Son of Sam serial killer David Berkowitz may have had his first taste of blood at only 17.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Five years before he went on his infamous NYC spree<\/a> between 1976-77, shooting eight people and killing four, Berkowitz may have been taking aim at folks on a Bronx street, a retired Yonkers detective and a crime buff told The Post.<\/p>\n Detective Mike Lorenzo, whose dad worked the Berkowitz case as a Yonkers detective, and Berkowitz expert Manny Grossman, now want the NYPD to reopen the case of 16-year-old Margaret Iglesias, who was walking home from a party when she was killed at 169th Street between Morris and Grant avenues in Morrisania around 2 a.m. on Oct. 18, 1970.\u00a0<\/p>\n Margaret Iglesias, 16, was killed by a sniper as she walked home from a party in the Bronx in 1970, six years before Berkowitz kicked off his horrifying shooting spree in the city.<\/p>\n The teen was struck by three .22-caliber bullets \u2014 once in the front and then twice in the back as she lay dying, according to a witness report at the time.\u00a0She was one of six victims shot by the Bronx sniper on the same block over a two-month span that year. Only her shooting was fatal. No arrests were ever made.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is a case that needs to be reexamined,\u201dsaid Lorenzo, 60, who was a Yonkers cop, for 20 years and retired in 2008. \u201cThis was Son of Sam before Son of Sam.<\/p>\n Lorenzo and Grossman believe young Berkowitz could have been the sniper, since he worked about a mile away at his dad\u2019s business, Melrose Hardware at 802 Melrose Ave., from June 1970 to June 1971.<\/p>\n He left the store when he joined the U.S. Army.<\/p>\n Retired Yonkers detective Mike Lorenzo (left) and crime buff Manny Grossman (right) think the Son of Sam David Berkowitz could have been the Bronx sniper who killed a girl in 1970. J.C. Rice<\/p>\n Lorenzo and Grossman also point to the 100-yard targets found at Berkowitz\u2019s home after his 1977 arrest, which they contend is evidence of him honing sharp-shooter skills.<\/p>\n \u201cWhy would he have 100-yard targets? He\u2019s not a hunter,\u201d said Lorenzo.<\/p>\n There are differences between the Bronx sniper shootings and Berkowitz\u2019s murderous rampage<\/a>, the two acknowledged: the later crimes were committed up close and personal, with Berkowitz firing his .44-caliber revolver through car windows.<\/p>\n Manny Grossman also hopes to get the street renamed for the murdered girl. J.C. Rice<\/p>\n Retired Yonkers Detective Mike Lorenzo thinks Berkowitz is worth looking at because he worked at his dad\u2019s hardware store in the neighborhood as a 17-year-old the year the shootings happened. J.C. Rice<\/p>\n They want the sniper shootings, which were committed with a .22-caliber rifle reexamined anyway.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIt wasn\u2019t right next door to the father\u2019s shop but it wasn\u2019t 20 miles away or in another borough and it fits his M.O.,\u201d Lorenzo said. \u201cIt\u2019s the same thing as the Son of Sam killings but just a different kind of gun. Shooting into a car is sniping too.\u201d<\/p>\n And Lorenzo and Grossman have uncovered an unknown Berkowitz victim in the past.\u00a0<\/p>\n The two helped identify Wendy Savino \u2014 who was shot and gravely wounded as she sat in her car \u2014 as Berkowitz\u2019s previously unknown first victim.<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cI found out about Wendy because I found the sketch she did of her shooter that was an exact match of Berkowitz,\u201d Grossman told The Post, which broke the Savino story last year.<\/a><\/p>\n Wendy Savino was shot repeatedly by the Son of Sam as she sat in her Jaguar in the Bronx in April 1976, cops said. J.C. Rice<\/p>\n