Chasing Shadows: Maury Terry’s Hunt for the Truth Behind Son of Sam
The Summer That Changed Everything
I was seventeen, a high school senior born and raised in a county north of New York City. The city was a place I was familiar with. It was the place where we took a couple of school field trips a year—the place where my uncle, a Catholic priest, had his parish in Little Italy, and the place I started my law enforcement career. But that year, the city seemed to be losing its mind. The summer of ’77, the Son of Sam was out there still. For nearly a year, killing couples, taunting cops, and turning every stoop and side street into a death zone. My friends and I had never really talked about the case, but I was very interested. I watched the 10 O’clock news on WNEW Channel 5, “Do You Know Where Your Children Are?” every night, following the Son of Sam. We all checked the shadows on our way home. After all, this killer had a car, and we were not far from the city. That’s when I first heard the name Maury Terry. Back then, he was just a byline, or a guy on a TV talk show, a guy who wouldn’t let the story die. I didn’t know it yet, but he’d spend the rest of his life chasing the same ghosts that prompted my interest in true crime years later.
