Mystery: Was David Berkowitz, The “Son of Sam,” Also The “Westchester Dartman”?

WESTCHESTER COUNTY, NY — Between February 1975 and May 1976, a stealth sniper stalked the women of Westchester County, a heavily populated enclave just north of New York City.

The mystery marksman struck 23 times, hitting unsuspecting females in the head, neck, or chest. Fortunately, none of the victims died. In fact, only one sustained a serious injury (which was fixed with emergency surgery).

Did this long-range assailant have the worst in aim in the world? No. In fact, he proved to be quite the marksman. So how were his targets able to just walk away? Because instead of a firearm, this strong-lunged loon used a blowgun and, rather than bullets, the objects that broke the women’s skin were pointy-tipped projectiles. Hence the still-unknown criminal’s nickname: “The Westchester Dartman.”

Shortly following the final Dartman attack, another lone shooter terrorized the New York area in general and Westchester in particular: David Berkowitz, the notorious “Son of Sam” serial killer. Berkowitz, of course, opted for picking off (mostly) women with gunpowder and hot lead over breath-power and flying steel. Indeed, his original press moniker — “The .44-Caliber Killer” — makes direct reference to his deadly weapon of choice.

To massive fanfare in August 1977, police nabbed Berkowitz. The Westchester Dartman, however, has never been identified, let alone apprehended.

As Berkowitz lived in Westchester (and grew up in the nearby Bronx), and the Dartman’s dastardly doings ceased once “Son of Sam” took to shooting people (and never started again once he went to jail), many have wondered through the years whether or not the infamous murderer was also the baffling blow-gunner.

Among the prominent observers who views “Son-of-Sam-as-Dartman” concept as credible is Anthony Scarpino, Westchester County’s present District Attorney. Scarpino says that if Berkowitz had escalated from non-lethal assaults to serial murder, it would be in keeping with a typical psychopathic pattern:

“It’s elementary that they generally start to do acts of a lesser degree of criminality and they gradually progress to a more serious one. They just don’t start by committing the homicide.”

Still, the evidence remains entirely circumstantial. Plus, as Scarpino has pointed out, the statute of limitations long ago expired on the dart crimes, which eliminates further legal investigation. Nonetheless, conspiracy theorists continue to mull over the possibilities.

In the classic investigative best-seller The Ultimate Evil, journalist Maury Terry posits that Berkowitz acted in conjunction with The Children, a Satan-worshipping spinoff of the eccentric sect The Process Church and that he didn’t commit his deadly transgressions alone. Terry also argues that Berkowitz and The Children perpetrated numerous ritualistic crimes around Westchester prior to the Son of Sam slayings, including the sacrificial slaughter of 88 German Shepherds — and the Westchester Dartman attacks.

Lawrence Klausner, author of the true crime book Son of Sam, dismisses such notions. He points out that police found no blowgun in Berkowitz’s apartment, and that cops he talked to said they had a good idea who the Dartman was, but just couldn’t put together enough evidence to nail him.

Klausner also chalks the theory up to the tabloid media frenzy the Son of Sam case ignited, saying: “The aftermath — anything they came up with — sold newspapers. It’s very easy to assassinate people by word, you don’t have to use a bullet.”

For more on David Berkowitz, watch Investigation Discovery’s Son of Sam: The Hunt for a Killer on ID GO now!

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Main images: David Berkowitz [Wikipedia]; Blowgun [Wikimedia Commons]

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