This story was initially posted in Aug. 11, 2017. It was up to date on Aug. 2, 2025.
Shayna Glassman is aware of her household doesn’t need her to put in writing and go to with David Berkowitz, the notorious “Son of Sam” serial killer. “My family told me, ‘Shayna — don’t pursue this,’” she mentioned.
And she or he actually is aware of how her deceased father would really feel. “A relative told me, ‘Your dad would be so mad at you,’” Shayna Glassman mentioned.
However greater than something, she is painfully conscious that she’s Berkowitz’ “type.”
A selfie of Shayna Glassman exterior of Shawangunk Correctional Facility in Wallkill, N.Y., the place convicted serial killer David Berkowitz is incarcerated.
Shayna Glassman
Nonetheless, none of that stops Shayna Glassman from writing and visiting Berkowitz, an inmate at a most safety jail in upstate New York. He’s been incarcerated for almost 50 years for capturing and killing six New Yorkers and wounding seven others in a murderous spree that’s terrorized town in 1976 and 1977.
“There was something deeper I needed to get,” Shayna Glassman defined. “It’s my way of being with my father. The one thing he left me was this story.”
In 1977, Shayna’s father, Craig Glassman, lived in residence 6E at 35 Pine Road in Yonkers. His direct upstairs neighbor was Berkowitz, then a younger postal employee.
Craig Glassman was a nursing scholar and a volunteer deputy sheriff with the Westchester County Sheriff’s Workplace. He typically wore his police uniform which is why Shayna Glassman believed Berkowitz targeted on him and got here to hate him.
“Son of Sam”: A serial killer’s reign of terror
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Craig Glassman’s full story was instructed in a 1990 now-out-of-print guide titled “Off The Wall.” A part of the rationale for the title are the writings police discovered on Berkowitz’ residence partitions, a few of them referencing “Craig.” The “Son of Sam” additionally talked about “Craig” in a letter to police when he wrote: “Because Craig is Craig so must the streets be filled with Craig (death).”
Craig Glassman holds up letters he says have been written by David Berkowitz, his upstairs neighbor. They’re written in script and don’t resemble the long-lasting “Son of Sam” letters.
Shayna Glassman
“One of them had a drawing of a volcano,” Shayna Glassman mentioned. All the letters have been taken by New York Metropolis police after Berkowitz was arrested.
On the time, Craig Glassman didn’t know who was sending the letters however he suspected Berkowitz as a result of he typically heard his upstairs neighbor pacing and one time obtained an indignant cellphone name to close off his tv.
Probably the most severe incident occurred on Aug. 6, 1977, when somebody left a bucket crammed with gunpowder and .22 caliber bullets exterior Craig Glassman’s door and set it on hearth. “Dad heard the flames and thought the building was on fire,” Shayna Glassman mentioned. “He called out to neighbors who called the fire department.”
The bullets by no means exploded however Craig Glassman filed a harassment criticism in opposition to Berkowitz and Shayna Glassman mentioned. he instructed buddies on the pressure that he thought his loopy upstairs neighbor could possibly be the “Son of Sam.” After all, lots of people that 12 months felt somebody they knew could be the killer; police have been inundated with suggestions and leads.
Days later, NYPD detectives appeared at 35 Pine Road and requested a shocked Craig Glassman if he was David Berkowitz. It was the pre-internet, pre-Fb period. Police had gotten Berkowitz’ title and handle from a parking ticket on the scene of the final capturing, however had no concept what he appeared like.
“Dad said, ‘I can show you who he is,’” Shayna Glassman recalled. “He was sitting with them waiting for Berkowitz to come out and when he did, my father pulled his gun out and said, ‘Freeze — put your hands up.’ He rode with them in car with Berkowitz and he said, ‘You’re Craig Glassman.’”
Whereas Craig Glassman was selling his guide in 1990, he died and left behind a suitcase with the knowledge he’d collected on “Son of Sam.” Shayna Glassman was then solely 4, however she says she at all times took a eager curiosity within the killer.
In December 2016, Shayna Glassman started writing to Berkowitz and ultimately confirmed as much as go to him unannounced. She was allowed in and, when he walked to a seat two toes away from her, not separated by glass, she launched herself. “He said ‘Shayna so good to see you,’” she mentioned. “‘So sorry to hear about your dad.’”
Sporting her late father’s hat, Shayna Glassman sorts a letter to David Berkowitz on the handbook typewriter she purchased to speak with him.
Shayna Glassman
They spoke for greater than two hours, she mentioned, and, since then, she’s visited him three extra instances. She even purchased a handbook typewriter to put in writing letters to him “because I wanted to get into his mind.”
Requested if there was something romantic between them, Shayna Glassman mentioned, “I’m not sure what word to use to describe our relationship. There’s no romance, but it’s romantic because I was doing book reports about him since eighth grade. He was always part of my consciousness.”
She mentioned she’s been by some laborious instances and melancholy and has a really feel for what Berkowitz might have gone by when he was solely 24 years outdated.
Berkowitz, she mentioned, appears to be doing simply wonderful after many years in captivity: “He’s still a human and he’s happy. He has a great sense of humor. Yes, he killed people, that’s not something to be taken lightly, but in the deepest depths there’s always a light that can be presented.”
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