Documentary record Bound by Fear
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Conviction Western occult and esoteric movements New York City, New York, USA · 1978

United States: 'Son of Sam' — demonic-command letters that terrorised a city

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Record class

Context only

Evidence status

Convicted

Authority role

none — the perpetrator held no authority over his victims

Organization

No organization assigned

Archive classification

This is the archive's application of its published inclusion test. The cited record appears below.

NOT AN AUTHORITY-ABUSE CASE. The victims were strangers. What belongs in this database is the instrument: letters claiming a demon issued the orders, which turned a shooting series into a citywide religious terror.

  • Violent occult ideology or sacrifice

Evidence structure

Proceedings

  1. 1978-06-12 · guilty pleas and sentence

    New York State courts (Kings, Queens and Bronx County proceedings, consolidated). David Berkowitz pleaded guilty on 8 May 1978 to all six 'Son of Sam' murders and the associated attempted murders and assaults; after his competency was contested and resolved in favour of fitness, he was sentenced on 12 June 1978 to twenty-five years to life on each murder count. The pleas have never been overturned and he remains imprisoned.

Documented coercion mechanisms

  • letters to police and the press attributing the shootings to a demon commanding him through a neighbour's dog
  • the demonic framing sustaining a year of public terror across New York

Cited record

Sources

reference index case chronology Encyclopædia Britannica: David Berkowitz.

Reference account of the pleas, sentence and the letters.

reference index trial account 'Son of Sam Trial: 1978', Great American Trials.

Legal-reference account of the proceedings.

Source provenance

Source access and integrity log

This log records source retrieval and file integrity. It does not mean that an automated process independently confirmed every statement in the source.

Source and tier basis
https://www.britannica.com/biography/David-Berkowitz Corpus classification: reference-index; evidentiary role: case-chronology.
Retrieval
2026-07-27 · Retrieval failed
Bound by Fear automated source-preservation ledger
Source and tier basis
https://www.encyclopedia.com/law/law-magazines/son-sam-trial-1978 Corpus classification: reference-index; evidentiary role: trial-account. SHA-256 0e12d2f6bfb08d239ffc14c46e7d90936216a54c502ed8d0582500a788122e60
Retrieval
2026-07-20 · Preserved
Bound by Fear automated source-preservation ledger

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