Mindhunter: The real story of season 2 serial killer Son of Sam

Actor playing bears striking resemblance to real-life murderer he plays in crime series

The second season of crime series Mindhunter has been released on Netflix and one of the serial killers featured in new episodes is David Berkowitz, best known as “Son of Sam".

Berkowitz is notorious for shooting and killing six people and wounding seven more in New York between 1976 and 1977. His preferred targets were young couples sat in their cars.

When arrested by New York City homicide detectives, the killer confessed all. He later claimed, though, that his neighbour Sam’s dog was actually a demon manifesting as a canine and had ordered him to carry out murders.

At the scenes of some of his crimes, Berkowitz left letters in an attempt to taunt the police and the press.

In his first letter, he wrote: “I am deeply hurt by your calling me a woman hater. I am not. But I am a monster. I am the ‘Son of Sam’.”

He later claimed he never thought his neighbour's dog was possessed and admitted his story was a hoax.

Berkowitz was sentenced to life in prison and, now aged 66, remains in New York's Shawangunk Facility.

Actor Holt McCallany, who plays Bill Tench in the Netflix show, told The Independent Berkowitz, a born-again Christian now calling himself the “Son of Hope”, recently turned down the chance to meet him at the last minute.

Oliver Cooper plays the killer in the series and viewers are noticed how much the two resemble each other.

Mindhunter is inspired by real-life criminal profilers, who interviewed America’s most notorious serial killers as part of the FBI’s behavioural science unit in a bid to understand their psyches and solve pending investigations.

You can read The Independent's full interview with McCallany here.