Latest news with #FrankDeGennaro
Daily Mail
20-07-2025
- Daily Mail
Woman shot by Son of Sam receives chilling message from notorious serial killer during trip to library
A woman who was shot by the infamous 'Son of Sam' killer David Berkowitz was confronted by a friend of the killer earlier this week who delivered an eerie message. Wendy Savino had been inside the Valley Cottage Library in Long Island, on Wednesday when she was approached by Frank DeGennaro. The 88-year-old told The New York Post that DeGennaro approached her outside the building, claiming he told her 'David wants to talk to you'. She said: 'So I try to walk around him and he says, "you're Wendy Savino, aren't you?".' The man added: 'Well, I just want you to know David is very upset about what happened to you. David wants to talk to you. David wants you to know he didn't do it'. Following the strange comment, she asked DeGennaro to write down his name, her and her son Jason then took it to Clarkstown Police Department to file a report. She added: 'He had me backed into a corner. He's just talking and talking about the same thing, "David's a really good person".' DeGennaro told the outlet that he was called by the police but not charged, adding that he never intended to scare Savino. He said: 'I didn't corner her. I didn't stand in her way', adding that he became friends with Berkowitz after exchanging letters with the killer who remains behind bars. 'I realize now that it was probably the wrong thing to do, to even talk to her. This is getting blown out of proportion', he added. Savino was shot several times by Berkowitz - who admitted to killing six people - in her car on April 9, 1976. It was later determined that Savino was the first victim of Berkowitz in a series of violent murders that crippled the New York City. For 13 months from July 1976 to July 1977, the 'Son of Sam' carried out a killing rampage that claimed the lives of six and left seven other victims wounded. Armed with a Bulldog revolver, he hunted in the shadows, targeting mostly young couples in cars and on lovers' lanes across Brooklyn, Queens and the Bronx. When he earned the nickname the .44 caliber killer in the press, the notorious murderer coined his own chilling moniker - the Son of Sam - in a letter taunting the police captain on his tail. The killer claimed that he was driven to kill by a 6,000-year-old demon named Sam which spoke to him through his neighbor's dog. The Son of Sam shootings took over the city's consciousness and filled pages and pages of the daily papers. Young women - noting a pattern of brown-haired victims - began dying theirs blonde or wearing wigs. Other New Yorkers avoided going out altogether. Then finally, on August 10, 1977, the Son of Sam - a 24-year-old postal worker from Yonkers by the name of David Berkowitz - was captured. Berkowitz was sentenced in 1978 to the maximum prison term of 25 years to life for each of the six slayings. He first became eligible for parole in 2002. He has since expressed remorse and said he is a born-again Christian. He is being held at Shawangunk Correctional Facility, a maximum-security prison in New York. Speaking with the Daily Mail last month, Berkowitz said t hat he was 'thankful to be alive, and by the grace of God do good things today with my life today.' 'The past could never be undone. I wish it could, but it's not possible. So I just have to keep moving forward,' he said. 'I am also grateful for the friends I have in my life today. These are good law abiding individuals who love me for who I am today, not for who I was in the past when a [sic] let the devil rule my mind.' But, despite the apparent regret for his crimes, the Berkowitz suggested that he was simply a passive pawn being 'used' to do the devil's bidding.
The Independent
19-07-2025
- The Independent
Son of Sam victim says serial killer's friend told her ‘David didn't do this'
A woman who was shot by the "Son of Sam" killer almost 60 years ago had to revisit her terrifying experience this week when she was confronted by one of David Berkowitz's friends. On Wednesday, Wendy Savino was at the Valley Cottage Library in Rockland County, New York, when she was confronted by Frank DeGennaro, a friend of Berkowitz's who insisted the Son of Sam killer did not shoot her. Savino, 88, told the New York Post that when she left the library, she saw a man standing outside staring at her. 'So I try to walk around him and he says, 'You're Wendy Savino, aren't you? Well, I just want you to know David is very upset about what happened to you. David wants to talk to you," she said, quoting DeGennaro. "'David wants you to know he didn't do it.'" Savino was injured in 1976 when Berkowitz, now 72, shot her while she was sitting in her car in the Bronx. She said she tried to play dead after she realized the gunman was still outside her car, but Berkowitz fired twice more into her back. She managed to crawl down a street to a restaurant where the staff called for help. Last year, NYPD investigators announced that her shooting was the first victim of the Son of Sam, who went on to kill six victims and wound two others between 1976 and 1977. Berkowitz never faced charges for the shooting because the statute of limitations had expired. After DeGennaro told Savino that he was friends with Berkowitz, she asked him to write down his name. She then gave the name to her son, Jason, and they called the Clarkstown Police Department to report the encounter. 'He had me backed into a corner,' she said. 'He's just talking and talking about the same thing. 'David's a really good person.'' DeGennaro told the New York Post that he received a call from the police, but wasn't charged as he had committed no crime. He insisted he wasn't trying to scare Savino. He told the paper that he became friends with Berkowitz 30 years ago after writing him a letter from prison. He said the two men bonded over their shared Christian faith. DeGennaro said that he also happens to live in Clarkstown and visits the same library as Savino. He said he was surprised to run into her and added that he had not told her Berkowitz wanted to talk. 'I realize now that it was probably the wrong thing to do, to even talk to her,' he told the paper. 'This is getting blown out of proportion.' While the encounter was likely terrifying for Savino and perhaps sobering for DeGennaro, it's a great bit of unintentional marketing for Netflix, which is releasing a documentary about Berkowitz on July 30 titled "Conversations with a Killer: The Son of Sam Tapes." The documentary focuses on recently discovered recorded interviews with Berkowitz. The Son of Sam killer confessed to his crimes in 1978, pleading guilty to six counts of second-degree murder and seven counts of attempted second-degree murder. He was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison for each murder, and has been denied parole 12 times. Savino said the encounter left her "very nervous." 'I was always afraid someone would come to me and say 'I'll finish you off for David.''
