Death was on Julia Rubino’s mind a lot during 1976.
Automatic negative thoughts (or ANTS as she called them) started crawling around her brain months earlier when she first heard about the mysterious murders in New York City.
The killer openly taunted the police; seeking misplaced attention and public veneration, he wrote rambling and ambiguous letters to journalist Jimmy Breslin who printed them in his column in The Daily News. In his letters the murderer sometimes referenced a cult, hinting that the killings were a rite of passage. Other times he claimed a demonic dog owned by his neighbor Sam spoke to him demanding the blood of pretty young girls.
All the victims were females with long dark hair; as a college student with shoulder-length brunette curls, Julia felt particularly vulnerable. When she told her parents she wanted to cut her hair and dye it blonde, they said she was over-reacting. Julia’s boyfriend Steve told her she was being ridiculous, that there was nothing to worry about. He said they were safe in their little town of New Rochelle. Violent crimes like that only happened in dangerous urban locations, not quiet Westchester County.
On date nights, Julia and Steve often drove to the Glen Island Beach parking lot in New Rochelle; it was a popular make-out spot and the police very rarely patrolled the area or bothered the couples parked there. When Julia told Steve she didn’t want to go parking any more, he got pissed off. Tearfully she told him the murders were making her afraid of her own shadow. She reminded him that the killings always involved two victims – young women and their boyfriends parked in cars. She couldn’t shake the notion that something terrible was going to happen to them.
Steve argued that Julia was being paranoid and they had no other choice if they wanted to be alone. They had no privacy living at home with their parents and Julia refused to go to a motel saying it made her feel sleazy. Frustrated, Steve yelled at her to calm down and get a grip. Afraid of losing him, Julia begrudgingly decided they had only one option if they wanted to be alone and that was the dark parking lot of Glen Island Beach.
On July 29 things took an unexpected and shocking turn; the first murders in Westchester County occurred. This time the killer’s MO was different and left the police wondering if the shootings were done by the same individual or a copy-cat killer. The victims were two girls sitting in a car in a well-lit area – not a girl and her boyfriend in a dark parking lot.
The two women were nurses Jody Valenti and Donna Lauria. They had been sitting in Jody’s double-parked Oldsmobile outside Donna’s house talking about their night out at a New Rochelle disco. When Donna opened the car door to get out, a man suddenly approached. Pulling out a gun, he crouched down and opened fire. Donna was killed instantly but Jody survived. The attack happened quickly, however, Jody was able to give a description of the assailant. It matched that of the shooter of the previous killings.
Westchester County residents were panic-stricken, especially Julia. Police urged everyone to stay vigilant and refrain from sitting in parked cars. Julia considered dropping out of college and staying at home until the murderous madman was caught; her parents convinced her it was irrational to completely cut oneself off from the world. No one understood how scared she was, especially now that the murders were much closer to home. She felt like she had a target painted on her back. Every young woman felt the same way; our lives were being controlled by an unknown killer and our own fears.
For more than a year the killer held the citizens of New York captive. On the night of August 10, 1977, the state of terror finally ended. After a brief but intense shootout, the murderer was apprehended at his Yonkers apartment, ironically just minutes from Westchester Community College where Julia was a student. Julia could finally breathe a sigh of relief. Whatever her reasons were, she had a feeling deep in her gut that if the killer had not been caught, she would have eventually ended up on his list of victims. That is something that will remain unanswered forever.
Dear readers – Julia Rubino, her boyfriend Steve and her parents are fictional characters I created for this story; everything else written here is true and accurate. I know this because I lived through it and was as terrified as everyone else.
In August it will be 46 years since that historic arrest. The notorious killer is David Berkowitz, known around the world as Son of Sam. Berkowitz pled guilty to all the shootings; six people were killed and seven wounded, some horribly. His weapon of choice was a .44 caliber Bulldog revolver gun.
On the day after his sentencing, Berkowitz was taken first to Sing Sing prison in Ossining, NY, then to the upstate Clinton Correctional Facility for psychiatric and physical examinations. Two more months were spent at the Central New York Psychiatric Center before his admission to the infamous Attica Correctional Facility. Berkowitz served about a decade in Attica until he was relocated to Sullivan Correctional Facility in Fallsburg, where he remained for many years. He is now housed at Shawangunk Correctional Facility which is located in Wallkill, Ulster County.
Berkowitz described his life in Attica as “a living hell, a nightmare” – as it should be; no one is more deserving.
NAR © 2023
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