Infamous ‘Son of Sam’ Serial Killer Says He’s Headed for Heaven – He’s Right

When a man whose rap sheet includes serial murder and serial arson calmly tells the public he believes he’ll one day walk through the gates of Heaven, the instinctive reaction for many people is disbelief. Maybe even outrage.

Our minds immediately race to the faces of victims, to the terror left behind, to the simple but deeply human question: How could someone responsible for such evil possibly stand forgiven before a holy God?

Yet Christianity has always contained a truth that cuts directly against human instinct.

The gospel does not teach that salvation belongs only to the respectable, the polished, or the comparatively decent. It teaches that all people stand guilty before God apart from Christ — and that the saving power of Jesus is vast enough to cover every sin for those who genuinely repent and place their faith in Him.

Not some sins. Not lesser sins. All sins. And that reality can feel scandalous precisely because grace, by its very nature, is undeserved.

Which brings us to one of the most notorious criminals in American history, David Berkowitz, perhaps better known by the alias “Son of Sam.”

Berkowitz terrorized New York City between 1975 and 1977, killing six people and wounding seven others, according to History.com.

To give you an inkling of an idea of the terror he inspired, Berkowitz’s preference for killing brunettes with long hair had swathes of New York women cutting their hair short and dyeing it blonde — assuming they were even brave enough to be outside.

And this is the man who told the New York Post that he’s going to heaven?

“My home is in heaven, not in the Bronx,” Berkowitz, who has been in prison for 48 years, told the outlet via .

The New York Post reported that Berkowitz has willingly been missing his own parole hearings because “the only place I’m looking forward to going, is to heaven to be with the Lord.”

Prison Alliance, a global discipleship ministry that works with incarcerated individuals, claims that Berkowitz’s transformation is legitimate and earnest.

However, not everyone was buying what Berkowitz was selling, including one of his victims who survived an encounter with him. The victim’s girlfriend did not survive.

“I sincerely doubt he is going to heaven,” the victim said. “He is lucky he is not already in hell.”

But with all due respect to this victim, and may his girlfriend rest in peace, he’s simply wrong about this, assuming Berkowitz is as genuine as Prison Alliance claims.

(Yes, obviously, only God will be able to judge what’s truly in Berkowitz’s heart.)

This is the part where many people — including many professing Christians — begin to recoil. Because if God can truly forgive someone like David Berkowitz, then that means salvation is not ultimately earned through comparative goodness. It means Heaven is not populated by people who were merely “better” than others.

While that can be jarring for many, Christianity teaches that every person stands condemned by sin apart from the grace of God, whether that sin manifests itself in monstrous violence or in the quieter rebellions of pride, lust, greed, hatred, or unbelief.

That does not mean all sins carry the same earthly consequences. A lie is not the moral equivalent of murder in terms of human devastation, and Scripture itself recognizes differing levels of severity and accountability.

But the standard for entering Heaven is not “better than average.” It is perfection. And once that standard is understood, the uncomfortable reality emerges: no one earns their way into eternity through personal merit.

Christ paid a debt humanity could never pay itself — fully, completely, and sufficiently — for all who truly repent and believe.

That is why Christians have long maintained that there is no sinner beyond the reach of God’s mercy while breath remains in their lungs.

Had someone as evil as Adolf Hitler genuinely repented and placed authentic faith in Christ before death — not performatively, not strategically, but sincerely — then yes, Christianity teaches that even he could have been forgiven. Not because his crimes were small, but because the sacrifice of Jesus was greater still.

People who reject that idea are often grappling less with the scale of another man’s sin than with the staggering implications of grace itself.

None of this erases the pain of victims. None of it rewrites history, restores lost lives, or eliminates earthly justice. Berkowitz will forever be remembered for horrifying acts that shattered families and terrorized a city.

But the central message of the gospel is not that decent people are rewarded. It is that sinners who repent and place their faith in Christ can be made new. And that is indisputable.

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