Speaker 1: Disgraceland is a production of Double Elvis. This is a
Speaker 1: story about the band Talking Heads, but it's also the
Speaker 1: story about a singer and a serial killer. It's a
Speaker 1: wild story, a story that involves six murders, unsuspecting young people,
Speaker 1: snuck up on in the darkness and shot in cold
Speaker 1: blood by a psycho. And it's a story about a
Speaker 1: singer trying to channel that detached psychotic feeling into song.
Speaker 1: A story about punk rock, the New Wave, the New
Speaker 1: York Yankees, the Mets, a garbage strike, and a blackout
Speaker 1: that brought terror and violence. All that aside, this is
Speaker 1: also a story about great music, Unlike that music I
Speaker 1: played for you at the top of the show that
Speaker 1: wasn't great music. That was a preset loop from my
Speaker 1: mellotron called Fears of a Clown MK two. I played
Speaker 1: you that loop because I can't afford the rights to
Speaker 1: Kiss and Say Goodbye by the Manhattans. And why would
Speaker 1: I play you that particular slice of Backseat Dark End
Speaker 1: of the Street Cheese? Could I afford it? Because that
Speaker 1: was the number one song in America on July twenty ninth,
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy six, and that was the day that David
Speaker 1: Berkowitz kicked off a murderous rampage that terrorized New Yorkers
Speaker 1: for over a year, a year during which Talking Heads
Speaker 1: recorded their landmark first album and their signature song, Psycho Killer.
Speaker 1: On this episode, a singer, a serial killer, the son
Speaker 1: of Sam and Talking Heads. I'm Jake Brennan and this
Speaker 1: is Disgraceland snare drum, high hat baseline. It was a
Speaker 1: groove so loud and so low that you didn't even
Speaker 1: hear it, You just felt it there in your chest.
Speaker 1: It's the kind of groove that animates bodies. And those
Speaker 1: kinds of records, they get the crowd on the dance
Speaker 1: floor and then they keep them there. These the kinds
Speaker 1: of records. A Tonya motto spawned at the Peach Tree
Speaker 1: right now at ten thirty pm, Tony was keeping the
Speaker 1: tempo at a moderate ninety five beats per minute. By
Speaker 1: one am, he'd work it all the way up to
Speaker 1: one hundred and forty bpm as thousands of kids in
Speaker 1: their late teens and early twenties boogied down. Then Tony
Speaker 1: gradually relaxed the pace and cooled them all out. By
Speaker 1: closing time. It wasn't studio fifty four, But in nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy six, in the suburb of New Rochelle, New York,
Speaker 1: the peach Tree was as close as it got to
Speaker 1: that midtown field. Besides, New York City was a cesspool.
Speaker 1: It was dangerous and it was dirty. The suburbs were safer,
Speaker 1: and this gig was easier, and based on the pair
Speaker 1: of brunettes that just walked by, the peach tree was
Speaker 1: plenty good enough for Tony. Just then, a young guy
Speaker 1: in a wrinkled button down shirt shuffled into the DJ
Speaker 1: booth holding a glass of water for Tony. Normally, the
Speaker 1: DJ booth was Tony's sacred space, no guests and no requests,
Speaker 1: but he felt sorry for this quiet young guy with
Speaker 1: the intense black eyes and the wild hair. He always
Speaker 1: came to the club alone, and he never danced. He
Speaker 1: just hung at the edge of the DJ booth and
Speaker 1: watched Tony work. Eventually, Tony took pity on him and
Speaker 1: showed him the turntables and mixing board tonight. The guy
Speaker 1: handed Tony's a glass of water and stared over his
Speaker 1: shoulder at the turntables. Tony tried to fill the awkward silence.
Speaker 1: He asked the guy if he liked disco. Nah. The
Speaker 1: guy said he preferred Philly's soul. Tony changed his strategy
Speaker 1: dy like girls, and the guy's eyes flashed with anger.
Speaker 1: He just stared at his shoes. Tony felt that it
Speaker 1: was clear that this guy wasn't a ladies man, but Jesus,
Speaker 1: he was just trying to make conversation. An uncomfortable silence
Speaker 1: hung in the air for another minute, and finally the
Speaker 1: guy muttered goodbye and quickly turned and walked out of
Speaker 1: the booth, And as he turned the corner, Tony called
Speaker 1: out after him, Hey, David, catch you later. Meanwhile, twenty
Speaker 1: miles south, another awkward young man clung to a doorframe
Speaker 1: in a tiny damp room. A future mix of smells
Speaker 1: filled his nostrils. Piss, cockroach, spray, Chanelle number five, a
Speaker 1: combination so thick it enveloped him. All the same, he
Speaker 1: couldn't leave. He knew what was waiting just on the
Speaker 1: other side of the door. He could hear the huge dog,
Speaker 1: panting in the summer heat, nudging at the door with
Speaker 1: its nose, scraping its claws across the wooden floor. He
Speaker 1: knew the dog wouldn't let up. Now that it had
Speaker 1: his attention, and soon he would have to do its bidding. Finally,
Speaker 1: the young man pushed the door open, and the black
Speaker 1: dog trotted forward and stopped right in front of him.
Speaker 1: It looked up with those sad eyes, eyes that were
Speaker 1: almost human, and for a moment it seemed like the
Speaker 1: mutt was going to speak. It paused, it circled, and
Speaker 1: then took a shit right there on the wooden floor.
Speaker 1: The dog forced its muzzle into his hands, leaving David
Speaker 1: Byrne with no choice but to scratch the ears of
Speaker 1: the big sluki hound until it turned and ran back
Speaker 1: to a man standing at the bar. That man was
Speaker 1: Hilly Crystal. He ran seebegb this tiny dive on the Bowery,
Speaker 1: and his dog Jonathan was the club's unofficial mascot. By
Speaker 1: July nineteen seventy six, not much remained of Hill's original
Speaker 1: vision of what was once called country, Bluegrass and Blues,
Speaker 1: hence CBGV. Instead, the club was the epicenter of a
Speaker 1: new wave of music, powered by bands including Television Blondie,
Speaker 1: The Ramones, and tonight's headliner Talking Heads. David Byrne and
Speaker 1: his bandmates Bassist Tina Weymouth and drummer Chris Franz hardly
Speaker 1: looked like a band at the center of the emerging
Speaker 1: punk sy where the Ramones rocked black leather and shades,
Speaker 1: Talking Heads wore polo shirts with little alligators on them.
Speaker 1: Clean cut, nerdy, almost they were, as rock critic Lester
Speaker 1: Bangs later put it, so uncool that they became cool tonight, however,
Speaker 1: they were well on their way to becoming cool. Only
Speaker 1: a year after their first gig as Talking Heads, they
Speaker 1: were gearing out for their second sold out show of
Speaker 1: the night. As the line grew outside the club, David
Speaker 1: Byrne felt tense, nervous. He couldn't relax and the pressure
Speaker 1: was on in addition to the huge crowd outside. Sire
Speaker 1: Records founder seymour Stein was inside the building. He had
Speaker 1: been scouting the band for months. He saw one of
Speaker 1: their first shows a year prior, and now he was
Speaker 1: ready to check on the band's progress. The doors opened
Speaker 1: and the crowd rushed in, and when the band kicked off,
Speaker 1: seymour Stein was pressed up against the front of the stage.
Speaker 1: He watched David Byrne twitch in convulse like a man
Speaker 1: possessed his singing voice was just as jittery, swinging wildly
Speaker 1: up and down in pitch, but there was something oddly
Speaker 1: compelling about it. He was intense, he was passionate. In
Speaker 1: the right hands, he could be the star, which is
Speaker 1: exactly why Seymour wanted the band for Sire Records. The
Speaker 1: first song ended and the crowd roared. David waited a
Speaker 1: moment before step into the microphone to announce their next one.
Speaker 1: The name of this band is Talking Heads. The next
Speaker 1: song is called Psycho Killer. While Talking Heads finished their
Speaker 1: late set back in New Rochelle, Tonyamato watched that pair
Speaker 1: of brunettes walk out of the Peach Tree too bad.
Speaker 1: Tony recognized one of them. What was her name? Debbie? Diane? No, Donna,
Speaker 1: that was it. He was hoping she might stick around
Speaker 1: a chat, but unfortunately that wasn't in the cards. Tonight,
Speaker 1: Donna and her friend Jody slipped out of the club
Speaker 1: and into the bomby night Air. They hopped into Jody's
Speaker 1: oldsmobile and headed south to the Bronx to Pelham Bay,
Speaker 1: where Donna lived with her parents. Jody double parked in
Speaker 1: front of the house. The girls didn't notice the guy
Speaker 1: who was following them. He pulled his yellow Ford Galaxy
Speaker 1: to the curve half a block away, replaying the scene
Speaker 1: from the disco in his mind, he let out a hard,
Speaker 1: angry laugh. Of course he liked girls, but girls hardly
Speaker 1: noticed him, just like everyone else, and when they did,
Speaker 1: it was just to pity him. Even that DJ back
Speaker 1: at the peach Tree, he was so patronizing. None of
Speaker 1: them truly saw him. Not really. He was going to
Speaker 1: fix that starting tonight. Soon the whole city would notice him.
Speaker 1: He pulled a revolver from his pocket and massaged it
Speaker 1: in his hands. Somewhere a dog was barking. He tried
Speaker 1: to block it from his mind and focus on what
Speaker 1: he was here to do. Make them notice. He opened
Speaker 1: the door of his forward Galaxy and stepped out into
Speaker 1: the night. E oldsmobile idle just up ahead, a few
Speaker 1: feet away. Now he crept up on the passenger side.
Speaker 1: Suddenly the passenger door swung open. It was Donna. She
Speaker 1: saw him there waiting for her, his heart pounding, that
Speaker 1: snub nosed piece in his hands, shimmering under the moonlight.
Speaker 1: She screamed, who the hell are you? The flash and
Speaker 1: the revolver was blinding. The shots cut through the night
Speaker 1: air like thunder. Donna fell to the ground. He gave
Speaker 1: to Jody in the driver's seat. She looked like she
Speaker 1: was about to puke. He fired three more shots. The
Speaker 1: first one tore through her leg. She screamed in pain
Speaker 1: as blood spilled out into the driver's seat, and then
Speaker 1: he turned and ran. Doma's parents bolted out of the house.
Speaker 1: They rushed down to the car, but it was too late.
Speaker 1: At just eighteen years old, their daughter's life was over.
Speaker 1: For the rest of New York City, The nightmare was
Speaker 1: just Beginning April nineteen seventy seven, Manhattan Sun Dragon's Studios,
Speaker 1: something was bothering David Byrne. The music coming out of
Speaker 1: the control room speakers was not good, not good at all.
Speaker 1: David's bandmates, Tina Weymouth, Chris Franz, and their latest edition
Speaker 1: multi instrumentalist Jerry Harrison, formerly of The Modern Lovers, they
Speaker 1: all agreed. Listening to this first playback of their song
Speaker 1: Psycho Killer, they realized that something was off. The cold
Speaker 1: detached persona that David created so easily on stage at
Speaker 1: CBGB was no match for the cold detached atmosphere the
Speaker 1: recording studios. Isolated vocal booth on Tate. David's voice sounded timid, weak, uninspired.
Speaker 1: He hated it. The track should have been better than this.
Speaker 1: It was the band's oldest song, one they wrote in
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy four while they were all still art students
Speaker 1: at Rhode Island School of Design. David came up with
Speaker 1: the concept after listening to Alice Cooper's shock rock masterpiece
Speaker 1: Billion Dollar Babies on repeat. Back then, he imagined it
Speaker 1: as a creepy rock ballad, but Chris added a funky
Speaker 1: and propulsive beat that took the song in a totally
Speaker 1: different direction. Tina, who was dating Chris, listened as the
Speaker 1: guys tried to come up with a bridge. She offered
Speaker 1: to write something in French, seeing as she was fluent,
Speaker 1: and soon the song was done. Tina grew up taking
Speaker 1: music lessons, but at the time she hadn't even picked
Speaker 1: up a bass yet. Even now, in nineteen seventy seven,
Speaker 1: only been playing for a year and a half. That
Speaker 1: was another thing bothering David. After finally signing with Sire
Speaker 1: Records in November, Talking Head's debut album was going to
Speaker 1: make or break. If it succeeded, it could launch him
Speaker 1: into a long career in music. If it flopped, you
Speaker 1: might not get another shot. Was it really wise to
Speaker 1: trust their sound to such an inexperienced player. Maybe Tina
Speaker 1: was the problem, or maybe the problem was Tony bon Gioviy. Yes,
Speaker 1: that's first cousin to mister living on a Prayer, John
Speaker 1: bon Jovi, who in nineteen seventy seven was already a
Speaker 1: big time producer. Jimmy Hendrix, Gloria Gaynor, and most importantly,
Speaker 1: Tony Bonjioviy produced two Dynamics Soaring albums for the ramones
Speaker 1: seymour Stein thought that Tony bon Gioviy would be a
Speaker 1: perfect fit for the Talking Head's debut. From the start, however,
Speaker 1: it was not a perfect fit. It was a badfit.
Speaker 1: Tony didn't understand the band's sound. He was dismissive about
Speaker 1: Tina's playing, he hated David singing, and he spent most
Speaker 1: of his time bragging about his new private jet. He
Speaker 1: read airplane magazines while the band recorded, and he left
Speaker 1: sessions to oversee the creation of the power station studio
Speaker 1: he was building in Hell's kitchen. When he did pay attention,
Speaker 1: his attempts to drop knowledge off and backfired. Like right now,
Speaker 1: the studio was silent as the playback ended. Everyone in
Speaker 1: the room knew that the vocals were all wrong. Tony
Speaker 1: casually put down the Airplane magazine and he took off
Speaker 1: his shades and walked out of the room. When he
Speaker 1: returned from the studio small kitchen, he was holding an
Speaker 1: eight inch long butcher knife. He walked up to David
Speaker 1: and placed the knife in his hand. Look, Tony said,
Speaker 1: you're a psycho killer right, It's time to get into character.
Speaker 1: It couldn't be more clear that Tony didn't understand the
Speaker 1: song at all. He wanted David to scream soulfully like
Speaker 1: Al Green, instead of delivering a cold monotone like Lou Reed.
Speaker 1: He wanted a novelty song. The song wasn't a joke.
Speaker 1: This was David's life. If they didn't get it right
Speaker 1: this go round, there would not be another. David looked
Speaker 1: down at the knife in his hand, and the anger
Speaker 1: boiled up inside of him. He felt like a dog,
Speaker 1: an animal. He wanted a lunge at Tony, gouge the
Speaker 1: producer's eyes out, to plunge the knife into his fucking chest.
Speaker 1: Do it. The voice inside him screamed, do it. No
Speaker 1: he said to himself as much as he said to Tony,
Speaker 1: I don't think we're going to do that. Then he
Speaker 1: handed back the knife and stormed out of the room.
Speaker 1: While David Byrne was trying to channel a psycho killer
Speaker 1: in Manhattan, of Queens and the Bronx were becoming aware
Speaker 1: of a psycho killer prowling their neighborhood for real. The
Speaker 1: shooting in the Bronx in July nineteen seventy six that
Speaker 1: killed eighteen year old Donna Laia and wounded her nineteen
Speaker 1: year old friend, Jody Valenti was reported with a meager
Speaker 1: two paragraph mentioned in the Long Island Press. Similar attacks
Speaker 1: in October in November garnered a few more articles, but
Speaker 1: nothing like the headlines that David Berkowitz expected. In a
Speaker 1: city with over fifteen hundred homicides a year, it was
Speaker 1: hard to break through, but David Berkowitz did breakthrough, specifically
Speaker 1: at about seven thirty pm on March eighth, nineteen seventy seven,
Speaker 1: when he approached a nineteen year old Columbia student walking
Speaker 1: home in Queen's the books that Virginia of Oscar Richian carried.
Speaker 1: He couldn't stop the slug from David Berkowitz's gun. She
Speaker 1: held the books up to try and shield the inevitable,
Speaker 1: but it was no use. David shot her point blank
Speaker 1: in the mouth. Virginia's body collapsed in a heap on
Speaker 1: the sidewalk. David Berkowitz pulled a cap down over his
Speaker 1: face and took off running. He left behind the thirty
Speaker 1: five dollars in Virginia's purse. This was the murder that
Speaker 1: compelled New York City Mayor A Beam to hold a
Speaker 1: press conference in which he alerted the public that the
Speaker 1: same weapon, a forty four Bulldog Revolver, had been used
Speaker 1: in at least two of the recent shootings. A month later,
Speaker 1: opening day at Yankee Stadium, the tabloid headlines weren't talking
Speaker 1: about the early struggles of new right fielder Reggie Jackson. Instead,
Speaker 1: the New York Post and their chief rival, the New
Speaker 1: York Daily News were focused on yet another brutal killing.
Speaker 1: David Berkowitz was crouching in the shadows, watching a couple
Speaker 1: as they kissed in a parked car. He felt for
Speaker 1: the letter in his jacket pocket, the one he'd written
Speaker 1: earlier that day. It was addressed to NYPD Sergeant Joseph Barelli,
Speaker 1: who was leading the investigation into the killings, killings in
Speaker 1: which David Berkowitz was the sole perpetrator, as well as
Speaker 1: the sole person to know this fact. He continued to
Speaker 1: watch the couple make out in their car like a
Speaker 1: man watching a dirty movie alone in a darkened theater.
Speaker 1: And then he pulled that big forty four caliber handgown
Speaker 1: from a bag that gave him purpose. The interior light
Speaker 1: in the car went out, and the couple's heads were
Speaker 1: silhouetted by the residual glow of a nearby street light.
Speaker 1: And they were so unaware, so happy, they should have
Speaker 1: been terrified. David made his approach, slowed his New York
Speaker 1: power walk to a crawl. He could hear them now,
Speaker 1: their moans, ecstasy, heavy, petty. The sounds gave him confidence.
Speaker 1: No wild shots, tonight, no missus. He dropped to his knee,
Speaker 1: braced his arm and aimed this happy couple would feel pain.
Speaker 1: He fired four bullets. Each one found its target. His
Speaker 1: victims slumped in their seats, dead or nearly so. He
Speaker 1: calmly pulled the letter from his pocket and dropped it
Speaker 1: in the car before turning to leave. The citizens of
Speaker 1: New York City didn't fear him, not yet. They called
Speaker 1: him a killer, but they had no idea that he
Speaker 1: was so much more. He was the son of evil.
Speaker 1: He was the son of the devil. He was the
Speaker 1: son of Sam, which is exactly what the letter said.
Speaker 1: The cops tried to keep the letter a secret from
Speaker 1: the press, but the Daily News managed to bribe someone,
Speaker 1: and the very next day, the paper ran the full
Speaker 1: text of the letter, along with a massive, bold face
Speaker 1: headline that read killer to cops, I'll do it again.
Speaker 1: That headline caught the eye of many New Yorkers, including
Speaker 1: David Byrne, who spotted the paper as he stepped out
Speaker 1: of Sun Dragon's studios. As he read the article, he
Speaker 1: was struck by the letter's cold, detached tone. These weren't
Speaker 1: the words of a lunatic waving a knife around in public.
Speaker 1: They were the words of a man who blended in,
Speaker 1: who wouldn't be noticed until he struck. When David Byrne
Speaker 1: returned to the studio, he ran into engineer Ed Stasium.
Speaker 1: He confessed to Ed that he was beyond uncomfortable singing
Speaker 1: in front of Tony. Ed suggested they wait for the
Speaker 1: producer to clear out for the day and then finish
Speaker 1: the vocals when he wasn't around, which is exactly what
Speaker 1: they did. They pieced together Psychokiller behind their producer's back
Speaker 1: while Tony talked about Tina's playing ed. The engineer reassured
Speaker 1: David and the rest of the band that her bassline
Speaker 1: absolutely made the song and that she was impossible to replace. Eventually,
Speaker 1: David Byrne found ways to relax, to bring the excitement
Speaker 1: of the band's live performances to the cold, isolated vocal booth.
Speaker 1: The psycho Killer was taking shape. Eight or nine other
Speaker 1: songs were close behind, but now the band was going
Speaker 1: to have to push pause on the recording. In three days,
Speaker 1: they were boarding a plane to England. The band was
Speaker 1: going on tour with The Ramones. So while David Byrne
Speaker 1: worked on building a buzz for his band's debut album Abroad,
Speaker 1: David Berkowitz worked on a project that would land him
Speaker 1: more headlines back home. His letter to the Cops was
Speaker 1: a success. It massively increased the news coverage of his killings,
Speaker 1: and now the son of Sam was working feverishly on
Speaker 1: a follow up, something bigger, longer, more ornate. He took
Speaker 1: his time writing it, he worked carefully on the calligraphy,
Speaker 1: the layout. It was a killer press release, or should
Speaker 1: I say a press release for a killer, which is
Speaker 1: why Berkowitz sent it to a Jimmy Breslin, the lead
Speaker 1: calumnist for the New York Daily News, and like any
Speaker 1: good press release, it promoted an event, another killing to
Speaker 1: come in July, on the one year anniversary of the
Speaker 1: Son of Sam's first shooting. We'll be right back after this.
Speaker 1: We're We're, We're. July nineteen seventy seven. New York's brutal
Speaker 1: heat wave seemed to be never ending. Ditto for the
Speaker 1: rotting garbage piled in the streets the result of a
Speaker 1: sanitation worker strike. If that didn't put you on edge,
Speaker 1: then knowing that psychos Son of Sam was still out
Speaker 1: there did. Some days, it seemed like the only bright
Speaker 1: spot in the city was the New York yan who
Speaker 1: were starting to rise to the top of the American
Speaker 1: League East standings just a few days before the All
Speaker 1: Star break. Yankee Stadium was dark tonight, though with the
Speaker 1: Bronx Bombers on the road, but across town in Queens
Speaker 1: Shay Stadium was lit up with the Mets and the
Speaker 1: Chicago Cubs. Heading into the bottom of the sixth inning,
Speaker 1: you could almost see the stadium lights from the roof
Speaker 1: of the Long Island City loft that David Byrne shared
Speaker 1: with Tina Weymouth and Chris France. David wasn't looking towards
Speaker 1: Shay Stadium, though, he was looking out across the East
Speaker 1: River at the buildings of Manhattan. The next day, in
Speaker 1: one of those buildings, he and his bandmates would head
Speaker 1: to Sun Dragon and put the final touches on their
Speaker 1: debut album. Despite the heat, everyone was at a celebratory
Speaker 1: mood Hamburgers and chickens sizzled on a barbecue grill, Glasses clinked,
Speaker 1: friends down cold beer and white wine as the group
Speaker 1: toasted the complete of their record. David Byrne, however, stood alone.
Speaker 1: His stomach was in knots and the album was nearly done,
Speaker 1: and that thought was pure agony. What if the record flopped?
Speaker 1: What if radio programmers refused to play it because they
Speaker 1: thought it was punk and not new wave, as seymour
Speaker 1: Stein was insisting, what if they never got to make
Speaker 1: another record? Suddenly, David watched from the roof as an
Speaker 1: entire city block went dark, like someone had flipped off
Speaker 1: a giant power switch, then another, then another. Everyone at
Speaker 1: the party was pointing across the river as Midtown and
Speaker 1: downtown also went dark. They watched as the entire city
Speaker 1: was plunged into darkness. New York finally snapped. The heat,
Speaker 1: the trash, the fear, and now no electricity. Enough was enough.
Speaker 1: From Brooklyn to the Bronx, people flooded the streets to
Speaker 1: vent their frustration. They lift fires, smashed store windows. It
Speaker 1: was absolute pandemonium. The cops were already stretched to the
Speaker 1: breaking point with the Son of Sam manhunt. As the
Speaker 1: rioting spread, they were outnumbered and exhausted. They struggled to
Speaker 1: restore order. As the sun came up the next morning,
Speaker 1: thick smoke filled the air throughout Queen's as police and
Speaker 1: looters engaged in the street battle. Talking heads were huddled
Speaker 1: around a small television, watching in horror as all this unfolded,
Speaker 1: knowing that there was a very real possibility that their
Speaker 1: recording studio could be one of those buildings being looted.
Speaker 1: Twenty five hours passed, twenty five long hours. Finally the
Speaker 1: power came back on the phone at the band's loft
Speaker 1: rang it was ed stasium at the studio and everything,
Speaker 1: thanks was fine, the tapes were safe. As David Byrne
Speaker 1: and Talking Heads completed the final mix of their debut album,
Speaker 1: David Berkowitz was contemplating his own final plan as he
Speaker 1: clung to a doorframe in a tiny, dank bathroom. Outside,
Speaker 1: he could hear the dog pacing back and forth. He
Speaker 1: was terrified. Now that it had his attention, he knew
Speaker 1: that he would have to do its bidding. From the
Speaker 1: window of his tiny apartment in Yonkers, he looked outside
Speaker 1: in the yard below. He could see the big black
Speaker 1: dog staring at him. Its eyes were almost human. It
Speaker 1: was barking, It was snarling. It looked like it was
Speaker 1: about to start screaming at him. You fucking loser, you
Speaker 1: pathetic piece of shit. The world hates it. Why don't
Speaker 1: you just dieing worm? Do it? Do it now? Sam
Speaker 1: is hung with Sam wants to hunt. Get out there
Speaker 1: and kill, kill kill. David covered his ears, but he
Speaker 1: couldn't drown it out. He grabbed a small rifle from
Speaker 1: the couch and threw open the window. He fired wildly
Speaker 1: at the dog below as it ran wimpword back home.
Speaker 1: August nineteen seventy seven, despite a massive police manhunt, David
Speaker 1: Berkowitz had successfully killed again, a year almost to the
Speaker 1: day from his first shooting. No one is saved from
Speaker 1: son of Sam, declared the New York Post Daily News.
Speaker 1: Calm Miss Jimmy Breslin pleaded with the killer to surrender
Speaker 1: in an issue of the paper that sold over a
Speaker 1: million copies. Nightclubs were empty, lover's lanes were deserted. David
Speaker 1: Berkowitz had achieved the type of fame a guy like
Speaker 1: David Byrne could only dream of. With his immortality assured,
Speaker 1: David Berkowitz was now planning to go out with a
Speaker 1: bang head to a nightclub just like the Peach and
Speaker 1: knew Rochelle and lay waste the entire crowd, all the
Speaker 1: party girls in leisure suit wearing guys, machio fucos, all
Speaker 1: those people who pushed him around, who ignored him, who
Speaker 1: made fun of him. He was going to kill them all,
Speaker 1: and if the cops didn't shoot him first, and he
Speaker 1: would end it himself right there in the nightclub, blood
Speaker 1: all over the dance floor. He already had one gun
Speaker 1: in his yellow Ford Galaxy. Now he loaded his familiar
Speaker 1: forty four caliber bulldog with fresh bullets and placed it
Speaker 1: in a brown paper bag. He was ready to hunt,
Speaker 1: and it was just before ten pm. He walked down
Speaker 1: the steps from his apartment. Outside, there was no one
Speaker 1: who was pitch black, and with the help of a
Speaker 1: dim street light at the end of the block, he
Speaker 1: could make out his car. He walked quickly toward the vehicle.
Speaker 1: He pulled out his key and slid it into the
Speaker 1: lock of the driver's side, and he heard footsteps approaching
Speaker 1: quickly from behind. He turned around to see an NYPD
Speaker 1: detective running toward him, gun drawn. Two more cops were
Speaker 1: approaching from the other side. He dropped the brown paper
Speaker 1: bag to the ground and stuck his hands in the air.
Speaker 1: Then he slumped his shoulders and looked at the ground.
Speaker 1: Well you got me, the cop asked him. Who in
Speaker 1: the hell did he have? Exactly I'm Sam, he said
Speaker 1: David Berkowitz. The next morning, August eleventh, nineteen seventy seven,
Speaker 1: the headline of the New York Post read Caught. It
Speaker 1: sold one point two million copies, almost twice the paper's
Speaker 1: normal circulation. The New York Daily News responded with their
Speaker 1: own breathless coverage of the arrest and arraignment, the papers
Speaker 1: could only hope for a lengthy trial, but instead, David
Speaker 1: Berkowitz confessed the next day. Although it would be months
Speaker 1: before he was finally sentenced. For New Yorkers, the long
Speaker 1: and terrifying summer of the Psycho Killer was finally over.
Speaker 1: I throw a parking ticket. That's all it took. After
Speaker 1: a reign of terror that lasted more than a year,
Speaker 1: left six people dead and another seven seriously wounded. It
Speaker 1: was a parking ticket that finally did David Berkowitz in
Speaker 1: in the early morning of July thirty first, nineteen seventy seven,
Speaker 1: just moments before we shot and killed Stacy Moskowitz and
Speaker 1: wounded Robert Volente as they sat in a car in Brooklyn.
Speaker 1: David Berkowitz's own car was ticketed for parking too close
Speaker 1: to a fire hydrant, and eye witnessed later told police
Speaker 1: she saw a young man snatch a ticket off his
Speaker 1: windshield and glare at her, just moments before she heard
Speaker 1: shots ring out. Eventually, that ticket led police to the
Speaker 1: yellow Ford Galaxy owned by David Burkowitz, and when they
Speaker 1: found it parked outside his apartment in Yonkers, it had
Speaker 1: a gun laying in the back seat and another letter
Speaker 1: to police detailing his grim final plan. But just because
Speaker 1: David Berkowitz was finally jailed didn't mean the press coverage
Speaker 1: cooled off. If anything, it intensified. Papers jockeyed for access
Speaker 1: seeking explanations for how this could have happened. The New
Speaker 1: York Daily News blamed the LSD that David Berkowitz took
Speaker 1: as a soldier in Korea. Even the gray Lady of
Speaker 1: the local press, The New York Times, reported breathlessly on
Speaker 1: theories that David Berkowitz may have acted together with the
Speaker 1: sons of Sam Carr. The literal sons of Sam. Sam
Speaker 1: Carr was the neighbor who owned the black lab that
Speaker 1: David Burkowitz claimed had ordered him to kill. Stories like
Speaker 1: that only increased after both brothers died violent deaths in
Speaker 1: the two years following Berkowitz's arrest. On Friday September sixteenth,
Speaker 1: the New York Mets finally completed the game against the
Speaker 1: Chicago Cubs that had been postponed by the blackout, and
Speaker 1: that same day, Talking Head's debut album, also delayed by
Speaker 1: the blackout, was finally released. The Psycho Killer was the
Speaker 1: first single, Seymour Stein's new wave marketing strategy worked perfectly
Speaker 1: for a band of clean cut art school students. They
Speaker 1: didn't look like punks, they didn't sound like punks. They
Speaker 1: were the vanguard of an entirely new sound, and by
Speaker 1: the following spring, David Burkowitz was found legally sane and
Speaker 1: sentenced to twenty five years to life, Thanks in no
Speaker 1: small part to the publicity around the case. Around that
Speaker 1: same time, the talking single Psycho Killer snuck onto the
Speaker 1: Billboard Hot one hundred for a five week run, peaking
Speaker 1: at number ninety two. It was a hit, just barely,
Speaker 1: but it was enough of a hit to guarantee the
Speaker 1: band a second album on Sire. They made the most
Speaker 1: of it. Learning from previous experience, they lined up Brian Eno,
Speaker 1: formerly of the band Roxy Music and at the time
Speaker 1: one of David Bowie's musical collaborators, to produce their next record.
Speaker 1: Finally working with someone who was on their wavelength, the
Speaker 1: band ditched the standard studio practices of recording in isolation. Instead,
Speaker 1: they played together in the same room, allowing them to
Speaker 1: harness the energy of their set in the recording studio.
Speaker 1: Brian Eno rode the rhythm section of Tina Weymouth and
Speaker 1: Chris Franz, as he pushed the band into a funkier,
Speaker 1: more stylistically diverse sound. Their second album, More Songs About
Speaker 1: Buildings and Food, went all the way up to number
Speaker 1: twenty nine, largely powered by their Cold Detached, an incredibly
Speaker 1: funky cover of Al Green's Take Me to the River.
Speaker 1: The band worked with Brian Eno for three albums in total,
Speaker 1: including one of their many masterpieces, Remain in Light. Over
Speaker 1: the years, David Byrne and Brian Eno continued to collaborate
Speaker 1: on more award winning albums and projects, including My Life
Speaker 1: in the Bush of Ghosts in twenty eighteen's American Utopia,
Speaker 1: which charted higher than any Talking Heads album ever did.
Speaker 1: The power of art is an incredible thing. It took
Speaker 1: an awkward college dropout and gave him an outlet, a
Speaker 1: way to communicate, a way to connect to c and
Speaker 1: to be seen, and it made him a star. Without art,
Speaker 1: who knows where David Byrne would have ended up. David Berkowitz,
Speaker 1: on the other hand, found no such connection, no outlet
Speaker 1: for his rage, for his pain, and because of that,
Speaker 1: he inflicted that rage and that pain on the world
Speaker 1: around him. It's enough to make you wonder if he
Speaker 1: had found his place, could this have been stopped? Could
Speaker 1: those lives have been saved? Could it all have turned
Speaker 1: out differently with another chance? Could David Berkowitz have turned
Speaker 1: out like David Byrne? Or was David Berkowitz simply destined
Speaker 1: for evil, for violence, for disgrace. I'm Jake Brennan and
Speaker 1: this this Disgraceland. Disgraceland was created by Yours Truly and
Speaker 1: is produced in partnership with Double Elvis. Credits for this
Speaker 1: episode can be found on the show notes page at
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