Untermyer Park, Yonkers, New York, USA. Image Source: Atlas Obscura.
For the past several years, I have participated in the Hallowe'en Countdown blogathon. I won't this year, due to personal matters. But I will touch on topics this month which were intended for the countdown. The first such issue concerns David Berkowitz's Son of Sam murders in 1976 and 1977 in New York City. A case summary is here. I have previously blogged about this case, here.
The Temple of Love in Untermyer Gardens. Image Source: Untapped Cities.
In an April 1977 letter left by Berkowitz near one of his murder scenes, the killer referred to himself as the 'Son of Sam': "I am a monster. I am the 'Son of Sam.'" Berkowitz later claimed that 'Sam' was his former neighbour, Sam Carr, and that 'Son of Sam' referred to Carr's demon-possessed dog. Others have speculated that 'Sam' referred to the USA as 'Uncle Sam.' The police offered the possessed dog story to the public, even though a psychiatrist who assessed Berkowitz believed that the killer knew the dog story was bunk.
Thus, at the heart of this case, the name which Berkowitz adopted for himself remains a mystery.
I noticed a curious coincidence in the Persian poem, The Shahnameh (شاهنامه) or The Book of Kings. Written by the poet Ferdowsi, it is the national epic of Iran; it took over thirty years to compose and has almost one thousand chapters. While the poem was completed around 1010 CE, it refers to the much earlier history of the Persian Empire in mythical and quasi-historical terms, from the dawn of time up to the Arab Islamic conquest. You can read the work in English translation, here and here.
There is a section in The Shahnameh entitled, Zāl, the Son of Sam, about an albino child who is rejected by his father, a warrior named Sam:
"No human being of this earthThe father abandons the child on a mountaintop to die, where the baby is raised by Simurgh, the "Shah of birds." You can read the tale of Sam and his son Zaal in English prose translation here and here. Zaal becomes a Persian king who lives for three hundred years and watches his personal dynasty fail and die.
Could give to such a monster birth;
He must be of the Demon race,
Though human still in form and face."
The Simurgh: The Flight of the Simorgh (ca. 1590 CE). Painted at the Mughal Court of Akbar by the artist Basawan. Image Source: The Seringapatam Times.
When Berkowitz adopted 'Son of Sam' as his alter ego, he may have been referring to Sam and Zaal in The Shahnameh, or to a corrupted derivative thereof adopted by New York City's hippie cultists.
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