A woman is finally having her claim that she was the first target of the infamous ‘Son of Sam’ killer David Berkowitz, while revealing that playing dead likely saved her life.
Wendy Savino said she was shot five times by Berkowitz – who admitted to killing six people – in her car on April 9, 1976 and has been trying to have it confirmed that she was the initial victim.
Back in the 70s, it was believed that the man who shot her was – contradictory to Savino’s belief – killed not far from his home.
However, a YouTuber requested all the files on the murders and eventually discovered a link with Berkowitz, before contacting a Bronx homicide detective, who spoke with Savino in Rockland County this week
‘I’m so happy that he’s going to be named as my assailant,’ Savino – who lost her right eye in the shooting – said.
‘For so many years, if somebody asked me what happened to me, and I would say ‘I was shot by Son of Sam’ and it was, ‘Oh right, sure you were.’ So, I am very happy that I am going to be listed as one of his survivors.’
Berkowitz, who has copped to the half-dozen murders and calls himself a born-again Christian in prison – was confronted about shooting Savino.
However, sources told the New York Post they were able to trip him up into admitting to shooting her in an interview and now believe they have enough to connect him to shooting Savino.
The now 87-year-old victim believes the shooting was never properly investigated because the Democrat DA was a political rival of her husband, who chaired the Bronx Republican Party at the time.
‘From the day I was shot, I had my sketches the NYPD made for me, and I carried that around in my handbag every day. I did not know his name, but I certainly knew what he looked like. I said ‘this is the man that shot me.’ And of course, once he was arrested, I knew my sketch was David Berkowitz,’ she said.
At one point, she lived under a pseudonym and moved to the United Kingdom out of fear of the shooter.
‘I was absolutely terrified. I wouldn’t go out in the dark. My children would play on the cricket green during the day and I would say, ‘If you don’t come in by dark, I’m not coming out to get you.’
‘I wouldn’t answer the phone. I wouldn’t answer the front door. When I went shopping, if I got afraid, I’d leave my shopping basket in the parking lot after paying for it. I’d go through a red light if I hit one. I was terrified.’
She lived in Great Britain with her sister and brother-in-law, while her sons were sent to Florida.
Police now suspect that Savino surviving the shooting led Berkowitz to purchase a more powerful weapon to continue his reign of terror.
She said he walked toward her smiling when he came up to shoot him, as she attempted to shield herself with her left arm to no avail.
‘My chest exploded,’ she said. ‘He stood at my window, to the left of the driver’s door. The second bullet went through my arm, bounced on the dashboard and went through my right eye.’
‘The third bullet came in through my shoulder, traveled, and put a hole in my windpipe and settled in my spine. At that point, my head is in the passenger side. It was bucket seats in a 1976 silver Jaguar.’
She said she had eight pieces of glass in her left eye and a bullet in her right and describes running out of air.
Savino decided her best shot at survival was to pretend he’d already finished the job.
‘I said, ‘I can’t let him get to me before I can get out.’ So I laid there with my head in the bucket, pretending I was dead, and with my eyes closed, but peeking through the one eye I could still see from.’
The shooter fired two more times at Savino’s back.
‘I now have five bullets in my back. And I’m saying, ‘He’s going to take my jewelry,’ but he didn’t try, and so I said to myself, ‘Of course, he wants you dead.’ Just lay here and hope he goes away before you pass out.’
She started to hear him walk away, opened the door and rolled into the parking lot and try to crawl as far as she could until she found a wall.
Savino was outside a restaurant at the time and tried to get into the kitchen, where she faced an almost darkly comic scene.
‘All the waiters and everyone just threw their hands in the air and all their pots and pans, screaming. So I said ‘You’re not getting anywhere here, are you?’ And I walked directly into the dining room.’
‘There was quite a reaction when I walked in the dining room and they threw a white tablecloth over my head. I pulled it off and I said ‘Please don’t do that, I can’t breathe.”
She then found a wooden chair to fall near and took off her jewelry, telling a waitress or bartender to give it to her husband.
Finally, a police officer came in the front door of the restaurant and told her to ‘stay with me’ while Savino wanted to go to sleep.
She was taken to the hospital, where eventually she was healed and able to come up with a ketch of the shooter.
All this time, she says police have refused to believe her assailant was Berkowitz.
“Nobody believed me — even though I showed them the sketch of his face that I had,” she said.
What would she say to him if she met him face-to-face? ‘You’re a rotten bastard.’
In 2017 Berkowitz said that he now rejects the ‘Son of Sam’ nickname he made headlines under during his murder and shooting spree that left six people dead and seven wounded between 1976 and 1977.
‘As far as I’m concerned, that was not me,’ Berkowitz said during the interview with CBS News. ‘That was not me. Even the name, I hate that name, I despise the name.’
The nickname was lifted from a taunting letter Berkowitz wrote to authorities and left at a crime scene, in which he identified himself as the ‘Son of Sam,’ whose father, ‘Sam,’ ordered him to kill.
Berkowitz, now a born-again Christian, said that the ‘Son of Sam,’ was actually ‘a demon.’
His murderous rampage through New York occurred at a particularly fraught time for city dwellers, who were already facing a period of financial crisis, brutally hot weather and a city-wide blackout that resulted in massive looting.
Under the ‘Son of Sam’ and ‘.44 Caliber Killer’ monikers, Berkowitz grabbed daily local and national headlines alike for the shocking, seemingly random and unstoppable shootings — particularly of couples in parked cars and women with shoulder-length brown hair — which appeared to be tied to demonic cult activities.
The act of leaving taunting notes for police at crime scenes and sending letters directly to local media only added fuel to the sensational fire.
Berkowitz was eventually caught during one of the biggest manhunts in New York City history.
With Savino’s shooting now linked to him, he’s officially killed six people and injured eight others.