Son of Sam
meantime, he announced plans for the construction of a fleet of inexpensive cruise missies.
The tree-lined streets of New York City boroughs no longer offered young couples privacy. Instead, the neighborhoods served as shooting galleries for a crazed gunman. The gunman, who called himself "Son of Sam," struck eight times, killing six people and wounding seven others. The victims were all in their teens or early 20s, and many of the females had long, dark hair. Residents of Queens and the Bronx, the murderer's prime target areas, walked fearfully through neighborhood streets. Women cut or lightened their heads of long, dark hair in efforts to throw Son of Sam off their tracks. Finally, after one of the largest police investigations in history, a possible Son of Sam was arrested in August of 1977. Police charged David Berkowitz with the bloody crimes. Berkowitz, a postal clerk, provided investigators with details of his vicious attacks. He claimed that his shooting sprees were directed by voices he heard from a neighbor's dog. Son of Sam's capture was a bittersweet victory for police. They were relieved that the madman's days of killing had ended. Yet, police were also saddened by the fact that Berkowitz was not mentally competent to stand trial.
Becky Robinson
Haldemann/Mitchell In June, H.R. (Bob) Haldemann, former White House Chief of Staff, and John Mitchell were sentenced to 2Y2-8-year terms for their crimes of perjury, obstruction of justice and conspiracy in the Watergate scandal. Mitchell now has the distinct honor of being the first U.S. Attorney General to serve a prison term. He was taken to a Montgomery, Ala., penitentiary while Haldemann was sentenced to the Lompoc Prison Camp in California. These minimum-security prisons are unfenced, have no armed guards and do not accommodate violent convicts. Although officials endlessly stated that the men were not receiving any special treatment, Mitchell had both a golf course and a river for fishing avilable to him. Both Mitchell and Haldemann planned to write books during their stays in prison.
function in the wall wiring of the Zebra Room. When first alerted of the fire by a busboy, many of the 700 guests in the Cabaret Room did not take the warning seriously. At first there was no rush for the exits; some people filed out while others remained at their tables waiting for singer John Davidson's warm-up act to finish. Flames and smoke spread quickly and as the lights went out, people began to panic and stampede for the exits. Once firemen arrived at the scene, overpowering flames and smoke prevented them from entering more than 20 feet inside the building. Consequently, many of the victims died at their tables, and others perished while trying to escape. The tremendous loss of lives and extensive damage easily could have been averted if the nightclub had installed a sprinkler system that would have been capable of extinguishing, or at least containing, the fire, authorities said. Kathleen O'Hare
M. Michelle Gottwald
Marianne Gleissner
B-1 Bomber Commanders in the United States Air Force received an unpleasant shock when one of the proposed mainstays of strategic air warfare, the B-1 Bomber, was shot out from under them by President Carter. The decision to halt production of the planes was made by Carter on June 30. Research into the bombers and the construction of four sample planes had already taken place, at a cost of $4 billion. Carter's decision prevented the construction of 240 more bombers, estimated to cost $101.7 million each. The President stated that his decision would be reconsidered "if, at the end of a few years, relations with the Soviets should deteriorate drastically." In the
Nightclub fire In the worst nightclub disaster in the United States since 1942, 161 people died in a fire at the Beverly Hills Supper Club on May 29. The fire started in a small, private dining room, the Zebra Room, and quickly spread throughout the rest of the Southgate, Ky., nightclub. Authorities attributed the cause of the blaze to a mal-
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