Berkowitz born again

[RivkahChaya]

Here's the link to the show with someone named Roxanne Tauriello; an evangelist. It does seem to me almost poetic that religion and serial murder should be married together in this fashion now that I reflect upon it.

Mike

That's a pretty typical religious channel show, big hair and all. Before cable, my friends and I used to watch them for laughs. I remember one show, where they had some guy anoint their new, big antenna that connected them to satellite broadcasting. He came on the show and gave testimony. He was a helicopter pilot, but he was wearing a military bomber's jacket-- anyway, he flew over the antenna, and dumped a bucket of holy oil on it. The only way I knew it wasn't and SNL skit was that it wasn't on SNL. He went on and on about the spiritual experience of anointing the antenna, and the preacher and his wife (who had pink hair, I'm not making that up) kept praising the Lord.

Nothing these people do surprises me.

If you want to talk offensive, I'll take prison ministries over fake healers any day.

I'm really not surprised Berkowitz is a Christian. An awful lot of people become religious in prison, and I think there's a boredom factor to it. I also think there aren't too many neutral groups to join-- there's probably not a chess club, or a club for stamp collectors. You either join a gang, or a church, or no one has your back. Plus, if you ever need someone to talk to who isn't a CO or another prisoner, having a relationship with a pastor is a good thing.

[Mayerling]

That's a pretty typical religious channel show, big hair and all. Before cable, my friends and I used to watch them for laughs. I remember one show, where they had some guy anoint their new, big antenna that connected them to satellite broadcasting. He came on the show and gave testimony. He was a helicopter pilot, but he was wearing a military bomber's jacket-- anyway, he flew over the antenna, and dumped a bucket of holy oil on it. The only way I knew it wasn't and SNL skit was that it wasn't on SNL. He went on and on about the spiritual experience of anointing the antenna, and the preacher and his wife (who had pink hair, I'm not making that up) kept praising the Lord.

Nothing these people do surprises me.

If you want to talk offensive, I'll take prison ministries over fake healers any day.

I'm really not surprised Berkowitz is a Christian. An awful lot of people become religious in prison, and I think there's a boredom factor to it. I also think there aren't too many neutral groups to join-- there's probably not a chess club, or a club for stamp collectors. You either join a gang, or a church, or no one has your back. Plus, if you ever need someone to talk to who isn't a CO or another prisoner, having a relationship with a pastor is a good thing.

Hi Rivkah,

Actually this is not a new phenomenon. Dickens was a keen observer of crime, criminals, and punishments, visiting "model" prisons, and being thoroughly discouraged by the regimens of punishments, and the sudden revelations of criminals "discovering God and the Christian faith". He spoofs that in DAVID COPPERFIELD, when David and his friend Traddles visit a prison run by their old schoolmaster Mr. Creakle, and find an unctiously penitent Uriah Heep and an equally penitent Littimer (Steerforth's servant), who manage to make David and Traddles subject to scorn by the rest of the visitors. Mark Twain had similar views, writing about one Pike, a mass killer in New Hampshire (he slaughtered a family that had fed and housed him) who became a celebrity before his hanging.

Berkowitz is not the only one who "found peace" in prison. So did Myra Hindley (through the meddlesome Lord Longwood) who was working to get that "Moor Murderess" out of prison (fortunately she died first). Charlie Manson likes to claim he is happy now in solitary confinement, and that society is the real prison. Somehow I would wish that relatives and friends of Sharon Tate, the Lo Biancas, and others were allowed - fully armed while he is not - into his cell to see if he really likes to be on his own. Besides Berkowitz, the killer of John Lennon (Mark Chapman) claims he has found contentment in his cell. One wishes somebody made him compose living music and song before he is fed again...let's see how long he lasts.

By the way, before he died Ted Bundy's iron, smarmy nerve cracked. He made a last type of appeal on the eve of his execution about further revelations to close cases, and to blame his crimes on his love of pornography and violence from television. I recall seeing it on television (it was shown after his electrocution), and I thoroughly enjoyed the fear in his face (sorry to admit it, but I did).

Jeff

[RivkahChaya]

Most murders, where there is documentation, go snivelling to their executions. John Wayne Gacy certainly did. Terrorists like Timothy McVey, and people executed for sedition have been stoic, but "personal" killers, if you get my meaning, are huge whiners. They often have records of filing a lot of complaints about things like their TVs not working, or things about the food.

Some people actually do function really well in the prison environment. One of the problems with the parole system is that it rewards those people by releasing them. Some people do poorly in prison because they are, in fact, screw-ups who would screw up wherever they are, and that's how they ended up in prison, but I'm sure there are people who do badly because it's prison.

[Errata]

Hi Rivkah,

Berkowitz is not the only one who "found peace" in prison. So did Myra Hindley (through the meddlesome Lord Longwood) who was working to get that "Moor Murderess" out of prison (fortunately she died first). Charlie Manson likes to claim he is happy now in solitary confinement, and that society is the real prison. Somehow I would wish that relatives and friends of Sharon Tate, the Lo Biancas, and others were allowed - fully armed while he is not - into his cell to see if he really likes to be on his own. Besides Berkowitz, the killer of John Lennon (Mark Chapman) claims he has found contentment in his cell. One wishes somebody made him compose living music and song before he is fed again...let's see how long he lasts.

Jeff

I'm never surprised when people "find Jesus" in prison. I'm just surprised when the people who "find" him never had him to lose... I mean I've seen Jews who become more orthodox in prison, never seen one switch teams. It may be because we always feel just a teensy bit oppressed by Christians, but I'm actually more surprised that he became a Christian than I would have been if he became a woman. Becoming a woman might explain some things.

[Ginger]

Regardless of his upbringing, Berkowitz reported himself to have been a Satanist when he committed his crimes, IIRC.

[RivkahChaya]

I'm never surprised when people "find Jesus" in prison. I'm just surprised when the people who "find" him never had him to lose... I mean I've seen Jews who become more orthodox in prison, never seen one switch teams. It may be because we always feel just a teensy bit oppressed by Christians, but I'm actually more surprised that he became a Christian than I would have been if he became a woman. Becoming a woman might explain some things.

I'm not surprised he became a Christian. I'd be more surprised to see him stay one if he were ever released (not that this will ever happen). When I was in basic training, a lot of people, including me, a couple of times, went to church because you got detail (you cleaned the barracks, or did yard work) if you didn't. If you went to church, you got doughnuts, and decent coffee. I'm sure going to services is really attractive in prison, from a social standpoint, and unlike Judaism, becoming a born-again Christian is sort of like getting a reboot, which has got to be a selling point to someone who has committed really hideous crimes.

You probably don't hear about that many Jew-to-Christian conversions in prison, because Jews make up a really small part of the long-term prison population. There are very few Jews doing life in high-security prisons in the US. For one, Jews are a small part of the population to begin with.

[Errata]

For one, Jews are a small part of the population to begin with.

And getting smaller. When I was a teenager there were 18 million of us. Last figure I saw puts us at 13.4 million. We'll be gone in 10 generations. Probably why I never slid into active atheism. I always keenly felt like an endangered species. Though not so much that I'm willing to spawn.

[RivkahChaya]

I think the "shrinking Jew" has a lot to do with how people respond to questionnaires. When you were a teenager, people who were ethnically Jewish, even if they were atheists, tended to identify themselves as Jewish. Now, the exact same people do not tend to self-identify as Jewish, because they have come to see "Jewish" purely as a religion.

[The Good Michael]

I think the "shrinking Jew" has a lot to do with how people respond to questionnaires. When you were a teenager, people who were ethnically Jewish, even if they were atheists, tended to identify themselves as Jewish. Now, the exact same people do not tend to self-identify as Jewish, because they have come to see "Jewish" purely as a religion.

that's good news. It's high time people started identifying themselves as human beings first and as ethnic groups a distant second and more as a bit of nostalgia than with real longing.

Mike

[kensei]

Regardless of his upbringing, Berkowitz reported himself to have been a Satanist when he committed his crimes, IIRC.

This, all the way.

When it comes to Berkowitz I urge everyone- please do not brush off Maury Terry's work and his book "The Ultimate Evil" as being nothing but wild conspiracy theory. I'm not insisting he got every last detail correct but by and large I do believe he had it right. Berkowitz's first conversion from Juddaism was to Satanism. There are solid facts that indicate he could not have possibly committed all of the Son of Sam murders. Terry's investigation produced a theory that Berkowitz eventually admitted to- that the "Son of Sam" was not one person but actually a Satanic cult that was committing human sacrifices. Berkowitz is hardly an innocent man in this theory, admitting to being the trigger man in two of the crimes if I recall correctly, and to being present for all the others as a lookout. He took the fall for the cult after his carelessness led the cops to him.

I recorded a news magazine show which is buried deep within my VHS collection somewhere that showed an interview Terry did with Berkowitz in prison, in which Berkowitz "comes clean" after many years and states, "The Bible says there is a time to be silent and a time to speak, and this is my time to speak." He's says he's ready to name the names that Terry has already documented, primarily the brothers John and Michael Carr, as having been the other shooters, presumably because he feels safe since both brothers are now dead. But even when the time comes and Terry is asking the question, "John Carr- would he have been the shooter in this case?", Berkowitz has his head bowed, his eyes closed, and has to force himself just to nod slightly and utter, "Yeah." It's as if he's still afraid of the others even though they're gone now. Some might say it was an example of great playacting, but there are eyewitnesses, surviving victims, and victims' families who don't believe Son of Sam to have been Berkowitz alone. And when people break away from Satanism, diving headlong into Christianity is the most common refuge they seek.

Berkowitz finished that interview by saying something along the lines of, "It was a time of great confusion and great darkness for me, and I feel terrible about the lives that were destroyed." He doesn't ask for mercy. Indeed, he states that he is right where he belongs and should never go free. I believe him.

[Errata]

that's good news. It's high time people started identifying themselves as human beings first and as ethnic groups a distant second and more as a bit of nostalgia than with real longing.

Mike

One doesn't preclude the other. In this case we are talking about people identifying as a religion rather than a race. We are a sum of many parts. For example, I'm not really sure how important being Jewish would have been in my life if I were not also Southern. There is, not exactly a conflict but a certain amount of tension, between being both. It can be defining.

Jews in the US have traditionally been very socially liberal.They tend to be very involved in human rights work. They were the significant white presence in the Civil Rights Movement in the 60s. My grandfather marched 4 men behind Martin Luther King in Washington. Jews founded and still predominantly populate the Innocence Project. And their involvement in all of these issues is because Judaism stresses these rights. To be involved in human rights is Jewish. I think as a community we are predominantly a force for good in the world. And I think the inevitable loss of our community is something to be a little sad about.