitz, who had so cleverly eluded police for so long, had used his own properly registered 1970 Ford Galaxie sedan as his getaway car for each attack, not bothering even to acquire stolen license plates. When New York police checked parking tickets for the murder night in the Gravesend neighborhood, they found one issued to Berkowitz; it led to his Yonkers address. They wondered: What was a Yonkers resident doing 25 miles away in Brooklyn at 2:30 a.m.?

With that, New York detectives went to Berkowitz's apartment house, and they found his car parked handily in front. Peering inside, they spied a rifle butt protruding from an Army duffel bag in the back seat and a note on the front seat. It bore the highly distinctive hand printing of the .44-cal. killer's letters to police and Breslin. A dozen officers staked out the car and the building, while a search warrant was sought.

At 10:30 p.m. Berkowitz walked calmly out of the building, got into his car and started the engine. A couple of officers ran out of the darkness, their guns drawn. They ordered Berkowitz to turn off the ignition, get out of the car and place his hands on top of it. Having followed the mountains of clippings about Son of Sam closely—a scrapbook of them was found in his apartment—Berkowitz recognized the arresting officers' leader, Deputy Inspector Timothy Dowd. "Inspector, you finally got me," he said quietly to Dowd. "I guess this is the end of the trail."

When he was seized, Berkowitz was carrying a manila envelope; in it was the .44-cal. pistol that had been used in all of the Son of Sam murders. He also had a semiautomatic rifle, simulated to look like a submachine gun, in the car.

Telling his story later to police, Berkowitz destroyed some misconceptions that had been spread, sometimes by authorities, more often by frenzied New York tabloids. No, he did not always fire his jolting .44 Bulldog revolver with two hands from a crouch. "The first three times I shot with one hand." No, he was not a skilled marksman. "I was lousy." No, he did not always keep one of the five bullets in his revolver in reserve in case he faced capture. He twice emptied the gun in his attacks. No, he did not look only for dark-haired girls, haunt discotheques for victims or carefully case a site before striking. His hunt was random. "When I got a calling," he said, "I went looking for a spot."