Scary books: 'The Ultimate Evil' by Maury Terry

...what got me worse was a book about David Berkowitz, better known as the .44 Caliber Killer and best known as Son of Sam.

The book attempted, among other things, to connect Berkowitz to Manson.

Berkowitz was the sole person arrested and convicted in the Son of Sam shootings that plagued New York City in 1976 and 1977.

Wielding a powerful weapon, a Charter Arms .44 caliber Bulldog, Berkowitz mainly attacked women with long, dark hair, particularly those parked in lovers' lanes with their boyfriends.

He killed six people and wounded seven; the death toll probably would've been higher if the revolver weren't so difficult to control.

Son of Sam, like the West Coast's never-captured Zodiac Killer, wrote taunting letters to police and to a newspaper, in this case New York Daily News columnist Jimmy Breslin.

Some letters were darkly poetic, the imagery unforgettable.

When Berkowitz finally was arrested in Yonkers, he supposedly smiled at a police officer and said, “Well, you got me. How come it took such a long time?”

In his confession, Berkowitz claimed that he was driven to kill by his former neighbor's Labrador retriever, Harvey, who demanded blood.

The dog was owned by Sam Carr. Berkowitz pleaded guilty to all of the murders and has been incarcerated ever since.

Today he denies he was possessed by the dog, but one thing he said in a post-trial letter became the linchpin of the book that would later terrify me: “There are other Sons out there. God help the world.”

Maury Terry wholeheartedly believed Berkowitz was telling the truth about “other Sons.”

In his late 1980s book, “The Ultimate Evil,” Terry drew a pretty convincing line from Berkowitz to two of Sam Carr's sons, both of whom died violently after Berkowitz's arrest.

The line extended beyond them to a supposed satanic cult operating in Yonkers and beyond that to Manson and a larger cult,

The Process, as well as to other murders, including the death of a Hollywood movie producer. Bolstering Terry's theories were the facts that some police officers who worked the case thought Berkowitz didn't act alone and that witness descriptions of the shooter and his getaway car varied.

The book, its cover dominated by a drawing of a fierce dog, scared me half to death.

The idea of one Son of Sam was bad enough; the possibility of there being a whole cadre of cult killers was terrifying.

I was young. I wanted to be a crime writer. I believed every word....

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