Maury Terry got involved in 1977 after the last murder. He was an investigative journalist (he passed away in 2015) and something about the official story of the crime scene didn't sit right with him, so he started digging. He came to the conclusion that Berkowitz did not act alone and kill all the victims, he wasn't the only "Son of Sam".
I'm willing to believe that. The composite sketches taken at various crime scenes are different. The police tried to explain it away by saying Berkowitz wore a wig, which is why sometimes he had long, dirty blond hair. Some of the victims and their family members didn't buy it either.
Here's where things went a bit off the rails for me. Terry tried to make the case that Berkowitz was part of a nationwide, if not worldwide, occultist group that was responsible for murders all over America. He tried to loop the Manson murders into the whole thing (apparently Sharon Tate was a practicing witch and Abigail Folger used to date Charlie, plus Rosemary LaBianca was a well known supplier of drugs to the cult). Ted Bundy was part of it and killed for them. And on and on.
I think Terry truly had the very best of intentions. He knew Berkowitz was guilty of some of the Son of Sam crimes (he was) but he also knew he wasn't the only one. I think Berkowitz is a pretty intelligent guy, and he took advantage of Terry's eagerness to solve the case to mess with his head and got the poor man chasing his tail. Terry was seeing witches under the bed. Everything that happened was linked to this occult group. He tried *so hard* to make it seem believable, but I think he got to the point where he couldn't see the forest for the trees. I really felt bad for him. The first half of the book was very interesting, but once he got into the occult stuff I had a hard time following along and finishing it.
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