Boston Strangler

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The Boston Strangler is the name given to the murderer of 13 women in Greater Boston during the early 1960s. The crimes were attributed to Albert DeSalvo based on his confession, on details revealed in court during a separate case, [1] and DNA evidence linking him to the final victim. [2]

Contents

In the years following DeSalvo's conviction – but prior to the emergence of this DNA evidence – various parties investigating the crimes suggested that the murders (sometimes referred to as the "Silk Stocking Murders") were committed by more than one person. [3]

Names

Initially, the crimes were assumed to be the work of one unknown person dubbed "The Mad Strangler of Boston". [4] On July 8, 1962, the Sunday Herald wrote that "[a] mad strangler is loose in Boston" in an article titled "Mad Strangler Kills Four Women in Boston". [5] The killer was also known as the "Phantom Fiend" [6] or "Phantom Strangler", [7] due to his ability to get women to allow him into their apartments. In 1963, two investigative reporters for the Record American , Jean Cole [8] and Loretta McLaughlin, [9] wrote a four-part series about the killer, dubbing him "The Boston Strangler". [10] [11] [12] By the time that DeSalvo's confession was aired in open court, the name "Boston Strangler" had become part of crime lore.

Events

Between June 14, 1962, and January 4, 1964, 13 single women between the ages of 19 and 85 were murdered in the Boston area. Most were sexually assaulted and strangled in their apartments. Originally, the police believed that one man was the sole perpetrator. With no sign of forced entry into their homes, the women were assumed to have let their assailant in, either because they may have known him or because they believed him to be a service provider. The attacks continued despite extensive media publicity after the first few murders. Many residents purchased tear gas and new locks and deadbolts for their doors. [13] [4] Some women even moved out of the area in response to the killings. [14] [4]

The murders occurred in several cities, including Boston, complicating jurisdictional oversight for prosecution of the crimes. Massachusetts Attorney General Edward W. Brooke helped to coordinate the various police forces. [4] [15] He permitted parapsychologist Peter Hurkos to use his alleged extrasensory perception to analyze the cases, for which Hurkos claimed that a single person was responsible. This decision was controversial. [4] Hurkos provided a "minutely detailed description of the wrong person", and the press ridiculed Brooke. [15] The police were not convinced that all the murders were the actions of one person, although much of the public believed so. The apparent connections between a majority of the victims and hospitals were widely discussed. [4]

Victims

NameAgeDate of murderLocation of body
Anna Elza Slesers55June 14, 196277 Gainsborough Street, Boston
Mary Mullen85June 28, 19621435 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston
Nina Nioma Nichols68June 30, 19621940 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston
Helen Elizabeth Blake65June 30, 196273 Newhall Street, Lynn
Edes "Ida" Irga75August 19, 19627 Grove Street, Boston
Jane Sullivan67August 21, 1962435 Columbia Road, Boston
Sophie L. Clark20December 5, 1962315 Huntington Avenue, Boston
Patricia Jane Bissette23December 31, 1962515 Park Drive, Boston
Mary Ann Brown69March 6, 1963319 Park Street, Lawrence
Beverly Florence Samans23May 6, 19634 University Road, Cambridge
Marie Evelina "Evelyn" Corbin57September 8, 1963224 Lafayette Street, Salem
Joann Marie Graff23November 23, 196354 Essex Street, Lawrence
Mary Anne Sullivan19January 4, 196444-A Charles Street, Boston

DeSalvo's confession

Gainsborough Street, site of the first murder attributed to the Boston Strangler Gainsborough.jpg
Gainsborough Street, site of the first murder attributed to the Boston Strangler

On October 27, 1964, a stranger entered a young woman's home posing as a detective. He tied the victim to her bed, sexually assaulted her, and suddenly left, saying "I'm sorry" as he went. The woman's description of her attacker led police to identify the assailant as DeSalvo. When his photo was published, many women identified him as the man who had assaulted them. Earlier on October 27, DeSalvo had posed as a motorist with car trouble and attempted to enter a home in Bridgewater, Massachusetts. The homeowner, future Brockton police chief Richard Sproules, became suspicious and eventually fired a shotgun at DeSalvo.

DeSalvo was not initially suspected of being involved with the strangling murders. After he was charged with rape, he gave a detailed confession of his activities as the Boston Strangler. He initially confessed to fellow inmate George Nassar. [16] Nassar reported the confession to his attorney F. Lee Bailey, who also took on the defense of DeSalvo. The police were impressed at the accuracy of DeSalvo's descriptions of the crime scenes. There were some inconsistencies, but DeSalvo was able to cite details that had been withheld from the public. Bailey states in his 1971 book, The Defense Never Rests, [17] that DeSalvo got one detail right that one of the victims was wrong about: DeSalvo described a blue chair in the woman's living room. She stated it was brown. Photographic evidence proved DeSalvo was correct.

No physical evidence substantiated his confession. Because of that, he was tried on charges for earlier, unrelated crimes of robbery and sexual offenses, in which he was known as "The Green Man" and "The Measuring Man", respectively. Bailey brought up DeSalvo's confession to the murders as part of his client's history at the trial in order to assist in gaining a "not guilty by reason of insanity" verdict to the sexual offenses, but it was ruled as inadmissible by the judge.

DeSalvo was sentenced to life in prison in 1967. In February of that year, he escaped with two fellow inmates from Bridgewater State Hospital, triggering a full-scale manhunt. [18] A note was found on his bunk addressed to the superintendent. In it, DeSalvo stated that he had escaped to focus attention on the conditions in the hospital and his own situation. Immediately after his escape, DeSalvo disguised himself as a U.S. Navy Petty Officer Third Class, but he gave himself up the following day. After the escape, he was transferred to the maximum security Walpole State Prison. Six years after the transfer, he was found stabbed to death in the prison infirmary. His killer or killers were never identified.

Multiple-killer theories

Doubts persist as to whether DeSalvo was the sole perpetrator behind the Boston Strangler murders. At the time of his confession, people who knew him personally did not believe him capable of such vicious crimes. Several factors created doubt that a serial killer was involved, given that they characteristically have a certain type of victim and method of murder: women killed by "The Strangler" were from a variety of age and ethnic groups, and they were murdered using multiple methods.

In 1968, Dr. Ames Robey, medical director of Bridgewater State Hospital, insisted that DeSalvo was not the Boston Strangler. He said the prisoner was "a very clever, very smooth compulsive confessor who desperately needs to be recognized." Robey's opinion was shared by Middlesex District Attorney John J. Droney, Bridgewater Superintendent Charles Gaughan, and George W. Harrison, a former fellow inmate of DeSalvo's. Harrison claimed to have overheard another convict coaching DeSalvo about details of the strangling murders. [19]

DeSalvo's attorney Bailey believed that his client was the killer, and described the case in The Defense Never Rests (1971). [4] Susan Kelly, author of the book The Boston Stranglers (1996), drew from the files of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts "Strangler Bureau". She argues that the murders were the work of several killers rather than a single individual. Former FBI profiler Robert Ressler said, "You're putting together so many different patterns [regarding the Boston Strangler murders] that it's inconceivable behaviorally that all these could fit one individual." [20]

John E. Douglas, the former FBI special agent who was one of the first criminal profilers, doubted that DeSalvo was the Boston Strangler. In his book The Cases That Haunt Us , he identified DeSalvo as a "power-assurance" motivated rapist.[ clarification needed ] He said that such a rapist is unlikely to kill in the manner of crimes attributed to the Boston Strangler; a power-assurance motivated rapist would, however, be prone to taking credit for the crimes.

In 2000, attorney and former print journalist Elaine Sharp took up the cause of the DeSalvo family and that of the family of Mary Sullivan. Sullivan was publicized as being the final victim in 1964, although other strangling murders occurred after that date. Sharp assisted the families in their media campaign to clear DeSalvo's name. She helped organize and arrange the exhumations of Mary Sullivan and Albert H. DeSalvo, filed various lawsuits in attempts to obtain information and trace evidence (e.g., DNA) from the government, and worked with various producers to create documentaries to explain the facts to the public. [21]

Sharp noted various inconsistencies between DeSalvo's confessions and the crime scene information (which she obtained). For example, she observed that, contrary to DeSalvo's confession to Sullivan's murder, the woman was found to have no semen in her vagina and she was not strangled manually, but by ligature. Forensic pathologist Michael Baden noted that DeSalvo got the time of death wrong. This was a common inconsistency also pointed out by Susan Kelly in several of the murders. She continued to work on the case for the DeSalvo family. [21]

DNA evidence

On July 11, 2013, the Boston Police Department announced that they had found DNA evidence that linked DeSalvo to the murder of Mary Sullivan. [22] DNA found at the scene was a "near certain match" to Y-DNA taken from a nephew of DeSalvo. Y-DNA is passed through the direct male lines with little change and can be used to link males with a common paternal-line ancestor. A court ordered the exhumation of DeSalvo's corpse to test his DNA directly. [23] On July 19, 2013, Suffolk County District Attorney Daniel F. Conley, Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley and Boston Police Commissioner Edward F. Davis announced the DNA test results proving that DeSalvo was the source of seminal fluid recovered at the scene of Sullivan's 1964 murder. [24]

See also

Further reading

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References

  1. ↑ Anglin, Robert J. (January 13, 1967). "Albert DeSalvo is 'Boston Strangler'; Defense says he killed 13". The Boston Globe.
  2. ↑ "Boston Strangler". Britannica . Retrieved March 16, 2023.
  3. ↑ "Albert DeSalvo". Case Files. Modus Operandi - Serial Killers. Archived from the original on January 18, 2000. Retrieved March 16, 2023.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Gardner, Erle Stanley (May 1, 1964). "The Mad Strangler of Boston". The Atlantic. Retrieved June 27, 2012.
  5. ↑ "Mad Strangler Kills Four Women in Boston". Sunday Herald. Retrieved June 27, 2012.
  6. ↑ Bardsley, Marilyn. "The Boston Strangler". TruTV.com. Archived from the original on May 10, 2013. Retrieved June 27, 2012.
  7. ↑ "Crime: The Phantom Strangler". Time . March 22, 1963. Archived from the original on December 22, 2008. Retrieved June 27, 2012.
  8. ↑ O'Laughlin, Frank (August 13, 2015). "Jean Cole Harris, 89, Former Newspaper Reporter". Patch. Charlestown, MA. Retrieved March 16, 2023.
  9. ↑ McLaughlin, Loretta (September 29, 1992). "Boston Strangler Recalled". Chicago Tribune . Boston Globe. Archived from the original on February 24, 2023. Retrieved March 16, 2023.
  10. ↑ Smith, Nathan (March 16, 2023). "The Tenacious Women Reporters Who Helped Expose the Boston Strangler". Smithsonian Magazine . Retrieved March 16, 2023.
  11. ↑ Sherman, Casey (2003). A Rose for Mary: The Hunt for the Real Boston Strangler. UPNE. pp. 28–29. ISBN   9781555535780.
  12. ↑ Kelly, Susan (2013). The Boston Stranglers. Pinnacle Books. p. 405. ISBN   9780786035342. (Bibliography showing article dates)
  13. ↑ Byers, Margery. “Fear walks home with the women.” Life, February 15, 1963.
  14. ↑ Lane, Brian; Gregg, Wilfred (1995). The Encyclopedia Of Serial Killers. Berkley. pp.  150-151. ISBN   9780425152133.
  15. 1 2 "The Senate: An Individual Who Happens To Be a Negro". Time. February 17, 1967. Archived from the original on February 20, 2008. Retrieved December 24, 2010.
  16. ↑ "I-Team: George Nassar, Boston Strangler's Cellmate, Recalls Albert DeSalvo's Confession - CBS Boston". www.cbsnews.com. October 26, 2018. Retrieved April 27, 2024.
  17. ↑ Bailey, F. L.; Aronson, H. (1972). The defense never rests. New American Library.
  18. ↑ Koch, Arnold. "Boston Strangler - 50 years later". Wicked Local. Retrieved April 27, 2024.
  19. ↑ Connolly, Richard (February 29, 1968). "Doctor Says DeSalvo Not Strangler". The Boston Globe. ProQuest   366177054. Archived from the original on June 11, 2016. Retrieved July 5, 2017.
  20. ↑ The Boston Strangler, 48 Hours Mystery, 15 February 2001. CBS News
  21. 1 2 "bostonstrangler.org". Archived from the original on February 2, 2005. Retrieved August 24, 2008.
  22. ↑ "New DNA Testing Ties Boston Strangler To 1964 Mary Sullivan Murder « CBS Boston". Boston.cbslocal.com. July 11, 2013. Retrieved July 12, 2013.
  23. ↑ Bidgood, Jess (2013), "50 Years Later, a Break in a Boston Strangler Case", The New York Times , retrieved July 11, 2013
  24. ↑ Otis, Ginger Adams (July 19, 2013). "DNA confirms Albert DeSalvo's link to 'Boston Strangler' killing of Mary Sullivan: authorities". New York Daily News. Retrieved January 2, 2019.
  25. ↑ Weaver, Tom (2005). "Burt Topper on The Strangler". Earth vs. the sci-fi filmmakers: 20 interviews. McFarland. p. 367. ISBN   978-0-7864-2210-4 . Retrieved October 5, 2009.
  26. ↑ O'Brien, Kathryn (July 11, 2013). "FROM THE VAULT: Recalling the 'Boston Strangler'". Wicked Local . Retrieved March 16, 2023.
  27. ↑ "Fiction Book Review: The Strangler".
  28. ↑ "Boston Strangler: The Untold Story (Video 2008) - IMDb". IMDb .
  29. ↑ "Serial Killer Cinema: 6 Movies Inspired by the Boston Strangler". CrimeFeed. Archived from the original on June 10, 2018. Retrieved March 3, 2017.
  30. ↑ ""American Gothic" Strangler (TV Episode 1998) - IMDb". IMDb .
  31. ↑ "Rizzoli & Isles: Boston Strangler Redux". IMDB.
  32. ↑ Shady, Justin; Chinsang, Wayne; Rose, Erik (Illustrator) (2009). The Roberts: one retirement home, two serial killers. Berkeley, Calif.: Image Comics, Inc. ISBN   978-1607060673.
  33. ↑ Dean, Will (July 16, 2009). "Psychoville episode five: 'The Key'". TheGuardian.com .
  34. ↑ "Crossing Jordan (2001) - 2x13 - Strangled". Episode World.
  35. ↑ "Boston Strangler Interview". Salad Days Magazine. Archived from the original on February 8, 2015.
  36. ↑ "Phillip J. DiNatale, 67, Dies; Led Boston Strangler Inquiry". The New York Times . January 31, 1987. Retrieved January 18, 2018.
  37. ↑ Davis, Clint (November 17, 2016). "Boston Strangler murders get 'Serial' treatment in new true-crime series". WKBW Buffalo. Retrieved January 18, 2018.
  38. ↑ Fleming, Mike Jr. (October 4, 2021). "Keira Knightley To Star In 20th Century Studios' Boston Strangler; Scott Free, LuckyChap Producing". Deadline Hollywood . Retrieved January 1, 2022.
  39. ↑ Kroll, Justin (November 17, 2021). "Carrie Coon, Alessandro Nivola & Chris Cooper Join 20th Century's Boston Strangler". Deadline Hollywood . Retrieved January 1, 2022.
  40. ↑ Couch, Aaron (November 30, 2021). "David Dastmalchian Joins Keira Knightley in Boston Strangler (Exclusive)". The Hollywood Reporter . Retrieved January 1, 2022.
  41. ↑ Bowker, Brittany (December 8, 2021). "Dispatches from 'Boston Strangler' set: Filming continues in the South End" . The Boston Globe . Retrieved January 1, 2022.
  42. ↑ Article about Sebastian Junger's Book A Death in Belmont. Time magazine, April 3, 2006.
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