Conversation with a Killer: The Son of Sam Tapes — Where is the serial killer, David Berkowitz now? Details revealed

Conversation with a Killer: The Son of Sam Tapes is a recent docuseries on Netflix that explores the killing spree that was ignited by David Berkowitz from 1976 to 1977. The chilling docuseries has three episodes and premiered on Jul 30. The three-part show features audio of past interviews with Berkowitz and even has a new interview that he did recently. Currently, David Berkowitz is serving a life sentence in New York.

The Netflix docuseries, Conversation with a Killer: The Son of Sam Tapes, first details how the killing occurred and then proceeds to understand the psychology behind David Berkowitz. The convicted felon is now 72 and has always loved attention, even when he committed those murders over 50 years ago.

Conversation with a Killer: The Son of Sam Tapes also features interviews with the victims’ loved ones, researchers, and law enforcement officers who were assigned to the case.

What drove David Berkowitz to commit murders?

In Conversation with a Killer: The Son of Sam Tapes, the show reveals that Berkowitz was in resentment over his adoption in 1953. Even though his adoptive parents loved him, Berkowitz got annoyed when he learned that he was adopted and his biological mother had died in childbirth and his biological father did not want him.

Eventually, this became the driving force behind Berkowitz’s behavior as he lashed out at his adoptive mother and eventually found out that his biological mother was alive but he was born out of wedlock and his father didn’t want him. He wrote that he felt like an “outsider” and “It was kind of degrading to me to see that I was an accident…Anger took over to replace the guilt.” He continues, “I was so angry, I blamed others, and I started committing my crimes to make people pay attention to me.”

Berkowitz eventually admitted that because he was the result of an affair, he targeted young lovers having illicit physical relations in cars and producing unwanted children. He states that he didn’t want more children to be born with a level of alienation and resentment like him.

Director of Conversation with a Killer: The Son of Sam Tapes, Joe Berlinger, states that “lots of children are adopted…and have traumatic childhoods, but they don’t turn into killers. So that’s what fascinates me: where is that line where somebody will go off the deep end?”

Not only did Berkowitz not have a proper relationship with women, but he also tried to find women who remined him of his birth mother at a young age. He states in Conversation with a Killer: The Son of Sam Tapes that “I felt I was getting revenge.” His first target was Wendy Savino, who survived and appeared in the docuseries.

The recent interview with David Berkowitz in Conversation with a Killer: The Son of Sam Tapes

The docuseries ends with Berlinger asking Berkowitz two questions in a 2024 phone interview. When asked about what David wants people to know from his story, David states that he is repentant about the murders and that he was in a “dark place” and his life had “spun out of control”, he couldn’t get to the right path. When Berlinger asks David what advice he would give his younger self, David states that he would have gotten help for himself. He states, “I could have gone to my dad. I could have gone to my sister. But I kept everything to myself…I wish I could start all over again and take a better path in life.” Berlinger notes that he wanted to put this message “out there” so that people can realize that rage is not the answer and everyone should seek help.

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Conversation with a Killer: The Son of Sam Tapes is available on Netflix.

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