Netflix’s Conversations with a Killer: The Son of Sam Tapes Leaves Viewers Deeply Unsettled

Netflix’s latest true-crime series is taking viewers inside one of the most frightening chapters in New York City’s history, and some who have watched all three episodes say the experience is unusually intimate and disturbing.

Conversations with a Killer: The Son of Sam Tapes premiered on July 30, 2025. Directed by Joe Berlinger, the three-part documentary revisits David Berkowitz’s 1976-77 killing spree through previously unheard recordings, interviews with people connected to the case and accounts from survivors and investigators.

The series is particularly striking because Berkowitz himself becomes part of the story through rare audio interviews recorded by journalist Jack Jones. The recordings offer a window into how Berkowitz described his childhood, his anger and the thinking behind the crimes that terrorised New York.

Netflix describes the documentary as a combination of present-day interviews and previously unheard recordings examining Berkowitz’s impact on 1970s New York.

Who was the Son of Sam?

David Berkowitz was arrested almost 50 years ago after a series of shootings that left six people dead and several others wounded.

At the time, he became known first as the “.44 Caliber Killer” and later as the “Son of Sam”, a name connected to the letters he sent to police and journalists while taunting authorities.

His attacks began in New York in 1976 and continued into 1977, creating an atmosphere of fear across the city. The seemingly random nature of the shootings made it difficult for residents to know where the killer might strike next.

Berkowitz was eventually captured in August 1977 and later received six consecutive life sentences. He remains incarcerated in New York.

The documentary draws heavily on interviews journalist Jack Jones recorded with Berkowitz in 1980 at Attica Correctional Facility. Those recordings have become one of the series’ central features.

The childhood experiences Berkowitz says changed him

One of the most unsettling elements of the documentary is the way Berkowitz talks about his early life.

He explains that discovering he had been adopted had a profound effect on him. He describes believing that a man connected to his birth might hate him because of the circumstances surrounding his adoption.

“I thought there was a man out there that hated me and was possibly going to try to kill me for causing the death of his wife,” Berkowitz says in the series.

He describes this period as a turning point. His anger increasingly spilled over into his relationship with his adoptive mother. He damaged her belongings, withdrew from other people and began to see himself as a loner.

Later, he learned that his biological mother was alive and that his biological father had abandoned him. Berkowitz says the feelings of rejection and alienation fed his anger.

“I was so angry, I blamed others, and I started committing my crimes to make people pay attention to me,” he says.

The documentary does not present those experiences as a simple explanation for his later violence. Director Joe Berlinger makes clear that many people endure traumatic childhoods without becoming violent, which is part of what continues to fascinate him about Berkowitz’s story.

“Lots of children have traumatic childhoods, and they don’t turn into killers,” Berlinger says.

New York under the shadow of the Son of Sam

The documentary also recreates the atmosphere of fear that spread through New York during Berkowitz’s attacks.

Because the victims appeared to be selected at random, ordinary routines suddenly felt dangerous. Couples became wary of sitting in parked cars, while women changed their appearance in an attempt to avoid resembling the killer’s previous targets.

Some women with long brown hair cut it short or dyed it blonde. Others stopped going out, while parents urged their daughters to stay home.

The fear was amplified by the intense media coverage surrounding the case. Berkowitz’s letters to police and journalists helped turn the investigation into a national story, while the lack of modern computerised data-sharing made it harder for investigators to connect information quickly.

Contemporary reporting captured the extraordinary level of public anxiety. TIME wrote in August 1977 that Berkowitz had attacked couples in lovers’ lanes, targeted people leaving discos and even fired at girls sitting on house porches.

The case eventually became one of the defining examples of how crime, media attention and public fear could feed into one another.

Why did Berkowitz target couples?

The series also examines Berkowitz’s apparent fixation on young couples.

According to Berlinger, Berkowitz’s resentment was connected to his feelings about his own birth. He believed that couples engaged in illicit relationships could produce unwanted children, something he associated with his own experience.

“When Berkowitz realised he was the product of an affair,” Berlinger explains, “he began targeting young lovers having illicit sex in their cars, producing unwanted children.”

The director is careful to distinguish between understanding a killer’s thinking and excusing his actions.

That distinction becomes particularly important as the documentary examines the psychological factors surrounding the crimes.

Survivors bring a deeply personal perspective

Some of the most affecting moments come from people whose lives were directly altered by the attacks.

The documentary features interviews with surviving victims and relatives of people who were killed.

Wendy Savino, now 88, appears in the series as Berkowitz’s first victim. She was shot in April 1976 and says she has carried a sketch of Berkowitz in her handbag for 47 years.

That detail gives the case a personal dimension that statistics and archival news reports cannot capture. Decades after the shootings, the memory of the attacker remains physically present in her daily life.

The series also includes firsthand accounts from people who were connected to the investigation, adding perspective to a case that has been discussed and revisited for decades.

Netflix says the documentary combines these firsthand accounts from police, journalists and survivors with the newly unearthed recordings.

Berkowitz speaks again in recordings featured in the series

Another major element of The Son of Sam Tapes is Berkowitz’s willingness to reflect on his crimes.

Joe Berlinger interviewed him by phone in 2024 for the documentary. Berkowitz describes himself as having been trapped in a “dark space” and speaks about how badly his life had spiralled.

“My life spun out of control, and I just couldn’t get on that right path,” he says.

Asked what he would tell his younger self, Berkowitz gives a strikingly direct answer:

“‘Dave, run for your life. Get help.'”

He adds that he could have turned to his father or sister but instead kept his feelings to himself.

The documentary also addresses the bizarre explanations Berkowitz originally gave for his crimes. According to Netflix’s account of the newly featured recordings, he later acknowledged that the story involving a demon-possessed dog was fabricated as a way of creating confusion and evading capture.

The case that helped shape true crime culture

For Berlinger, the Son of Sam investigation is important not only because of the crimes themselves but because of the relationship between the killer, the police and the media.

He argues that the way Berkowitz communicated with journalists helped establish a template for the public fascination with notorious criminals.

“The way Berkowitz interacted with the media, the way the media willingly cooperated—everyone in New York couldn’t wait for the next headline,” Berlinger says.

The documentary also looks at how policing has changed since the 1970s. Investigators then did not have the computerised systems and rapid data-sharing available to modern law enforcement, making it more difficult to connect cases and information across different investigations.

Despite the conspiracy theories that have surrounded the Son of Sam case over the years, the documentary presents Berkowitz as acting alone. The killings stopped after his arrest.

Viewers are calling the series chillingly intimate

The documentary has prompted a strong reaction from viewers who have already raced through its three episodes.

One viewer described Conversations with a Killer as potentially “one of the most chillingly intimate documentaries yet” among Netflix’s true-crime offerings.

Another called it one of the platform’s best true-crime docuseries, while a third joked that they were going to hide in their room to watch The Son of Sam Tapes.

Not everyone was equally impressed.

One viewer found the new series “a bit of a slog”, arguing that it lacked a clear point of view and offered little new information.

Still, the response has been largely focused on the documentary’s unsettling access to Berkowitz’s own words and the emotional impact of hearing from people who lived through the case.

That combination gives the series a different perspective on a crime story that has been covered for decades.

Watch the trailer

The official trailer introduces the three-part series as a look at one of New York City’s biggest manhunts, combining the investigation with newly unearthed recordings of Berkowitz.

Conversations with a Killer: The Son of Sam Tapes is now streaming on Netflix. The series consists of three episodes: Fear City, On the Prowl and No One Is Safe.