Suprising Christian Converts

David Berkowitz sits in his prison cell in upstate New York today wishing the media interest in his killing spree would fade. After all, it was back in the summer of 1976 that his career as a serial killer began and he put New York City in a grip of terror.
The crimes will probably not fade, however, because they are now just as much a part of true crime history as London's infamous "Jack the Ripper."

Berkowitz's first killing occurred in the early morning hours of July 29, 1976. Two young women were sitting in a car talking when he opened fire with a .44 pistol, killing eighteen year old Donna Lauria. By the time the spree was over a year later he had killed six people and injured seven.

Berkowitz called himself "Son of Sam" in strange letters he wrote to police, and the newspapers picked up on this. Berkowitz believed he received commands to kill from a 6,000 year old spirit named Sam that spoke to him though dogs.

Berkowitz was caught after a parking ticket issued near the scene of one of the crimes was traced to him. He was on his way out of his house to commit more murders when police apprehended him. He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to a term of 365 years.

Berkowitz believes he was under Satanic control when he committed the murders. He said, "In 1975 I met some guys at a party who were, I later found out, heavily involved in the occult. I had always been fascinated with witchcraft, Satanism and occult things since I was a child. When I was growing up I watched countless horror and Satan-type movies, one of which was Rosemary's Baby. The movie in particular totally captivated my mind."

He said, "Now I was age 22 and this evil force was still reaching out to me. Everywhere I went there seemed to be a sign or a symbol pointing me to Satan. I felt as if something were trying to take control of my life. I began to read the Satanic Bible by the late Anton LaVey who founded the Church of Satan in San Francisco in 1966. I began, innocently, to practice various occult rituals and incantations."

Berkowitz said, "Eventually I crossed that invisible line of no return. After years of mental torment, behavioral problems, deep inner struggles and my own rebellious ways, I became the criminal that, at the time, it seemed as if it was my destiny to become. Looking back it was all a horrible nightmare and I would do anything if I could undo everything that happened."

Berkowitz was still despondent and without hope 10 years into his prison term. Then one day a fellow prisoner named Rick began to share the good news about Jesus with him.

Though he had a Jewish background, he became interested in Christianity because of Rick's testimony and his own intellectual interest. One night while reading Psalm 34 he began crying out to God. "I told God I was sorry for everything that happened," said Berkowitz, "and that I was sick and tired of living this life. I was disappointed and discouraged, hurting real bad, feeling guilty, and I cried out tears of repentance."

Half an hour later he got up off his knees and said he "felt a ton of weights had been lifted off me." Jesus had come into his life, forgiven him and changed him.

Critics believe David Berkowitz's experience was just another jail-house conversion designed to make him look good at a parole hearing. Nothing could be further from the truth, however. He feels his life term is just and has never taken any legal steps to seek parole.

Today, 14 years after deciding to follow Jesus, Berkowitz serves as a Chaplain's Assistant at the Sullivan Correctional Facility in Fallsburg, New York. He counsels fellow prisoners, prays with them and helps them in practical ways as a servant of Jesus.

Berkowitz is concerned about teenagers today. He says, ""I would like to be used by God to reach out to a lot of teenagers. Even though times have changed, the needs of people have not. We still want to be happy, to be content with life, to be successful in life. And most of all, we want to be loved."

In the beginning Berkowitz did not believe Jesus would love him and save him. But after he experienced new life himself, he became aware of the awesome power of God to save anyone.

Berkowitz said, "One of my favorite passages of Scripture is Romans 10:13. It says, "For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved." Here it is clear that God has no favorites. He rejects no one, but welcomes all who call upon Him. I know that God is a God of mercy who is willing to forgive. He is perfectly able to restore and heal our hurting and broken lives. I have discovered from the Bible that Jesus Christ died for our sins."

He added, "The Bible also says, "For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God". Romans 3:23. Furthermore, it says, "For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord". Romans 6:23. These passages make it clear that everyone has sinned. Yes, some like myself did so more than others. But all have done things wrong. Therefore, we must all make the decision to acknowledge our sins before God and be sorry for them."

What is Berkowitz's message today? He says, "We need to turn from our lives of sin as well as believe that Christ was and is the Son of God. You must believe that Jesus Christ died and was buried, and on the third day He rose again in victory, for death could not hold Him. Ask Christ to forgive you. Declare Him as Lord of your life and do not be ashamed to do so. To reject Jesus Christ and His work on the cross is to reject God's perfect and only gift of salvation and eternal life."

Jesus has shown his power in the life of David Berkowitz. The man who was once the feared "Son of Sam" is now the "Son of Hope."

Beginnings

David Scott Mustaine was born September 13, 1961 in La Mesa, California, United States. His parents divorced when he was seven, and he grew up bouncing around various low-income Southern California suburbs. His father followed the family from town to town. They often travelled by night to a new place to avoid him but one way or another he would always find them. As a teenager, Dave was often left on his own or with his sisters and their (sometimes abusive) husbands. During his younger years, Dave was raised as a Jehovah's Witness, but he never dedicated his life to the religion through baptism.

His first guitar was an acoustic that he saved up for. He was not very good, as his sisters kept reminding him and eventually the instrument was smashed by one of them in an angry feud. Dave soon began dealing marijuana so he could afford a new one.

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Metallica

In 1981, he left the band Panic to join Metallica, serving as lead guitarist for the young thrash band for two years. According to the story, Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich had posted an ad in a local newspaper called The Recycler, looking for a lead guitarist. In his own words, Mustaine remembers his first meeting with James Hetfield and Lars Ulrich: "I was convinced that I should be in the band and went to rehearsal. I was tuning up when all the other guys in the band went into another room. They weren't talking to me, so I went in and said, 'Well? Am I in the band or not?' and they said, 'You've got the gig.' I couldn't believe how easy it had been and suggested that we get some beer to celebrate."

Despite not being the vocalist of the band, Dave felt he was the leading member of Metallica and tended to speak into a microphone during their early gigs. In one show, from 1983, Dave is shown speaking in his trademark snarl and swearing drunkenly at members of the crowd who were throwing things. Making very little sense, at one point Hetfield even asks: "What the f**k are you doing, man?"

Mustaine's relationship with Metallica, however, would not last. Brian Slagel, an early manager of the band, recalls in an interview: "Dave was an incredibly talented guy, but he also had an incredibly large problem with alcohol and drugs. He'd get wasted and become a real crazy person, a raging maniac, and the other guys just couldn't deal with that after a while. I mean, they all drank of course, but I guess they could all hold their liquor better than Dave, and I could see they were beginning to get fed up of seeing Dave drunk out of his mind all the time."

Soon after this, in a drunken state, Mustaine walked into the building and poured a full can of beer down Ron McGovney's bass so it trickled into the pick-ups. When he next came to play it Ron was reputedly shocked and in his own words "blown across the room". He finally decided he'd had enough and quit.

One of the final straws for the band was on the road trip from San Francisco to New York to meet up with producer Johnny Z. The band nearly didn't make it: a crash with a jeep during a snow storm near Wyoming left the band's touring van in a ditch. Nobody in Metallica's van was hurt, but since the incident occurred while Dave Mustaine was driving punch drunk, the others members silently agreed that as soon as they started the new phase of their career, they had to get rid of Mustaine.

In April of 1983, Mustaine was fired, officially for his drug use and personality clashes with founding members Ulrich and James Hetfield. The band packed up Mustaine's gear, drove him to a Greyhound bus station, and put him on a bus back to Los Angeles, leaving their former bandmember returning home with a trauma that stuck him into a severe depression for years.

During his short time in Metallica, Dave Mustaine toured with the band, co-wrote several songs which were later featured on the albums Kill 'Em All and Ride The Lightning (and, according to Mustaine, Master of Puppets) and recorded several songs with the band, including the No Life 'Till Leather demo tape.

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Megadeth

In 1983, Mustaine was extremely angry after being kicked out of Metallica and his only goal in life was to create a band more successful than Metallica. After a four day bus journey, he returned to Los Angeles and formed Megadeth with bass player Dave Ellefson, Kerry King on guitar and Gar Samuelson on drums. Kerry decided to stay with Slayer and was replaced in 1984 by Chris Poland. The band then released their first album Killing Is My Business... And Business Is Good!, which suffered from poor production due to the band spending half of their production money on drugs. The album still received good reviews.

By 1985, after recording Killing Is My Business... And Business Is Good!, Mustaine approached Jackson Guitars for a custom built guitar. Jackson built him a modified Randy Rhoads series King V with 24 frets. After creating the guitar for Mustaine, the company began mass-producing a Dave Mustaine series Flying V. This line continued into the early 2000s, when Mustaine switched to ESP guitars.

The success of the first record led to a major label deal with Capitol Records, which saw the 1986 release Peace Sells... But Who's Buying?. Amid drug problems and suspicions of stealing the band's equipment for drug money, both Poland and Samuelson were fired. In 1988, Mustaine co-produced the album Refuge Denied for the band Sanctuary.

The lineup for Megadeth's 1988 album So Far, So Good... So What! featured Chuck Behler on drums and Jeff Young on guitars. Mustaine soon underwent drug rehabilitation and the band was disbanded for a short while.

After returning from rehab, Mustaine had intended to hire Dimebag Darrell, who was soon getting great recognition for his playing, however Dimebag agreed only if his brother Vinnie Paul could play the drums for the band. The band already had a drummer at the time so instead Marty Friedman (of Cacophony fame) was hired for the lead guitarist spot while Nick Menza stayed on drums. They worked on a new project and the result was Rust In Peace (1990) which is acclaimed as one of the greatest thrash metal albums alongside Metallica's Master Of Puppets and Slayer's Reign In Blood. Two years later, Megadeth released Countdown To Extinction, their biggest commercial success, which went double platinum.

1994 saw the release of Youthanasia, which became the quickest album to go Gold (50,000 units) in Canadian history and sold well throughout the world. Some hardcore fans critized the album for being too commercial, as it was a bit of a departure for their fast-paced thrash sound.

By 1995, Mustaine was growing bored with Megadeth and his bandmates, so he formed MD.45, with Lee Ving of Fear on vocals and Jimmy Degrasso of Alice Cooper on drums. The album, The Craving was released July 23, 1996 and failed to find any audience, in part because the band did not tour to support the album. As a result, the project never proceeded after the debut release.

With a renewed interest in Megadeth after the disappointment of MD.45, Megadeth went on to release Cryptic Writings (1997). During the 1998 tour, Nick Menza had surgery to remove a benign tumor in his left knee and was replaced by Jimmy Degrasso. Menza was not asked back and Degrasso went on to record Risk (1999) with the band. Following the Risk tour Marty Friedman grew tired of Megadeth and left to pursue other musical interests. The 2000 Maximum Rock tour saw the inclusion of guitarist Al Pitrelli (Savatage) to fill Friedman's shoes. In that subsequent year Dave recorded The World Needs A Hero (2001) and completed a world tour ending with the recording of a concert released as Rude Awakening.

Following that release Megadeth would be disbanded after Mustaine suffered a radial neuropathy, a nerve compression in the arm that informally goes by the name of "Saturday Night palsy".

On the whole matter, Mustaine himself gave what he called "the Reader's Digest version", during an interview for SuicideGirls: " I went into retirement because my arm got hurt really bad. I broke up the band which at the time was Al Pitrelli, Dave Ellefson, Jimmy DeGrasso and myself. I was having problems with Al because he liked to drink and we didn’t want to show up at places drunk. Al also got married to a nice woman but he wanted to spend time with her. After a few years most married men are willing to die so I figured if we got a couple years into the marriage that might have changed. But the fact was, Al wasn’t fitting. DeGrasso was really hard to be around because he was so negative all the time with his complaining about money and wanting things. Ellefson was all about play my songs, play my songs. I hated being around these guys so when the arm injury happened it was a welcome relief and an indication that I had to stop"

However, the decision left members miffed and holding grudges, especially Ellefson. Bassist David Ellefson, indeed, hinted about Mustaine faking the injury up as an excuse to break up the band, during an interview with Metal Sludge. Subsequently, the rift between the two founding members exploded, with the two camps ferociously exchanging lawsuits against each other.

David Ellefson's action, filed July 12 in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, alleged that co-founding guitarist David Mustaine breached their long-running partnership agreement. He claimed Mustaine wrongfully took the lion's share of the band's income (estimated at more than $200 million since 1984) for himself and cut Ellefson out of the band's music publishing and merchandise revenues.

Ellefson also said that Mustaine libeled him in an online posting, seeking at least $18.5 million in damages.

Mustaine's counterclaim, filed July 29 in California Superior Court in L.A., alleges that Ellefson on May 14 executed a settlement agreement in which he gave up his 20% interest in Megadeth. Mustaine maintains that the settlement -- which Ellefson alleges was signed under pressure and ultimately withdrawn -- released Mustaine from all claims.

Ellefson eventually lost the case and Mustaine rebounded and recorded a new album in 2004, with three session musicians, most notably veteran Vinnie Colaiuta on drums, and bassist Jimmy Sloas, filling the shoes of former alumni. Former lead guitarist Chris Poland briefly returned to the group leaving again soon thereafter, suing Mustaine. The lawsuit was eventually settled for $9,500 and thereby ended a professional relationship with Dave Mustaine and MEGADETH. The new album, called The System Has Failed found modest success, selling roughly around 150,000 copies.

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Family life

Dave has repeatedly stated that his family is the most important aspect of his life. He married Pamela Casslebarry in 1990 and together they have two sons, Justis, born in 1990, Victor, born in 2002, and a daughter, Electra, born in 1998. The family has lived in Arizona, but currently resides in Southern California with their many horses.

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Injury, retirement, and conversion

In January 2002, Mustaine suffered a compressed radial nerve in his left hand and arm, making it impossible for him to play guitar. In April of that year, Megadeth was disbanded.

Mustaine went through physical therapy for his injury, and began to explore other areas of the music industry, including production. However, he fully recovered from his arm injury following successful therapy, and following his recovery, all of Megadeth's albums were remixed and remastered on Capitol Records. These remixed and remastered CDs offer previously unreleased tracks, and further information on the recording of them, included on the CD sleeves.

During this time also, Dave Mustaine became a born-again Christian. Mustaine has remarked that the future of American democracy lies within our hands and shows that he has a problem with all politicians because of numerous ones on the cover of The System Has Failed.

Unfortunately, at the same time Dave's personal life was once again undergoing problems. He had always prided himself for his family. As a result, Megadeth brought with them a "spiritual counselor" to help Dave avoid the demons that almost cost him life and get him through his problems. This was noted recently by The Dillinger Escape Plan frontman Greg Puciato who explained his experience with Dave on Gigantour such that "He had a pastor walking around with him on tour and riding on his bus, I think to help keep him on the straight and narrow path."^[1]

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Megadeth's return

In a move that surprised many, Mustaine enlisted one of Megadeth's 1980s-era guitarists, Chris Poland, to join Vinnie Colaiuta (drums) and Jimmy Lee Sloas (bass) and release a new Megadeth album called The System Has Failed in September 2004. The album was very well received by music critics, but a sales disappointment, although it was hailed as a return to Megadeth's successful late-80s/early-90s style in albums such as Peace Sells...But Who's Buying? and Rust in Peace.

Mustaine was determined to tour again. He contacted many former members of Megadeth, however all the former members (with the exception of former drummer Nick Menza) were unable or unwilling to participate. Auditions began, Mustaine hired (now former) Iced Earth bassist James MacDonough and Eidolon guitarist Glen Drover. Menza was eventually fired for undisclosed reasons (Mustaine hinted he could not adequately play any material, even his old stuff) and was replaced by Eidolon drummer and brother to Glen, Shawn Drover. Shawn Drover said that he was literally hired 5 days before his first show with Megadeth without having to audition.

The tour was named Blackmail The Universe. It was a world-wide tour and sold-out most of its venues. An album and DVD were released entitled Rude Awakenings containing a kind of best of live tracks spanning the career of the band up until The World Needs A Hero. In 2005 Capitol Records released Megadeth - Greatest Hits / Back to the start, which included a DVD of extracts from a concert the band performed at The Fillmore of Denver, Colorado, circa 1999. The lineup was Dave Mustaine, Marty Friedman, David Ellefson and Jimmy Degrasso.