Jace

Son of Sam Online


family of victims want the plugged pulled

--N.Y. Daily News


ALBANY - Son of Sam serial killer David Berkowitz is drawing outrage from victims' families with a personal Web site that he uses to flaunt his musings on everything from gay marriage to motherhood.

Prison officials say the cyberjournal,www.forgivenforlife.com, does not break any rules ? but the people whose lives were shattered by Berkowitz's death spree want the state to pull the plug on him.

"This should be stopped," said Michael Lauria, whose 18-year-old daughter, Donna, was murdered by Berkowitz in 1976.

"He's telling the world: 'Ha, ha! I'm in jail and I got a Web site,'" the retired Bronx bus driver added. "He should stay in a 4-by-6 cell and rot."

Neysa Moskowitz, mother of victim Stacy Moskowitz, is furious that the authorities are allowing Berkowitz to become an Internet celebrity while he does time.

"They treat him like a little prince," the 71-year-old cancer survivor said after the Daily News alerted her to the site.

"If I were the warden, he wouldn't be allowed to do anything," she added. "Let him break rocks, or whatever they do there."

Lauria also was infuriated by the name of Berkowitz's site.

"Is he saying we should forgive him for life?" he wondered. "Forget about it!"

Berkowitz, 51, is serving 25 years to life at the maximum-security Sullivan Correctional Facility for the twisted rampage that left six people dead and seven wounded and terrorized the city for a year. His latest bid for parole was shot down Wednesday.

Though state inmates have no access to computers, Berkowitz keeps his dot-com diary up to date by typing entries on _paper in the slammer.

Some missives focus on his conversion to Christianity in 1987; visitors can also read his views on the Columbine massacre, the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks and his upbringing.

An April 28 posting gave an extensive account of his first jaunt outside prison walls in years, describing how he was ferried in a prison van to a doctor's office.

In an April 8 entry about a troublesome inmate named Danny who was shipped off to Sing Sing, Berkowitz expressed relief: "His departure was like the passing of a violent hurricane."

The operators of the site did not respond to a request for comment on their arrangement with Berkowitz.

The site does note: "We do NOT solicit or accept any money, donations, sympathy or help of any kind for ourselves or for David Berkowitz. Please do NOT send anything of value to us at all." Jim Flateau, a spokesman for the state Department of Correctional Services, said the agency can do nothing about the site because Berkowitz is exercising his First Amendment rights.

"Inmates have traditionally sent out letters to radio stations, newspapers and TV stations," he said. "This is an extension of the same thing."

Flateau said he also saw no breach of security protocol in Berkowitz's details about his ride to the outside world.

"If he says he rode in a van, it's no big deal," he said.

"The general public is aware that inmates ride in vans to go to outside doctors and things of that _nature."

May 2

I would love to undo my horrible past and have the chance to relive my life, this time never doing wrong.

If I had the chance to start my life over again, I would make sure that I honor my parents. I would never again be a source of grief and heartache for them.

May 3

Prison ... is a place where a man's mistakes are always staring him in the face. There is self-loathing and self-disgust in many hearts.

April 21

On Columbine: This tragedy I believe was mostly about unchecked anger, seething rage and increasing hostility in the hearts and minds of two very troubled teenagers. As a Christian and a man who was once similarly troubled when I was younger, I cannot help but think if there was some way to reach those two kids before they undertook these murderous acts.