She married Tony Falco, an Italian American, in 1936. After a marriage of less than four years, Tony Falco left her for another woman. In 1950, Broder started a relationship with a married man named Joseph Klineman. Three years later, she became pregnant with a child to whom she chose to give the surname Falco and, within a few days of Richard's birth, Broder gave the child away. Although her reasons for doing so are unknown, writers have surmised that Klineman threatened to abandon her if she kept the baby and used his name. The infant boy was adopted by Pearl and Nathan Berkowitz of the Bronx. The Jewish-American couple were hardware store retailers of modest means, and childless in middle age. They reversed the order of the boy's first and middle names and gave him their own surname, raising young David Richard Berkowitz as their only child. Journalist John Vincent Sanders wrote that Berkowitz's childhood was "somewhat troubled". Although of above-average intelligence, he lost interest in learning at an early age and became infatuated with petty larceny and starting fires. Neighbors and relatives would recall Berkowitz as difficult, spoiled, and a bully. His adoptive parents consulted at least one psychotherapist due to his misconduct, but his misbehavior never resulted in a legal intervention or serious mention in his school records. He attended Public School #123 and Public School #77. Berkowitz's adoptive mother died of breast cancer when he was 14 years old, and his home life became strained during later years, particularly because he disliked his adoptive father's second wife. He lived with his father while attending Christopher Columbus High School (graduating in 1971) and college in a four-and-a-half-room apartment at 170 Dreiser Loop in Co-op City in the Bronx from 1967 to 1971. In 1971, at the age of 17, Berkowitz joined the United States Army and served in Fort Knox in the United States and with an infantry division in South Korea. After an honorable discharge in June 1974, he located his birth mother, Betty. After a few visits, she disclosed the details of his birth. The news greatly disturbed Berkowitz, and he was particularly distraught by the array of reluctant father figures. Forensic anthropologist Elliott Leyton described Berkowitz's discovery of his adoption and birth details as the "primary crisis" of his life, a revelation that shattered his sense of identity. His communication with his birth mother later lapsed, but for a time he remained in communication with his half-sister, Roslyn.