‘Son of Sam’ Mourns Death Of Pen Pal Jimmy Breslin
Image by Wikipedia
David Berkowitz extended his condolences to the family of the late Jimmy Breslin – four decades after the notorious butcher called himself the “Son of Sam” in a letter to the New York tabloid columnist.
“I wish to extend my condolences to his family at their loss,” he wrote to the letter of a local newspaper in the upstate penitentiary where he is serving a life sentence.
Berkowitz terrorized New York City between 1976 and 1977, killing six people and wounding eight others. His main target was young women, whom he claimed his neighbor’s dog had instructed him to go after.
“Mr. Breslin, sir, don’t think that because you haven’t heard from me for a while that I went to sleep. No, rather, I am still here. Like a spirit roaming the night. Thirsty, hungry, seldom stopping to rest; anxious to please Sam. I love my work,” he wrote Breslin in one letter, in which he also self-identified as a “rapist and suffocator of young women.”
Breslin died in March, at the ripe age of 87, after having written columns in Newsday, the New York Post and New York Daily News in his storied career as a city newspaperman.
Contact Daniel J. Solomon at [email protected] or on Twitter @DanielJSolomon
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning journalism this Passover.
In this age of misinformation, our work is needed like never before. We report on the news that matters most to American Jews, driven by truth, not ideology.
At a time when newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall. That means for the first time in our 126-year history, Forward journalism is free to everyone, everywhere. With an ongoing war, rising antisemitism, and a flood of disinformation that may affect the upcoming election, we believe that free and open access to Jewish journalism is imperative.
Readers like you make it all possible. Right now, we’re in the middle of our Passover Pledge Drive and we still need 300 people to step up and make a gift to sustain our trustworthy, independent journalism.
Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Only 300 more gifts needed by April 30
