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1989, having been transferred to its Protective Housing Unit from San Quentin State Prison. A great deal of his time in prison has been spent in the ‘hole’ – solitary confinement – for infractions of the rules. He is now seventy-five years old, balding, with an unkempt grey beard and his grey hair cut short at the sides. His eyes stare frighteningly as ever from a recent photograph and the swastika he carved into his forehead sometime in the 1970s is still visible.
    Of course, the parole hearings are empty gestures. Charlie Manson will never be released. He will end his days in prison for the horrific crimes he ordered others to commit, crimes which contributed to the end of the hippie dream of the 1960s. Some suggest that he is exactly where he wants to be, having spent more than two-thirds of his life in institutions of some kind.
     

     
    David Berkowitz – ‘Son of Sam’
     
    David Berkowitz, self-styled Son of Sam and one of the scariest killers America has ever known, has been locked up since he was sentenced to 365 years in 1977. Responsible for the deaths of six people, he was heavily influenced by the occult in his murders. In prison, however, he has become a born-again Christian. He wrote in 2002 to the Governor of New York that he wanted his parole hearing to be cancelled, explaining that with God’s help, he had long ago come to terms with his situation and accepted his punishment. He believed that he should remain in prison for the rest of his life.
    Berkowitz has at last found a purpose to his life, even if it has to be fulfilled within the confines of the Sullivan Correctional Facility in Fallsburg, New York. But life has not always been like that for him. He was put up for adoption just a week after he was born Richard David Falco in Brooklyn in 1953. Adopted by hardware store owners, Nathan and Pearl Berkowitz, he had a troubled childhood. He was of above average intelligence but school held no attractions for him. Petty theft and pyromania, on the other hand, thrilled him. A bully with a mean streak, who was always big for his age, his neighbours and the local kids became wary of him
    When his adoptive mother died of breast cancer when he was thirteen, Berkowitz was devastated and became increasingly introverted and reclusive. Home life was strained by his father’s new wife who he disliked intensely. However, his stepsister was interested in the occult and she would spark a similar fascination in him. Later, he would pursue that interest rather more enthusiastically.
    He enlisted in the US Army in 1971, serving in South Korea and receiving an honourable discharge in 1974. The following year, he attacked two women with a knife on Christmas Eve. He had always felt uncomfortable and inadequate in the company of women, feeling that they despised him and considered him unattractive. Now he wanted revenge.
    Around 1974, he began hearing voices as he lay in bed at night in his filthy apartment. The voices were telling him to kill and he began to scrawl messages all over the walls, messages such as ‘Kill for my Master!’
    He obeyed those voices for the first time on 29 July 1976.
    At around one in the morning, eighteen-year-old Donna Lauria and her friend, nineteen-year-old Jody Valenti were chatting outside Donna’s apartment block in Jody’s car. Suddenly, Donna spotted a man standing beside the car’s passenger door. He pulled out a pistol from inside a paper bag in his hand and fired five bullets into the interior of the vehicle. Donna died instantly when a bullet hit her in the neck. Judy experienced horrific pain as a bullet tore into her thigh but retained the presence of mind to slam her hand down hard on the car’s horn. The man turned and fled.
    The officers who arrived to investigate the incident were puzzled. There seemed to be no motive for the attack whatsoever. Had it been a case of mistaken identity or an opportunistic psychopath?
    Three months later, on 23 October, he