A New York woman who survived a brutal attack at the hands of infamous serial murderer David Berkowitz — better known as the “Son of Sam” — was left shaken this week after being approached by a man claiming to be a close friend of the notorious killer.
Son of Sam victim details chilling encounter
Wendy Savino, one of Berkowitz’s earliest known victims, was exiting the Valley Cottage Library in Long Island on Wednesday when she was confronted by 88-year-old Frank DeGennaro.
According to Savino, the elderly man came up to her without warning and made a bizarre and unsettling statement: “David wants to talk to you.”
Savino recounted to the New York Post that she tried to walk around DeGennaro, but he blocked her path and asked, “You’re Wendy Savino, aren’t you?”
“He had me backed into a corner,” she said, describing the uncomfortable exchange.
“He’s just talking and talking about the same thing — ‘David’s a really good person.’”
DeGennaro allegedly went on to say, “Well, I just want you to know David is very upset about what happened to you. David wants to talk to you. David wants you to know he didn’t do it.”
Savino said she asked DeGennaro to write his name down, then immediately went with her son Jason to report the incident to the Clarkstown Police Department.
Speaking to reporters, DeGennaro confirmed he was contacted by law enforcement but denied any malicious intent, saying, “I didn’t corner her. I didn’t stand in her way.”
He explained that he became pen pals with Berkowitz after the two began exchanging letters.
“I realize now that it was probably the wrong thing to do, to even talk to her,” he conceded. “This is getting blown out of proportion.”
Son of Sam terrorized New York City
Savino was just 19 years old when Berkowitz opened fire on her on April 9, 1976, while she was sitting in her car.
The shooting left her with serious injuries and marked what investigators would later identify as Berkowitz’s first known attack in a bloody rampage that gripped New York City in terror for over a year.
Between July 1976 and July 1977, the man dubbed the “.44-Caliber Killer” hunted unsuspecting victims across multiple boroughs, often targeting young couples parked in cars or walking together at night.
Armed with a Bulldog revolver, Berkowitz would sneak up on his victims before unleashing a hail of bullets.
Eventually, the murderer sent a taunting letter to law enforcement, in which he introduced his now-infamous alias, “Son of Sam.”
In that letter, Berkowitz bizarrely claimed that a 6,000-year-old demonic entity named Sam had compelled him to kill, allegedly communicating through a neighbor’s dog.
The killing spree came to an end on August 10, 1977, when police finally captured Berkowitz, a 24-year-old postal worker from Yonkers.
He was sentenced in 1978 to six consecutive prison terms of 25 years to life.
Though eligible for parole since 2002, he remains incarcerated at Shawangunk Correctional Facility, a maximum-security prison in upstate New York.
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Serial killer connection probed in cold case
Meanwhile, in a separate but equally chilling development, investigators in Iowa are once again turning their attention to a long-dormant mystery: the 1995 abduction of local news anchor Jodi Huisentruit.
Huisentruit, 27, vanished without a trace after failing to show up for her morning broadcast at KIMT-TV in Mason City.
Police say she was abducted from the parking lot of her apartment complex sometime after 4 a.m. on June 27, 1995.
Despite a high-profile investigation, no suspects were ever arrested, and her remains have never been located. Huisentruit was declared legally dead in 2001.
Now, nearly 30 years later, authorities are revisiting a potential suspect: Christopher Revak, an accused serial killer who first came onto investigators’ radar in 2009.
Revak died by suicide in jail that same year while awaiting trial for the 2007 murder and kidnapping of 36-year-old Rene Marie Williams in Missouri.
He was also suspected in the 2006 slaying of Deidre Harm, a Wisconsin woman who had met him at a bar.
Authorities now believe Revak may have been linked to at least five homicides across the Midwest over a 14-year period.
In December, Sergeant Terrance Prochaska of the Mason City Police Department traveled to Wisconsin to meet with officials investigating Harm’s murder, reviewing potential connections to the Huisentruit case.
Their meeting was documented in the recent true crime series “Her Last Broadcast: The Abduction of Jodi Huisentruit.”
One especially troubling detail emerged during the renewed investigation: Revak’s ex-wife, identified only as “Jennifer,” lived in Mason City at the time of Huisentruit’s disappearance.
Her residence was in the same duplex as John Vansice, a friend of the missing anchor who has long been considered a person of interest in the case.
“This is one of the biggest coincidences in this case,” Prochaska said in the documentary.
According to authorities, Jennifer relocated to Mason City from Wisconsin Dells following her breakup with Revak, who remained behind.
She moved out of the duplex just three months before Huisentruit went missing and told investigators that Revak never visited her during that period.
Still, investigators are working under the theory that Revak may have traveled to Mason City in search of Jennifer and began surveilling her former address, not knowing she had already left.
That address, investigators say, placed him directly next to Vansice and possibly within sight of Huisentruit.
Vansice previously told police that Jodi had visited his apartment the night before she disappeared to watch a video of a surprise birthday party he had hosted for her weeks earlier.
“If Revak was looking for [Jennifer] or found her and was stalking her to see if she was living here, the chances of him running into Jodi are very high… it gives me chills,” said Prochaska.
Sheriff Chris Degase of Douglas County, who led the investigation into Williams’ murder, believes the overlap is more than a coincidence.
“I’ve been in law enforcement for 32 years, and I do not believe in coincidences,” said Degase.
“I believe in my gut that he killed Jodi. What are the chances of his girlfriend living next door?”
Despite renewed interest and mounting circumstantial evidence, Revak will never stand trial.
But authorities say they are committed to continuing their search for answers in a case that has haunted Mason City for nearly three decades.
