November is National Adoption Month! Throughout the month I’ll feature famous folk who have been adopted!
Sometimes the Spotlight shines darkly…
Culled mostly from Wikipedia:
David Richard Berkowitz (born Richard David Falco, June 1, 1953), also known as the Son of Sam and the .44 Caliber Killer, is an American serial killer convicted of a series of shooting attacks that began in the summer of 1976. With a .44 caliber Bulldog revolver, he killed six victims and wounded seven others by July 1977. As the toll mounted, Berkowitz eluded a massive police manhunt while leaving brazen letters which promised further murders. Highly publicized in the press, he terrorized New York City and achieved worldwide notoriety.
After his arrest by New York City police in August 1977, Berkowitz was indicted for eight shooting incidents. He confessed to all of them and claimed a demon that possessed his neighbor’s dog had commanded him to kill. In the course of the police investigation, he was also implicated in many unsolved arsons in the city.
David Berkowitz was born Richard David Falco on June 1, 1953, in Brooklyn, New York. His mother, Betty Broder, grew up in an impoverished Jewish family and later married Tony Falco, an Italian-American Catholic. The couple ran a fish market together. They separated before Berkowitz’s birth: Falco left for another woman, and Broder later had an affair with a married real estate agent, Joseph Kleinman. When she became pregnant, Kleinman threatened to abandon her if she kept the baby, so she put the child up for adoption and listed Falco as the father. Within a few days of his birth, the infant boy was adopted by Pearl and Nathan Berkowitz of the Bronx. The Jewish-American couple were hardware store retailers of modest means, and childless in middle age. They reversed the order of the boy’s first and middle names and gave him their own surname, raising young David Richard Berkowitz as their only son.
Be sure to visit Abby’s Road on Facebook for more Spotlights!
“Abby’s Road, the Long and Winding Road to Adoption and how Facebook, Aquaman and Theodore Roosevelt Helped” leads a couple through their days of infertility treatments and adoption. It is told with gentle (and sometimes not-so-gentle) humor from the perspective of a nerdy father and his loving and understanding wife.
Join Mike and Esther as they go through IUIs and IFVs, as they search for an adoption agency, are selected by a birth mother, prepare their house, prepare their family, prepare themselves and wait for their daughter to be born a thousand miles from home.
Winner, Honorable Mention, 2014, Great Midwest Book Festival
Abby’s Road is available at Amazon here: http://www.amazon.com/Abbys-Road-Long-Winding-Adoption/product-reviews/0692221530/ref=cm_cr_pr_top_recent?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=0&sortBy=bySubmissionDateDescending
at Barnes and Noble here: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/abbys-road-the-long-and-winding-road-to-adoption-and-how-facebook-aquaman-and-theodore-roosevelt-helped-michael-curry/1119971924?ean=9780692221532
and at Smashwords here: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/457270
Copyright 2014 Michael Curry
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