Serial Killer Documentary_ Albert DeSalvo (The Boston Strangler)

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:16):
Between June fourteenth, nineteen sixty two and January fourth, nineteen
sixty four, thirteen single women in the Boston area were
victims of either a single serial killer or possibly several killers.
At least eleven of these murders were popularly known as
the victims of the Boston Strangler. While the police didn't
see all these murders as the work of a single individual,

(00:38):
the public did. All of these women were murdered in
their apartments, had been sexually molested, and were strangled with
articles of clothing with no signs of forced entry. The
women apparently knew their assailant or at least voluntarily led
him in their homes. These were respectable women who for
the most part led quiet, modest lives. Even though nobody's

(01:01):
ever officially been on trial as the Boston Strangler, the
public believed that Albert de Salvoux, who confessed in detail
to each of the eleven official Strangler murders as well
as two others, was the murderer. However, at the time
that Dessalvo confessed, most people who knew him personally didn't
believe him capable of the vicious crimes, and today there's

(01:21):
a persuasive case to be made that Dessalvo wasn't the killer.
After all. This story presents both sides of the argument
and lets you make the decision for yourself. It's not
an easy decision to make, as many psychiatrists, lawyers, criminologists, authors,
and friends of Albert de Salvoux have discovered. Of the

(01:41):
eleven official Boston strangling victims, six were between the ages
of fifty five and seventy five. Two possible additional victims
were eighty five and sixty nine years of age. The
remaining five victims were considerably younger, ranging in age from
nineteen to twenty three. Not the fifty five years of
age really old, not these days, and not really in

(02:03):
nineteen sixty two, and certainly not for Anna east slezars
A Petit de Vorcey, who looked years younger than her age.
More than a decade earlier. She'd fled Latvia with her
son and daughter and settled in her small apartment in
a quiet, old fashioned neighborhood in the Back Bay area.
Seventy seven Gainsborough Street is one of many brick town

(02:24):
houses that's been subdivided into small apartments to meet the
needs of people with limited incomes, both students and retired people.
Anna Slezzars, a seamstress making sixty dollars a week, lived
on the third floor. On the evening of June fourteenth,
nineteen sixty two, she'd finished dinner and just had enough
time to take a quick bath before her son URIs

(02:44):
was to pick her up for the Latvian memorial services
that were being held in her church that night. In
her robe, she went into the bathroom and turned on
the water, listening to the inspiring strains of the opera
Pristan Undisolde. Just before seven o'clock, knocked on his mother's door.
No answer, and the door was locked. He was annoyed.

(03:06):
He hadn't wanted to take his mother to the services
in the first place. Yoris pounded on the door, and
then he began to get worried. Was she sick, perhaps
lying helpless on the floor inside? Maybe even worse? She
had sounded so depressed on the phone when he spoke
to her the night before. He threw his weight against

(03:26):
the door twice and it flew open. His worst fears
were confirmed when he saw her lying in the bathroom
with the court from her robe around her neck. He
telephoned the police and his sister in Maryland to tell
her about the tragic suicide. Gerald Frank in The Boston
Strangler describes how homicide detectives James Melon and John Driscoll followed.

(03:47):
Melon was always to remember his first sight of Annaslesser's body,
its sheer, startling nudity, and the shockingly exposed position in
which it had been left. She lay outstretched, a fragile
appearing woman with brown bobbed hair and a thin mouth,
lying on her back on a gray runner. She wore
a blue taffeta house coat with a red lining, but

(04:08):
it had been spread completely apart in front, so that
from shoulders down she was nude. She lay grotesquely, her
head a few feet from the open bathroom door, her
left legs stretched straight toward him, the other flung wide,
almost at right angles, and bent at the knees, so
she was grossly exposed. The blue cloth cord of her

(04:29):
housecoat had been knotted tightly around her neck, its ends
turned up so that it might have been a bow
tied little girl fashion under her chin. The apartment was
made to look as though it had been ransacked, and
his purse was lying open with its contents partially strewn
on the floor. A waste basket in the kitchen had
been rummaged through, with some of the trash on the

(04:50):
floor around it. Drawers had been left open in the
bedroom dresser, their contents moved about. A case of color
slides had been carefully placed, not dropped, on the bed
droom floor. The record player was on, but the amplifier
had been turned off. But despite this attempt to make
the scene look like a robbery, a gold watch and
other pieces of jewelry were left untouched. Anna had been

(05:13):
strangled with the cord of her robe, which had been
tied around her neck tightly into a bow. Her vagina
showed evidence of sexual assault with some unknown object. A
detailed investigation into her life revealed a woman completely involved
in her church, her children, her work, and her love
of classical music. She kept to herself and had very

(05:33):
few friends. There were no men in her life aside
from her son. Police assumed that the crime had started
out as a burglary. When the burglar saw the woman
in her robe, he was overcome by an uncontrollable urge
to molest her, killing her afterward to avoid being recognized.
A couple of weeks later, on June thirtieth, sixty eight

(05:53):
year old Nina Nicholls was murdered in her apartment at
nineteen forty Commonwealth Avenue in the Brighton area of Boston.
The apartment looked like it had been burglarized. Every drawer
had been pulled open, and possessions lay scattered around wildly
on the floor, as though a tornado had ripped through it.
But oddly enough, one open drawer revealed a set of
sterling silver that had been untouched, as were the few

(06:16):
dollars in her purse, her expensive camera, and the watch
on her wrist. The killer had gone through her dress
book and her mail for some unknown reason. Later it
was determined that nothing had been taken. The chaos of
disorder the ransacking was for nothing. She was found with
her legs spread, her house coat and slip pulled up

(06:36):
to her waist. Tied tightly around her neck were two
of her own nylon stockings with the ends tied ludicrously
in a bow. She too, had been sexually assaulted. Blood
had been found in the vagina. The time of death
was estimated to be around five o'clock in the afternoon.
The retired psychotherapist led a very quiet and modest life.

(06:57):
She had been widowed for two decades and at no
mail friends except for her brother in law. That very
same day, some fifteen miles north of Boston, in the
suburb of Lynne, Helen Blake met a similar death. Sometime
between eight and ten a m The sixty five year
old divorcee had been strangled with one of her nylons.
Her brazier had been looped around her neck over the

(07:18):
stockings and tied in a bow. Both her vagina and
aanis had been lacerated, but there is no trace of spermatozoa.
She was found lying face down nude on her bed,
with her legs spread apart. Her apartment had also been
thoroughly ransacked. It appeared as though the two diamond rings
that Helen wore had been pulled from her fingers and taken.

(07:39):
The killer tried unsuccessfully to open a metal strong bogs
and a foot locker. Police Commissioner Edmund McNamara was very alarmed.
A warning went out to women in the Boston area
to lock all their doors and be wary of strangers.
He canceled all police vacations and transferred all detectives to
work for homicide. A thorough and stigation began of all

(08:01):
known sex offenders and violent former mental patients. They were
looking for madman one that probably attacked older women because
of some hatred of his mother. A former FBI man
Macnamara called on the Bureau to hold a seminar and
sex crimes for his fifty best detectives. On August nineteenth,
seventy five year old i to Erga, a very shy

(08:21):
and retiring widow, fell victim to the strangler. She was
found two days later in her apartment at seven Grove
Avenue in Boston's West End. As in the other desks,
there was no sign of forst entry. Whoever killed her,
She had probably led involuntarily. Police Sergeant James McDonald described
how he found her. Upon entering the apartment, the officers

(08:44):
observed the body of eye to Erga lying on her
back on the living room floor, wearing a light brown
night dress which was torn completely exposing her body. There
was a white pillow case knotted tightly around her neck.
Her legs were spread approximately four to five feet from
heel to heel, and her feet were propped up on
individual chairs and a standard bed pillow lest the cover

(09:04):
was placed under her buttocks. It was an alarming parody
of an obstetrical position, which faced the front door of
the apartment and was the first thing anyone saw when
coming through the entrance. Most of these details were withheld
from the press. She had died from manual strangulation. Dried
blood covered her head, mouth, and ears. She too had

(09:26):
been sexually tampered with, although no spermatozoa were present. Within
twenty four hours of Ida Erga's murder, a sixty seven
year old nurse named Jane Sullivan was killed in her
apartment at four thirty five Columbia Road in Dorchester, across
town from where Ida lived. She had been dead for
some ten days before she was found. Police found her

(09:47):
on her knees in her bath tub, with her feet
up over the back of the tub and her head
underneath the faucet. She too had been strangled by her
own nylons, probably in the kitchen, bedroom or hall, where
blood was found on the floors. She may have been
sexually assaulted, but the corpse was so badly decomposed that
it couldn't be determined. However, there were bloodstains on the

(10:08):
handle of a broom. There was no sign of forcible entry,
nor was the apartment ransacked, even though Jane's purse was
found open. Panic gripped all of Boston. Boston got a
three month breather, which gave the police a chance to
check out absolutely everyone they wanted to check out. Nothing
much came of this flurry of diligent activity, except a

(10:30):
long list of people who probably were not the strangler.
The vacation ended on December fifth, nineteen sixty two, when
Sophie Clark, a popular and attractive twenty one year old
African American student at the Carnegie Institute of Medical Technology,
was found by her two roommates. The apartment Sophie shared
was at three fifteen Huntington Avenue in the Back Bay area,

(10:51):
a couple of blocks away from Annie Lesser's apartment. Sophie
lay nude with her legs spread wide apart in the
living room, strangled by three of her own nylonne stockings,
which had been knotted and tied very tightly around her neck.
Her half slip had also been tied around her neck.
There was evidence of sexual assault, and semen was found
on the rug near her body. There was no sign

(11:12):
of forcible entry, but Sophie was very security conscious and
had insisted on having a second lock on the apartment door.
She was so cautious that she even questioned friends who
came to the door before she let them in. Yet
her killer had somehow convinced her to let him in.
Sophie had struggled with the murderer. The killer had rummaged
through the drawers in the apartment and had examined her

(11:34):
collection of classical records. Sophie had been writing a letter
to her boyfriend when she was interrupted, probably by the strangler.
She didn't date anyone in the Boston area and was
very reserved with the opposite sex. There were some differences
now that hadn't surfaced in the earlier Strangler murders. Sophie
was black, and she was young, and she didn't live alone. Also,

(11:57):
for the first time, there was evidence of semen at
the scene of the crime. When police questioned the neighbors,
missus Marcella Ilke, who lived in the same building, mentioned
that around two twenty that afternoon, a man had knocked
on her door and said that the super had sent
him to see about painting her apartment. He then told
her that he'd have to fix her bathroom ceiling and
complimented her on her figure. Have you ever thought of modeling?

(12:20):
He asked her. She put her finger to her lips
and the man became angry. His character seemed to change completely.
My husband is sleeping in the next room, she told him.
He then said he had the wrong apartment and left hurriedly.
She described him as between twenty five and thirty years old,
of average height, and with honey colored hair, wearing a

(12:41):
dark jacket and dark green trousers. Was this the strangler
very likely, since the building superintendent had not dispatched anyone
to check on his tenants. Also, two thirty in the
afternoon was approximately the time that Sophie Clark had been
murdered three weeks later. Twenty three year old Patrie ship Asset,
a secretary for a Boston engineering firm, was discovered on Monday,

(13:04):
December thirty first, nineteen sixty two, when her boss became
worried about her. He went to her apartment that morning
to pick her up for work, but she hadn't answered
the door. When she never arrived at work, he went
back to her apartment building at five fifteen Park drive
in the Back Bay area in which Anna Slesser's and
Sophie Clarke had lived. Her apartment was locked, so her boss,
with the help of the custodian, climbed through a window

(13:26):
into the apartment. They found her face up in bed
with the covers drawn up to her chin, looking like
she was taking a nap. Underneath the covers, she lay
there with several stockings nodded and interwoven, with a blouse
tied tightly around her neck. There was evidence of recent
sexual intercourse and she was in an early stage of pregnancy.

(13:46):
There had been some damage to her rectum. The killer
had searched her apartment. Things were quiet for a couple
of months. The police took the opportunity to back track
and look for any clue that would link these people together,
any person that they may have all known or met,
any place they may have all visited or shopped. Creeps, nuts,

(14:07):
and perverts were checked again, but with no significant results.
In early March of nineteen sixty three, twenty five miles
north of Boston and Lawrence, sixty eight year old Mary
Brown was found beaten to death in her apartment. She
had also been strangled and raped the murder scene moved
back to Boston two months later. On Wednesday, May eighth,

(14:28):
nineteen sixty three, Beverly Sammons, a pretty twenty three year
old graduate student, missed choir practice at the Second Unitarian
Church in Back Bay. Her friend went to her apartment
and opened it with the key she had given to him.
The moment he opened the door, she lay directly in
front of 'em on a sofa bed, her legs spread apart.
Her hands had been tied behind her with one of

(14:49):
her scarves. A nylon stocking, and two handkerchiefs tied together
were tied and knotted around her neck. Over her mouth,
a cloth had been placed under it. A second cloth
had been stuffed into her mouth. While it appeared that
Beverly had been strangled, she had in fact been killed
by the four stab wounds to her throat. She'd sustained

(15:09):
twenty two stab wounds in all, eighteen of which were
in a bulls eye design on her left breast. The
ligature around her neck was decorative and not tied tightly
enough to strangle her. The bloody knife was found in
her kitchen sink. She had not been raped by a
manner object nor was there any spermatozoa present in her body.
It was estimated that she'd been dead for approximately forty

(15:32):
eight to seventy two hours, and had probably been killed
between late Sunday evening or Monday morning. She was studying
to be an opera singer and had planned to try
out for the met in New York that year. Police
speculated that because of her singing, she had developed very
strong throat muscles that may have made strangulation more difficult
and resulted in her stabbing. The police were getting desperate.

(15:55):
Someone had put them in touch with an ad copywriter
named Paul Gordon, who supposedly had special esp qualities, who
claimed that he knew who the strangler was and what
he looked like. The police were more than normally receptive
to this untraditional approach. Paul began his description of the
man who killed Annis Lessers. I picture him as fairly tall,

(16:16):
bony hands, pale white skin, red bony knuckles, his eyes
hollow set. I was particularly struck by his eyes. His
hair disturbed me a little because he has a habit
of pushing back a little curl of hair that falls
on his forehead. He's got a tooth missing in the
upper right front of his mouth. He's in a hospital
or some kind of home. He's not confined. I know

(16:39):
that because I see him walking across a wide expanse
of lawn. He can walk about, and he does a
lot of sitting on a bench on the grounds. He
has many problems. He used to beat up his mother cruelly.
She was a domineering woman, and his two sisters lived
unhappy lives. The family comes from Maine or Vermont. He's

(16:59):
terrible lonely when he's in the city. I see him
sleeping in cellars, but he likes to wander round the street,
watching women, wanting to get as close as possible to them.
You see the poor fellows in a continual search for
his mother, but he can't find her because she's dead.
One of the detectives brought out a number of photos
of men who'd been caught mugging or breaking and entering

(17:22):
into buildings in the Back Bay area. Gordon identified one
of them, and Arnold Wallace as the strangler who matched
the description that Gordon had given earlier. Wallace was a
twenty six year old mental patient at Boston State Hospital
who had ground privileges a few days earlier, he'd wandered
away and was sleeping in the basement of apartment houses.

(17:42):
He was violent and had beaten his mother on occasion.
Then Gordon switched to the murder of Sophie Clark, correctly
describing her apartment in minute detail as though he'd been there.
The killer, Gordon said, was a large, husky black man
whom Sophie knew. The detectives were flabber gasted by the
detail in which he described the apartment. Not only that

(18:04):
Lewis Barnett, who fit Gordon's description, was a suspect in
Sophie's murder, he dated her once and it was possible
that she would have led him into her apartment. Gordon
said that the strangler would identify himself soon and confess.
And when this fellow confesses, it's going to be like
a big carpet rolled out in front of you, and
all the answers will be so simple. You'll kick yourself

(18:26):
for months at a time that you couldn't see it.
When the police went to check on Arnold Wallace, they
found out that he'd escaped the hospital five or six times,
which happened to coincide with the strangling DEAs. Gordon also
went to the hospital so that he could see Arnold
Wallace in the flesh. He's the man, Gordon told them positively.
The police decided to look into Gordon's activities before they

(18:49):
went any further with Arnold Wallace. Gordon had been to
the hospital before he talked to the police, so he
could have seen Arnold on the grounds. Maybe the whole
thing was a hoax. Maybe Gordon was the strangler. Arnold,
whose IQ was between sixty and seventy, was given a
line detector test. His low intelligence and his inability to

(19:11):
distinguish between fantasy and reality made communication difficult. The test
was inconclusive. He was taken back to the hospital while
police tried to check out all of the circumstantial evidence.
There was another quiet period during the summer of nineteen
sixty three. June, July, and August passed without another strangling. Then,

(19:32):
on September eighth, nineteen sixty three, in Salem, Eveline Corbin,
a pretty fifty eight year old divorcee who passed herself
off as more than a decade younger, was found murdered.
She'd been strangled with two of her nylon stockings. She
lay across the bed, face up and nude. Her underpants
had been stuffed into her mouth as a gag. Around

(19:53):
the bed were lipstick marked tissues that had traces of
seamen as well spermatozoa were found in her mouth, but
not in her vagina. Her locked apartment had been searched,
but apparently nothing was stolen. A tray of jewelry had
been put on the floor, and her PRIs had been
emptied onto the sofa. One strange clue couldn't be explained.

(20:14):
Outside her window on the fire escape was a fresh doughnut,
which was not deposited or thrown there by anyone in
the building. On November twenty fifth, the Boston area was
still grieving the loss of their beloved President John F. Kennedy,
who'd been assassinated three days earlier. While most Americans stayed
numbly glued to their television sets, Joanne Graff was raped

(20:35):
and murdered in her ransacked Lawrence apartment. The very conservative
and religious twenty three year old industrial designer had died
shortly before the president. Two nylon stockings had been tied
in an elaborate bow around her neck. There were teeth
marks on her breast. The outside of her vagina was
bloody and lacerated. At three twenty five p m. The

(20:57):
student that lived above her heard footsteps in the hall.
His wife had been concerned that someone had been sneaking
around in the hallways, so he went to the door
and listened. When he heard a knock on the door
of the apartment opposite his, the student opened his door
to find a man of about twenty seven with pomaded hair,
dressed in dark green slacks and a dark shirt and jacket.
Does Joan Graff live here? He asked, mispronouncing Joanne's name.

(21:21):
The student told him that Joanne lived on the floor
below the apartment at which he was knocking. Moments later,
he heard the door open and shut on the floor
beneath them, and assumed that Joanne had let the man
into her apartment. Ten minutes later, a friend telephoned Joanne,
but there was no answer. The morning before Joanne's death,
in the apartment down the hall from Joanne's, a woman

(21:41):
heard some one outside her door. Then she saw a
piece of paper being slipped under her door. She watched,
mesmerized as it was being moved from side to side soundlessly,
then Suddenly the paper vanished and she heard footsteps. A
little over a month later, on January fourth, nineteen sixty four,
two young women came home after work to their apartment

(22:02):
at forty four Ah Charles Street. They were stunned to
find their new roommate, nineteen year old Mary Sullivan, murdered
in the most grotesque and shocking fashion. Like the other victims,
she'd been strangled first with a dark stocking, and over
the stocking a pink silk scarf tied with a huge
bow under her chin, and over that another pink and

(22:22):
white flowered scarf, a bright Happy New Year's card had
been placed against her feet. It got worse. She was
in a sitting position on the bed with her back
against the head board. Thick liquid was dripping from her
mouth on to her exposed breasts. A broomstick handle had
been rammed three and a half inches into her vagina.

(22:44):
Enough was enough. Certainly, people faulted the police for many things,
but the reality was that serial killers are very difficult
to find, especially smart ones that don't leave clues. In
spite of the panic that women experienced all over Boston
and its suburbs, the fact was that women were continuing
to let the killer or killers into their apartments. The

(23:06):
police could only guess whether these women admitted him to
their homes because they knew him, or because he was
able to trick them into letting a stranger inside. A
couple of weeks after the murder of Mary Sullivan, Massachusetts
Attorney General Edward Brooke took over on January seventeenth, nineteen
sixty four, the highest ranking law enforcement officer in the state,

(23:26):
made the case his own, showing the city that it
was his topmost priority. Brook was no ordinary law enforcement type,
nor was he an ordinary politician. He was a very handsome, intelligent,
and polished professional. He was also the only African American
attorney general in the country. Even more remarkable was the

(23:46):
fact that he was a Republican in a solidly democratic state.
There were some real political risk to doing this, particularly
if the strangler was never captured, but Brook's plan made
a great deal of practical sense. He meant no disrespect
to the Boston police, but this was an unusual case
that spanned five police jurisdictions. The group Brook was putting

(24:08):
together would coordinate the activities of the various police departments.
There'd be permanent staff assigned to the strangler, who would
not be pulled off to work on other crimes. There'd
be no withholding of information between the area's police departments
because of petty jealousies or feuds. Furthermore, Brooks's task force
would mollify the newspapers. Two women reporters, Gene Cole and

(24:30):
Loretta MacLaughlin, for the Record American had made a crusade
out of exposing the Boston Police Department's mistakes, charging them
with extreme inefficiency. To head up this task force, formally
called the Special Division of Crime Research and Detection, he
selected a close friend, Assistant Attorney General John S. Bottomley.

(24:51):
Bottomley was a controversial choice because of his lack of
experience and criminal law. However, as bottomley supporters pointed out,
he was exceptionally honest then bubbled over with enthusiasm. It
was a non traditional case, and Bottomley was a man
of non traditional methods. Not everyone shared the enthusiasm about
Bottomley's qualifications. Edmond McNamara, the Boston Police Commissioner, reportedly said,

(25:17):
Holy Jesus, what a nutcake. Novelist George V. Higgins, who
worked for the Associated Press at the time, said that
he never heard a reference to Bottomley without the word
asshole attached as either a suffix or a prefix. I
started to think maybe it was part of the guy's name.
Bottomley's top team consisted of Boston Police Departments Detective Philip

(25:38):
de Natally and special Officer James Mellon, Metropolitan Police officer
Stephen Delaney, and State Police Detective Lieutenant Andrew Tuney. Doctor
Donald Kennefick headed up a medical psychiatric advisory committee with
several well known experts and forensic medicine. Two months later,
Governor Peabody offered a ten thousand dollars reward to any

(25:58):
person furnishing information leading to the arresting conviction of the
person who had committed the murders of the eleven official
victims of the Strangler. The Strangler Bureau, as the task
force became known, had several major pieces of business before
it could hit the ground running. It had to collect, organize,
and assimilate over thirty seven thousand pages of material from

(26:19):
the various police departments that had been involved in the case.
For the medical committee, they hit the task of developing
the profile of the kind of person who had commit
the murders. Forensic medical experts saw important differences between the
murders of the older women and the younger women. For
that reason, they thought it was unlikely that one person
was responsible for all the killings. In other words, there

(26:41):
were copycats. What kind of person would be capable of
such murders? Doctor Kenefick reported what his team believed the
police should be looking for. He was at least thirty
years old, probably a good deal older. He's neat, orderly
and punctual. Works with his hands or has a hobby

(27:02):
involving handiwork. He is most probably single, separated or divorced.
He would not impress the average observer as crazy. He
has no close friends of either sex. At Bottomley's suggestion,
Brooke finally consented to a risky move, the involvement of
Peter Herkos, the well known Dutch psychic. Two private groups

(27:23):
paid for Herkos's services and expenses. He was a difficult
person to work with and ultimately got into difficulty for
allegedly impersonating an FBI agent. Herkos did identify a suspect,
one whom the Strangler Bureau had investigated. The suspect was
a shoe salesman with a history of mental illness. However,

(27:43):
there is no evidence whatsoever to link the shoe salesman
with the murders. Eventually, the man committed himself to an institution.
The Strangler Bureau's credibility suffered on account of Hyrkos. A
couple of years before the strangling murders began, a series
of strained sect offenses began in the Cambridge area. A
man in his late twenties would knock at the door

(28:05):
of an apartment and if a young woman answered, he'd
introduce himself. My name is Johnson, and I work for
modeling agency. Your name was given to us by someone
who thought you'd make a good model. He'd hasten to
assure that the modeling would not be in the nude
or anything like that, just evening gowns and swimsuits. The
pay was forty dollars an hour. He'd been sent to

(28:26):
get her measurements and other information if she was interested.
Apparently a number of women were interested and flattered and
allowed him to take out his tape measure and measure them.
He seemed like a nice enough person with a charming,
boyish smile. When he was finished, he told them that
missus Lewis from the agency would contact them if the
measurements were suitable. Of course, there was never any call

(28:49):
from missus Lewis because neither she nor the modeling agency existed. Eventually,
some of the women contacted the police. On March seventeenth,
nineteen sixty one, came Rich police caught a man trying
to break into a house. Not only did he confess
to breaking and entering, but he confessed to being the
measuring man. His name was Albert de Salvo, a twenty

(29:11):
nine year old man with numerous arrests for breaking into
apartments and stealing whatever money he found. He lived in
Malden with his German wife and two small children. He
worked during the day as a press operator in a
rubber factory. When asked why he perpetrated this pathetic charade,
he responded, I'm not good looking, I'm not educated, but

(29:31):
I was able to put something over on high class people.
They were all college kids, and I never had anything
in my life, and I outsmarted them. The judge, ultimately
sympathetic to DeSalvo's role as a bread earner, reduced the
sentence he received to eighteen months with good behavior DeSalvo
was released in April of nineteen sixty two, two months

(29:53):
before the first victim of the strangler, Annas Lessar's, was found.
Albert de Salvo was born in Chelsea, Massachuset, on September third,
nineteen thirty one. His parents, Frank and Charlotte, had five
other children. His father was a violently abusive man who
regularly beat his wife and children. As a boy, he
was delinquent and arrested more than once on assault and

(30:14):
battery charges. Throughout his adolescence, he went through periods of
very good behavior and then lapsed into petty criminality. His mother, Charlotte,
remarried and did her best to keep her son out
of trouble. Their relationship, aside from the disappointments she suffered
when he got into trouble, was a reasonably good one.
He was in the army from nineteen forty eight through

(30:36):
nineteen fifty six and was stationed for a while in Germany.
There he met his wife, Ermengarde Beck, an attractive woman
from a respectable family. At one time, he was promoted
to Specialist E five, but later was demoted to private
for failing to obey an order. He received an honorable discharge.
In nineteen fifty five, he was arrested for fondling a

(30:58):
young girl, but the charge was dropped. That year, his
first child was born, Judy, had a physical handicap in
the form of congenital pelvic disease. This problem had a
large impact on DeSalvo's home life. His wife was terrifying
that she'd have another child with a physical handicap and
did everything she could do to avoid sex. De Salvo,

(31:18):
on the other hand, had an abnormally voracious sexual appetite,
requiring sex many times a day. Between nineteen fifty six
and nineteen sixty, he had several arrests for breaking and entering.
Each time he received a suspended sentence. In nineteen sixty,
his son, Michael, was born without any physical handicaps. In
spite of his brushes with the law, Albert seemed to

(31:40):
stay employed. After he worked as a press operator at
American Built Right Rubber, he worked in a shipyard and
subsequently as a construction maintenance worker. Most people who knew
Albert de Salvo liked him. His boss characterized him as
a good, decent family man and a good worker. He
was a very devoted family man and he treated his
wife with love and tenderness. Aside from being a thief,

(32:04):
he had another serious character weakness. He was confirmed braggart.
He always had to top the other guy, no matter
what the situation was. Police Commissioner Edward McNamara summarized the
problem DeSalvo's a blowhard. Early November of nineteen sixty four,
almost three years after he'd been released from jail, DeSalvo

(32:26):
was arrested again. This time, the charges were more serious
than breaking and entering and measuring prospective models. On October
twenty seventh, a newly married woman lay in bed dozing
just after her husband left her work. Suddenly there was
a man in her room who put a knife to
her throat. Not a sound, or I'll kill you, he
told her. He stuffed her underwear in her mouth and

(32:47):
tied her in a spread eagle position to the bedposts
with her clothes. He kissed her and fondled her, and
then he asked her how to get out of the apartment.
You be quiet for ten minutes. Finally he apologized and fled.
She got a very good look at his face. The
police sketch reminded the detectives of the measuring man. They

(33:09):
brought Tsalvo to the station where she was able to
observe him through a one way mirror. There was no
doubt about it. He was the man. DeSalvo was released
on bail. Routinely, his photo went over the police teletype network,
and soon calls came in from Connecticut, where they were
seeking a sexual assailant. They called the green Man because
he wore green work pants. Police arrested him at home

(33:32):
and arranged for the victims to identify him. He was
mortified that his wife would see him in handcuffs. His
wife wasn't surprised. Albert was obsessed with sex. No one
woman would ever be enough for him. In fact, the
Green Man had assaulted four women in one day in
different towns in Connecticut. His wife told him to be
completely truthful and not to hold anything back. He admitted

(33:56):
to breaking into four hundred apartments and a couple of
rapes assaulted some three hundred women in a four state area.
Given Dsalvo's tendency to a grandize, it was difficult to
tell if the number was really that high. Many of
the instances had gone unreported, and in those that were,
the women were reticent to describe what all he did

(34:16):
to them. If you knew the whole story, you wouldn't
believe it, he told one of the cops. It'll all
come out, You'll find out. DeSalvo was sent to Bridgewater
State Hospital for observation. While the police didn't believe that
Dissalvo could be the strangler, they wanted the psychiatrist there
to examine him. Shortly after Dussalvo arrived at Bridgewater, a

(34:37):
dangerous man named George Nassar also became an inmate. He'd
been charged with a vicious execution style murder of a
gas station attendant. Nassar was no ordinary thug. His IQ
approached genius level, and his ability to manipulate people was
highly developed. While in prison for an earlier murder, he'd
been studying Russian and other subjects. He was put in

(35:00):
the same ward with de Salvaux and became his confidant.
In early March of nineteen sixty five, DeSalvo's wife, Ermengard
got a call at her sister's house in Denver from
a man named f Lee Bailey, who said he was
Albert's attorney. He told her to assume a different name,
leave the area with her children and go into hiding
at once to avoid the deluge of publicity that was

(35:21):
going to descend on her if she didn't do what
he said. Something big is going to blow up about Albert.
It'll be on the front pages of every newspaper in
twenty four hours. I'm flying out to see you tomorrow
so i can help you myself. The next day, she
was told that Albert had confessed to being the strangler.
She hung up on the man in disbelief. She couldn't

(35:43):
understand why he'd confessed to such a lie. There is
no way that she could believe that he was capable
of such brutality. It had to be another of Albert's
attempts to make himself seem important. Some newspapers must be
offering him money. That had to be the reason what
had brought all of this about well. Albert was starting

(36:03):
to think about money, money specifically to support his family
while he was in jail. He had a pretty good
idea that with the charges against him, he could end
up spending the rest of his life in jail. Somehow,
he had to take care of Ermengard and his two children.
The idea of selling a story and collecting reward money
began to take shape in his mind. Some months earlier,

(36:25):
before Albert was sent to Bridgewater, his lawyer John as
Gearson went to see Albert, who asked him, what would
you do if someone gave you the biggest story of
the century. Do you mean the Boston Strangler? Albert said, yes,
Are you mixed up in all of them? Albert? Did
you do some of them? All of them? Albert admitted

(36:45):
he thought the story might bring some money for his family.
As Gearson wasn't quite sure what to do with this information,
and seriously considered the possibility that Albert was insane, he
began a quiet inquiry. In the meantime, Albert went to
Bridgewater and struck up his friendship with George Nasser. Regardless
of whose idea it was, the two discussed the reward

(37:07):
money for information leading to the conviction of the strangler.
Nasser and DeSalvo mistakenly assumed that ten thousand dollars would
be paid for each victim of the strangler, or a
total of one hundred and ten thousand dollars for the
eleven official victims. If Nasar turned him in and DiSalvo confessed,
they could work out a deal to split the money. DeSalvo,

(37:27):
who expected to spend the rest of his life in
an institution, did not intend to get himself executed, but
then no one had been executed in the state for
seventeen years. There was a good chance that he could
convince the shrinks that he was insane and could spend
the rest of his life in a mental hospital instead
of a prison. Not too bad considering the alternatives, especially

(37:49):
when he didn't have to worry about money for his family.
Flee Bailey, who had already distinguished himself in the doctor
Sam Sheppard case, was George Nassar's lawyer. Bailey heard about
Desi from Nasser and went to visit Albert with a dictaphone.
On March sixth. Not only did Albert confess to the
murders of the eleven official victims, but he also admitted

(38:09):
to killing two other women, Mary Brown and Lawrence, and
another elderly woman who died of a heart attack before
he could strangle her. Flee Bailey and the Defense Never
Rests says he felt very comfortable being around Salvo. That
was one of the pieces that fell into place in
the puzzle of the Boston Strangler. It helped explain why
he'd been able to evade detection despite more than two

(38:32):
and a half years of investigation. De Salvo was Doctor Jekyll.
The police had been looking for mister Hyde. One of
the things that struck me about DeSalvo at our first
meeting was his courteous, even gentle manner. I stared at
him seriously, considering the possibility that he might be the strangler,
and I felt something that verged on awe. As for

(38:54):
de Salvo, his gaze dropped from time to time in
what appeared to be embarrassment. De Salvo was thirty three
at the time, about five nine, with broad shoulders and
an extremely muscular build. His brown hair was combed back
in an exaggerated pompadour, His nose was very large, and
his easy smile was emphasized by even white teeth. When

(39:16):
Bailey questioned him about what De Salvo wanted of him,
de Salvo was quite forthright. I know I'm going to
have to spend the rest of my life locked up somewhere.
I just hope it's a hospital and not a hole
like this, meaning Bridgewater. But if I could tell my
story to someone who could write it, maybe I could
make some money for my family. Bailey thought that there

(39:37):
must be some way to allow him to confess without
setting him up for execution. But foremost in Bailey's mind
was determining if des Salvo was really guilty without putting
his client in jeopardy. Bailey called Lieutenant Donovan and suggested
that he might have a suspect for him, but first
he wanted Donovan to provide him with some questions to
ask the suspect that would help determine if he was

(39:58):
for real. Arm With his dictaphone, Bailey went to visit
de Salvo a second time. On March sixth, nineteen sixty five.
Albert mentioned that Detective Dinatally from the Attorney General Strangler
Bureau had taken a sudden interest in him and had
come to take his palm print the day before. Bailey
had to work fast if he was going to be
able to protect his client. Bailey says, of that interview,

(40:20):
I became certain that the man sitting in that dimly
lit room with me was the Boston Strangler. Anyone experienced
an interrogation learns to recognize the difference between a man
speaking from life and a man telling a story that
he's either made up or is gotten from another person.
DeSalvo gave me every indication that he was speaking from life.

(40:41):
He wasn't trying to recall words. He was recalling scenes
he had actually experienced. He could bring back the most
inconsequential details, the color of a rug, the content of
a photograph, the condition of a piece of furniture. Then,
as if he were watching a videotape replay, he would
describe what had happened you, usually as unemotionally as if

(41:01):
he were describing a trip to the supermarket. DeSalvo described
his attack on seventy five year old I to Erga
in August of nineteen sixty two. I said, I wanted
to do some work in the apartment, and she didn't
trust me because of the things that were going on,
and she had a suspicion of letting allowing anybody into
the apartment without knowing who they were. And I talked

(41:22):
to her very briefly and told her not to worry.
I'd just as soon come back tomorrow rather than in
other words, if you don't trust me, I'll come back
tomorrow then. And I started to walk downstairs, and she said, well,
come on in and we went into the bedroom where
I was supposed to look at a leak there at
the window, and when she turned I put my arms
around her back. Bailey asks him where the bedroom was

(41:46):
relative to the front door, and how he got to
the bedroom. I think it went through a parlor as
you walked in, and a dining room and a bedroom.
Oh before the bedroom was a kitchen, and the bedroom
was way back. The bed was white. It wasn't made either.
She was in the midst probably of making the bed up.

(42:06):
And there was an old dresser there. And I opened
the drawers up and there was nothing in them, nothing
at all. They were empty. And uh, when I did
get her by the neck and strangled her. Bailey asks
if he grabbed her from behind. Yes, manually, I noted
blood coming out of her ear, very dark, the right ear.

(42:28):
I remember that. And then I think there was the
dining room set in there, a very dark one, and
there were brown chairs around it, and I recalled putting
her legs up on the two chairs in a wide position,
one leg in each chair. Bailey asked him why he
choose such an old woman to attack. DeSalvo told him
that attractiveness has nothing to do with it. She was

(42:51):
a woman. That was enough. DeSalvo then described the attack on
Sophie Clark, the twenty two year old student who was
killed in December of nineteen sixty two. She was wearing
a very light, flimsy house coat, and she was very tall,
well built, about thirty six twenty two thirty seven, very beautiful.
Her apartment had a yellowish door, a faded yellow door,

(43:14):
and she didn't want to let me in period, because
her roommates weren't there at the time. I told her
I'd set her up in modeling and photography work, and
I'd give her anywhere from twenty dollars to thirty five
dollars an hour for this type of modeling. There was
a place where there would be what do you call
it a flatbed where you put a something over it,

(43:34):
but you'd take it off. You can use it to
sit on like a couch. It had fancied little pillows
on it, colorful ones, purple ones. It looked like a
purple or black cover. There were so many details that
he remembered that could be checked with the police. Bailey
called Lieutenant Donovan and his colleague, Lieutenant Sherry to his
office and they listened to the dictaphone, which Bailly played

(43:57):
at different speeds to disguise Albert's voice. The detectives listened
very closely when DiSalvo described the attack on Sophie Clark. First,
DeSalvo said that when he attempted intercourse with Sophie, he
discovered she was menstruating. He described the napkin he removed
from between her legs and the chair that he'd thrown
it behind. Second, he said that as he was going

(44:19):
through Sophie's bureau looking for stalking to nod around her neck,
he knocked a pack of cigarettes to the floor. He
named the brand and described the place on the floor
where he left them. At the Sherry grabbed the briefcase
and pulled out a photo showing a bureau and a
pack of cigarettes, just as Albert had described them. On
the back of the photo, there is an inscription homicide Clark, Sophie,

(44:40):
December fifth, nineteen sixty two, taken from the Defense Never Rests.
Commissioner Macnamara and doctor Ames Roby, the psychiatrist at Bridgewater,
were called into the consultation. After talking with DeSalvo, Bailey
got him to agree to cooperate with the police and
take a line detector test. They really couldn't go too
far without getting John Bottomley, the head of Edward Brooks's

(45:03):
strangler bureau involved. Subsequently, there was a lot of unpleasant
legal wrangling, while Bailey tried to protect his client from
execution and Attorney General Brooke wanted to keep control of
the investigation. The stakes were now higher, so much so
that Brooke was going to run for senator with the
incumbent retiring, the resolution of the strangler case would be

(45:25):
a nice boost to his campaign. The issue of intensive
questioning of des Salvaux on all of the murders and
checking out every detail of his confession was critical. Finally,
on September twenty ninth, nineteen sixty five, the interrogation was completed.
More than fifty hours of tapes and two thousand pages
of transcription resulted. While each detail of the confession was

(45:47):
checked out, Bottomley, Brooke and Bailey tried to work out
the rules for whatever would happen next. The original doubts
about whether des Salvo really was the strangler were quickly dissipating.
Details piled upon details as ds Salvo recalled the career
of the strangler murder by murder. He knew there was
a notebook under the bed of victim number eight, Beverly Salmons.

(46:09):
He knew the Christmas bells were attached to Patricia Bezette's door.
He drew accurate floor plans of the victim's apartments. He
said he'd taken a raincoat from Anna Slesser's apartment to
wear over his t shirt because he'd taken off his
bloodstained shirt and jacket. Detectives found that missus Slessar's had
bought two identical coats and had given one to a relative.

(46:30):
They showed the duplicate to dis Salvo, along with fourteen
other raincoats tailored in different styles. Des Salvo picked the
right one. He described an aboordive attack on a Danish
girl in her Boston apartment. He talked his way into
the place and had his arm around her neck when
he suddenly looked in a large wall mirror, seeing himself

(46:50):
about to kill. He was horrified. He relaxed the pressure
and started crying. He was sorry, he said, and he
begged her not to call the police. If his mother
found it, he lied, she could cut off his allowance
and he wouldn't be able to finish college. The young
woman never reported the incident, with nothing to go on
other than DeSalvo's memory, dinnatally founder not surprisingly, she remembered

(47:14):
the incident vividly. Eventually, the strangler bureau came to the
same conclusion that f Lee Bailey had Albert de Salvo
was the Boston strangler. Now there was a much larger
issue to contend with, how did justly serve the rights
of the confessed strangler and the demands of the people
for justice. Nobody who knew DeSalvo believed that he was

(47:36):
the strangler. His wife and family, his former employers, his lawyer,
an eminent prison psychiatrist, and even the police who had
become very familiar with Albert with his frequent arrest for
breaking and entering. Everyone who knew him thought of him
as a very gentle, decent family man who just happened
to be an incorrigible small time thief. Susan Kelly and

(47:57):
the Boston Stranglers. The public conviction of Albert de Salvo
and the true story of eleven shocking murders makes a
persuasive argument for DeSalvo being innocent of the strangling murders.
She cites a number of reasons why she and others
still believed that des Salvo was innocent. One of the
strongest of these reasons is that there was not one

(48:17):
shred of physical evidence that connected him to any of
the murders, nor could any eye witness place him at
or even near any of the crime scenes. Albert had
a relatively memorable face, particularly because of his prominent beak
like nose. The strangler or stranglers, since some experts believed
that it had to be at least two different murderers

(48:39):
and possibly more, was seen by a number of eyewitnesses.
One was Kenneth Rowe, an engineering student who lived on
the floor above Joanne Graft's apartment. He spoke to the
stranger who was looking for her apartment just before she
was killed. When Roe was shown a photo of Albert
de Salvo, he didn't recognize him as the man looking
for Joanne. Jewels VENs, who ran Martin's tavern right near

(49:02):
Joangraf's apartment in Lawrence, did not identify de Salvo as
the man who dressed identically to the man Row had
seen had come into the tavern nervous and agitated, as
though some one were following him. Eileen O'Neill could not
identify de Salvo as the man whom she saw in
Mary Sullivan's bathroom window around the time of her death.
Plus Kelly points out three fresh salem cigarette butts were

(49:25):
found in an ash tray near Mary Sullivan's bed. Neither
Mary nor her roommate smoked this brand. A Salem's cigarette
butt was found floating in the toilet of Apartment four
Sea at three fifteen Huntington Avenue in Boston the day
Sophie Clark died there. Albert de Salvo did not smoke.
Even more remarkable were the reactions that two very important

(49:46):
eye witnesses had to see Albert and his killer friend,
George Nassar. Marcelleluca, who lived in the same apartment building
as Sophie Clark, had an encounter with a man named
mister Thompson, who said he'd come to paint her apartment.
This man was about five feet nine with pale, honey
colored hair combed straight back over an oval face. She

(50:07):
said he could have been a light skinned black or
a white man. She estimated his age at about twenty
five years old. She got rid of him by telling
him that her husband was asleep inside her apartment. This
encounter was just before Sophie Clark was murdered. Missus Luca
later sketched for police a portrait of Thomson. It showed
a delicately featured young man with a long, narrow face,

(50:30):
a very thin nose, a pointed chin, and large almond
shaped eyes. It looks nothing like Albert DeSalvo. When Albert
began confessing to the Stranglings, bottomly rounded up missus Lulka
and Gertrude Gruin so that they could secretly view Albert
in prison. Gertrude Gruin was considered at that time the
only woman who survived an encounter with the strangler. She

(50:53):
had given her attacker a good fight and he fled.
Both women thought that they were coming to view one man, Albertusalvo.
Neither realized that they would see another man, also, George Nassar.
The women posed as visitors in the prison's visiting room.
Nassar was the first one to enter the room to
meet with a prison social worker. Gerald Frank describes this

(51:16):
unexpected reaction. George Nassar darted a sharp glance at her Gruin,
and then a second She thought there's something upsetting, something frightening,
familiar about that man. Could he know her? At that moment,
DeSalvo entered and took his place across the table from
doctor Allen. Miss Gruin looked at him. No, he was

(51:39):
not the man who talked with her, attempted to strangle her,
the man with whom she fought, the man who fled
when her screams brought workers on the roof peering into
her windows. But the men now talking to the social worker,
the man who had turned his dark eyes on her
so sharply. Moments later, in doctor Roby's office, surrounded by police,
she said, agitatedly, I don't know what to say. I'm

(52:02):
so upset. She appeared on the verge of a breakdown.
Finally she was able to talk. It was not Albert
de Salvo, she said. When she'd been shown his photographs
a week earlier, she'd thought she saw certain similarities. Now
I know he's not the man, she said, but the
first man who entered, George Nassar. I realize how shocked

(52:25):
I was when I saw him. To see this man,
his eyes, his hair, his hands, the whole expression of him.
He looked like the man who attacked her, walked, carried
himself like him, his posture. My deep feelings are that
he had very great similarities to the man who was
in my apartment. But she was not sure. She wept

(52:46):
with frustration. She wanted so badly to identify this man
and marcel I Lulca, who had also been brought to
identify Di Salvo. She hadn't been sure when shown his
photographs a few days before. Now, she said, seeing him
in person, she must definitely eliminate him. But the prisoner
who preceded him, Nasser. When she saw him enter, her

(53:08):
heart jumped in every way but one. His eyes, his walk,
his furrowed face, his dark, speculative gaze. He was her
mysterious collar of that dreadful afternoon. Only his hair was different.
Mister Thompson had honey colored hair, as she had told detectives.
This man's hair was black. Might it not have been

(53:30):
dyed the day she saw him. The motive for DiSalvo
confessing to the crimes remains the same, whether he actually
committed them or not. He believed that he'd be spending
the rest of his life in jail for the green
Man attacks, and wanted to use the confession to raise
money to support his wife and children. Plus to a
braggart Likedsalvo, being the notorious Boston Strangler would make him

(53:51):
world famous. Doctor Roby testified that Albert so badly wanted
to be the Strangler. One of the key issues that
kell The addresses with mixed success is the accuracy of
the voluminous confession and its myriad of details, some of
which were correct and some of which weren't. How did
Albert DeSalvo, a man of average or less than average intelligence,

(54:14):
convincingly absorb so many many details about the victims in
their apartments if he wasn't the strangler. Kelly points out
that Albert had an exceptional memory. Doctor Roby testified that
he had absolute, complete, one hundred percent total photographic recall.
One of his lawyers, Jonas Gearson, noted that Albert had

(54:36):
a phenomenal memory. Another of his lawyers, Tom Troy, agreed
it was remarkable. Roby cites an example of how he
tested Albert's ability to make instantaneous mental carbon copies of people, places,
and things. We had a staff meeting at Bridgewater with
about eight people. Albert walked in and walked out the

(54:56):
next day, we had him brought back in. Everyone had
on different clothes, who was sitting in different positions. I said, Albert,
you remember coming in yesterday. Describe it. Albert did perfectly.
She also cites a number of sources of information available
to Albert to learn what he did about the crimes.
The newspaper accounts were extraordinarily detailed. The Record American printed

(55:19):
up a chart along with the victim's photos, called the
Facts on Reporters Strangle Worksheet. This chart was a summary
of all the important details of each crime, what victims
were wearing, their hobbies, affiliations, et cetera. Kelly says that
DeSalvo had memorized this chart as apparent because in his
confession to John Bottomley, he regurgitated not only the correct

(55:41):
data on it, but the few pieces of misinformation it contained,
as well leaks by law enforcement agencies, particularly the Strangler Bureau,
which was criticized for being lax with its accumulated material,
and the Suffolk County Medical Examiner, who allegedly held a
number of unauthorized press conferences in which freely distributed information
about the victim autopsies. Albert's own research as a burglar

(56:05):
put him in many of the apartment buildings in which
women were murdered. He knew the layouts of the apartments,
and according to Kelly, had visited each apartment after the murder,
information deliberately and inadvertently fed to him by people anxious
to wrap up the investigation, such as John Bottomley, who,
according to Kelly, did knowingly and quite intentionally provide Albert

(56:27):
with information about the murders while he was taking the
latter's confession to them, which explains why the only version
of the confession ever made public was abbreviated and heavily doctored.
The full version virtually exonerates to Salvo possible information provided
by another suspect who could have coached to Salvo in
the details. Police speculated that George Nasser could have been

(56:49):
one such source of information. Finally, experts never saw the
stranglings as the work of one individual. The Modi Opera
and I were not identical, and the victims as a
group were quite dissimilar. Kelly summarizes some of the more
obvious differences. No similarity whatsoever exists between the relatively delicate

(57:09):
killing of Patricia Bissett, whose murderer tucked her into bed,
and the ghastly homicidal violation afflicted on Mary Sullivan, whose
killers intent was not just to degrade his victim by
shoving a broom handle into her vagina, but to taunt
the discoverer of her corpse by placing a greeting card
against her foot. Beverly Salmons was stabbed but not sexually assaulted.

(57:31):
Joanne Graff was raped faginally and strangled. Evelyn Corbin had
performed probably under dress or all sex on her killer.
Jane Sullivan was dumped face down to rot in a bathtub.
Ida Ergo was left in the living room with her
legs spread out and propped up on a chair. Serial
killers tend to select and stick with a particular kind

(57:52):
of victim. For example, Jack the Ripper picked prostitutes, Ted
Bundy picked pretty, long haired young girls, Jeff Dahmer young boys,
et cetera. The strangling victims represent a wide disparity in
age and attractiveness and race, which flies in the face
of serial killer profiling expertise. A very likely explanation is

(58:12):
that some of the crimes were committed by one individual,
especially the murders of Ida Erga, Jane Sullivan, and Helen Blake,
and what about Mary Mullen, the elderly woman who died
of a heart attack. Kelly says that this may be
the only killing of which Dessalvo's guilty. He probably burglarized
her apartment and she died of fright. Did the same

(58:33):
Albert de Salvo, who carried his unintended victim over to
her couch and fled without stealing anything. Savage the bodies
of Ida Erga and Jane Sullivan. The Mary Brown affair
raised some interesting questions. She had been raped, strangled, and
beaten to death in Lawrence in early March of nineteen
sixty three. Albert's confession to this crime was very sketchy

(58:55):
and many of the details were incorrect. Perhaps Albert had
been told about this crime on the Bridgewater inmate. Who
was really responsible? Kelly says. Mary Brown lived on the
same street as the man that George Nassar shot to
death in nineteen forty eight. Once the Commonwealth was satisfied
that Dessalvo was the strangler, very sticky legal issues had
to be resolved before any trial could be held. Basically,

(59:18):
DeSalvo's confession was inadmissible as evidence. Bailey put it this
way to Brook. And bottomly, when I met Albert, there
was enough indictments pending against him to pretty much ensure
that he'd never be walking the streets again. Now that
I've helped him disclose that he's committed multiple murder, it's
a certainty he'll never be released. Show me some way

(59:39):
to avoid the risk of execution. I'll run the risk
of conviction, but not execution, and you can have anything
you want. I know, damn well that neither of you
really wants to see him killed. Tell me, is that
asking too much? Brooke didn't think Bailey was asking for
too much, but he wanted to think about it some more.
At this point, he was a solid candidate for the Senate,

(01:00:00):
and they agreed that it would be a mistake to
have the DeSalvo trial in the midst of the campaign.
At least Bailey could get a ruling on whether des
Salvo was mentally competent to stand trial, and despite the
objections of doctor Roby, DeSalvo was found competent to stand trial. Finally,
on January tenth, nineteen sixty seven, Albert de Salvo was
tried on the green Man charges. Bailey explained that the

(01:00:24):
basic strategy by which I hoped to convince a jury
to find Albert not guilty by reason of insanity was simple.
I'd attempt to use the thirteen murders he'd committed as
the Boston strangler to show the extent of his insanity.
To do this, I'd tried to get both his confession
and his corroboration by police into evidence. Certainly, the problem
was unusual. I wanted the right to defend a man

(01:00:46):
for robbery and assault by proving that he'd committed thirteen murders.
Donald del Cohn led the prosecution team, f Lee Bailey
the defense in Judge Cornelius moynihan's court, Kahn called four
Greenman factims with very similar stories. Dessalvo would either jimmy
the door or coun his way into the apartment. Verbally,

(01:01:07):
he'd tie the woman, stripper and fondler breast's demand fallatio
or cunlingus, but stopped short of rape. He used a
knife for a toy gun to ensure cooperation. After he
was done, he took money and jewelry from the victims.
Bailey didn't cross examine the witnesses because he felt he
had nothing to gain. By doing so. Bailey said in

(01:01:28):
his opening statement that he had no doubt that Dessalvo
committed the crimes as charged, and the only issue was
whether the Commonwealth could prove that he was not insane
at the time. Bailey brought forth his expert witnesses to
testify to Albert's paranoid schizophrenia. They said that while Albert
knew what he was doing was wrong, his green Man
crimes were the result of an irresistible impulse. Con pointed

(01:01:51):
out that the non sexual aspects of his crimes, jimmying
the locks, lying to gain entrance, and the theft of
valuables were not a result of irresistible life impulse. The
psychiatrist agreed that only the sexual assaults were. The jury
thought about it for four hours, found DeSalvo guilty on
all counts, and sentenced them to life in prison. The

(01:02:12):
psychiatric help he wanted was denied. Bailey was very angry.
My goal was to see the strangler wind up in
a hospital where doctors could try to find out what
made him kill. Society is deprived of a study that
might help deter other mass killers who lived among us,
waiting for the trigger to go off inside them. Albert

(01:02:32):
de Salvo was serving out his life sentence at Walpole
State Prison now called m. C. I. Cedar Junction, when
he was stabbed to death in the infirmary in November
of nineteen seventy three. The night before he was murdered,
he telephoned doctor Eames Roby and asked him to meet
with him urgently. DeSalvo was very frightened. Roby promised to
meet with them the next morning, but Albert was murdered

(01:02:55):
that night. Albert had asked one other person to meet
with him and Roby, a reporter. Roby explained he was
going to tell us who the Boston strangler really was
and what the whole thing was about. He had asked
to be placed in the infirmary under special lock up
about a week before. Something was going on within the prison,
and I think he felt he had to talk quickly.

(01:03:17):
There were people in the prison, including guards, that weren't
happy with him. Somebody had to leave an awful lot
of doors open, which meant because there were several guards,
one would have to go by. There had to be
a fair number of people paid or asked to turn
their backs on something. But somebody put a knife into
Albert DeSalvo's heart some time between evening check in the morning.

(01:03:39):
Officials believed that Albert's death was related to his involvement
in a prison drug operation. Three men were tried, but
twice the trials ended in hung juries. Albert wrote this
poem a few years before his death. Here is the
story of the strangler yet untold, the man who claims
he murdered thirteen women, young and old, The elusive strangler.

(01:04:01):
There he goes where his wanderlust sends him. No one
knows he struck within the light of day, leaving not
one clue. Astray, young and old. Their lips are sealed,
their secret of death never revealed. Even though he's sick
in mind, he is much too clever for the police
to find. To reveal his secret will bring him fame,

(01:04:25):
but burden his family with unwonted shame. To day, he
sits in a prison cell, deep inside only a secret
he can tell. People everywhere are still in doubt. Is
the strangler in prison or roaming about. Although Albert de
Salvo was never charged with the strangulation murders of eleven

(01:04:46):
women due to a lack of evidence, many thought that
he was the Boston Strangler, especially after he confessed. Two
people very close to the case believe he didn't do it.
One's Albert's brother, Richard de Salvo. The other is Casey
she Shuman, the nephew of the strangler's last known victim,
Mary Sullivan. Both men and their families are convinced that
Albert de Salvo did not kill Mary Sullivan. If they're correct,

(01:05:11):
their findings may not only overturn the prosecution's case against DeSalvo,
but will almost certainly cast out on the entire Boston
Strangler case, in which eleven Boston area women were sexually
assaulted and murdered between nineteen sixty two and nineteen sixty four. Ironically,
it was DeSalvo's own taped confession that convinced the families
he was not the killer. Police say he had to

(01:05:32):
be the killer because he knew things that only the
killer would know. But when we listened to the confession tape,
it's completely wrong. He confessed to events that simply never happened,
said Casey Sherman. Mary Sullivan, who was killed in nineteen
sixty four at age nineteen, was Casey's mother's sister. Albert
de Salvo, a blue collar worker with a wife and

(01:05:52):
children confess to all of the Boston strangler murders, as
well as two others, but there is never any physical
evidence connecting it to the crime scenes. He didn't match
witness descriptions of possible suspects, his name wasn't on a
list of more than three hundred suspects compiled by case investigators,
and he was never tried in any of the killings.

(01:06:13):
DeSalvo was sent to prison for life for another string
of rapes and sexual assaults, and was stabbed to death
in the maximum security State prison at Walpole in nineteen
seventy three, but not before he recanted his confession. At
the time of his death, he was in fear of
his life and had been housed in the prison infirmary
to provide him additional protection. In October two thousand, the

(01:06:35):
two families united to have Sullivan's remains exhumed for DNA testing,
a technology that wasn't available nearly thirty seven years ago.
They hoped the results expected in early two thousand and
one would put further pressure on prosecutors to release to
them old evidence they hoped would clear DiSalvo. Sherman and
his family also believed that his aunt's killer is still

(01:06:55):
at large. For the Desalvos, the primary motivation is to
clear their family name. Richard de Salvo said that members
of his own family have been constantly berated and assaulted
because of the Boston Strangler case, and that it's led
to rifts in the family. All eleven women believed to
be the strangler victims were strangled with articles of their

(01:07:15):
own clothing, and one was also stabbed repeatedly. The prosecution
has always argued that Albert de Salvou possessed information that
only the killer would know. Sherm encountered by suggesting that
DeSalvo could have gotten details about Sullivan's slaying from the newspapers.
This view is supported by Susan Kelly in her nineteen
ninety five book Boston Stranglers, The Wrongful Conviction of Albert

(01:07:37):
de Salvo and the True Story of Eleven Shocking Murders,
but she goes further, suggesting that DeSalvo could have learned
the details from the real killer in prison. In his confession,
DeSalvo said he strangled Mary Sullivan with his hands. In reality,
she was strangled with her own clothing. DeSalvo also claimed
to have raped her when evidence had proven that she

(01:07:59):
was sexually assaulted with a broomstick. A forensic scientist who
took part in an autopsy arranged by the families said
experts were unable to find the effects of a blow
ds Salvo claimed to have inflicted on Sulivan. Also, the
families said, DiSalvo claimed to have left a knife in
a sweater at the murder scene, but neither was found.
Tess were also conducted on sixty eight samples of hair, seamen,

(01:08:22):
and tissue taken from Sullivan's exhumed body. Richard Salvo said
his brother's body would also be exhumed if it would
help their case. Sherman said a prime suspect in his
aunt's death as a former boyfriend of whatever roommates, as
there was no evidence of forced entry into her apartment.
Richard de Salvo believes his brother confessed to the Boston
strangler killings because he knew he was going to prison

(01:08:44):
for life for other crimes and wanted to cash in
on book and movie deals and use the proceeds to
take care of his family. According to the families, DeSalvo's
lawyer f Lee Bailey convinced him that if he confessed,
he would go to a mental institution rather than prison.
Even though Bailey still claims that Albert de Salvo is
the Boston strangler, he supports the family's campaigns to have

(01:09:06):
DNA tests carried out, as he believes that the results
will prove that DeSalvo did it. The state Attorney General's
office reviewed the Sullivan's slaying, but has continually denied the
family's access to evidence because they consider the case is
still unsolved. In October two thousand, a judge ordered the
two sides to try to work out a compromise, but

(01:09:27):
the Boston authorities were less than cooperative. Jerry Leoni, chief
of the Massachusetts Attorney General's Criminal Bureau, said that if
evidence does point to someone other than DeSalvo is Sullivan's killer,
it doesn't necessarily cast out on all the other Boston
strangler murders and doesn't mean the other cases will be reinvestigated.
We're looking into the Sullivan case because it's the only

(01:09:49):
case that has any evidence that can be used in
a viable prosecution right now, Leoni said. On the other hand,
Richard de Salvo believes that if it's proven his brother
did and kill Mary Sullivan, it raises a serious question
about who really killed the others. Attorney General Thomas Riley
made it very clear that he'd not allow the release

(01:10:10):
of any evidence, causing the families to reactivate their lawsuit
against the State of Massachusetts. On February twenty third, two
thousand one, Judge William G. Young reinstated the lawsuit, which
called for the release of all evidence pertaining to the
original investigation so that the families can pursue their own investigation.
The state has since sought a motion of dismissal after

(01:10:31):
a private investigation conducted by Casey Sherman. Both families are
even more convinced that Dessalvo was coerced into confessing in
the belief that he'd receive favorable attention if he did.
To support their case, the family offered the results of
the forensic tests carried out on Mary Sullivan's remains, which
have shown no indication of head trauma and damage to
the fragile neck bones normally associated with strangulation. The matter

(01:10:56):
rested with Judge Young. Should the lawsuit be successful, authorities
would be ordered to hand over to the families all
evidence pertaining to the Boston Strangler investigation for the purposes
of private analysis. If the lawsuit failed, the family was
expected to launch an appeal. More importantly, if the DNA
results proved conclusively that DeSalvo was not the killer, the

(01:11:17):
entire case may be reopened and a new hunt instigated
for the real Boston Strangler. On October twenty, two thousand one,
new DNA tests would be performed on evidence taken from
the remains of Mary Sullivan, one of eleven victims attributed
to the alleged Boston Strangler Albert de Salvo. Thomas Riley,
the Massachusetts Attorney General, had ordered the test to be performed.

(01:11:40):
The family has raised legitimate questions in terms of the
way it was investigated. They've asked us to look into things,
and we are The family of Mary Sullivan has long
argued that she wasn't a victim of the Boston Strangler
and believes that her real killer was still alive. This
latest development was a direct result of individual investigation that
were mounted by relatives of both Sullivan and DeSalvo, which

(01:12:03):
brought additional pressure on authorities to reconsider their findings. A
week later, on Friday, October twenty six, two thousand one,
A report by Associated Press described how Albert de Salvo's
body had been exhumed from a grave site in Massachusetts
and taken to a forensic laboratory in York College, Pennsylvania
for examination. The following Saturday, an autopsy was conducted on

(01:12:25):
the remains in the hopes of attempting to prove Tsalvo's
innocence of the murders and possibly to identify as killer.
James E. Stars, a professor of forensic sciences at George
Washington University, led the team of scientists who performed the autopsy.
Stars is best known for his identification work on other
high profile cases, including the Lizzie Borden Hatchett murders, the

(01:12:47):
Lindburg baby kidnapping, and the outlaw Jesse James. He told
a p the family has been unsatisfied all these many
years concerning the death of Albert de Salvo and failure
to find anyone guilty of the death. On Thursday, December thirteenth,
two thousand one, DNA evidence taken from Mary Sullivan's remains
did not provide a match to Albert de Salvo. During

(01:13:09):
a news conference, James Starrs told reporters, we found evidence
and the evidence does not and cannot be associated with
Albert de Salvo. Stars made it very clear that the
evidence only clears des Salvo of sexual assault. While he
didn't give details of the analysis, he told reporters if
I was a juror, I'd acquit him with no questions.

(01:13:29):
Asked Mary Sullivan's nephew, Casey Sherman, who has always doubted
that Dssalvo killed his aunt or any of the other
victims attributed to him, said he feels vindicated by Starr's
finding if he didn't kill Mary Sullivan, yet he confessed
to it in glaring detail. He didn't kill any of
these women. Sherman also told reporters that prior to Dissalvo's confession,

(01:13:52):
police had what they considered as a prime suspect in
Sullivan's murder, but dropped the case after Dessalvo confessed. Sherman
urged police to go after the real killer, who, according
to him, was still alive and living in New England.
Americans like their larger than life stories, and among those
that seem fixed in the American consciousness is that Albert

(01:14:13):
de Salvou was the Boston strangler. Few people realized that
he was never tried for these crimes, and even fewer
that his so called confessions contained significant errors. Despite direct
proof by a DNA that he most likely did not
kill Mary Sullivan, the final victim attributed to the Strangler,
criminologists continued to include him in the pantheon of notorious

(01:14:34):
American serial killers. DeSalvo himself supposedly told a few people
that he was not the guy people who read Susan
Kelly's book will believe him. Between June fourteenth, nineteen sixty
two and January fourth, nineteen sixty four, thirteen single women
in the Boston area were victims of either a single
serial killer or several killers. The police believed that at

(01:14:56):
least eleven of these incidents were the work of a
single perpetrator, whom they media dubbed the Phantom Fiend or
Boston Strangler. In just over two months, six elderly women
were killed, but then the fiend supposedly turned to younger women.
A prominent psychiatrist said he'd gotten over his mother fixation
and had matured to women his own age. All of

(01:15:16):
these victims were sexually molested, and many were strangled with
articles of clothing. In some cases, the ligature was tied
into a bow. DeSalvo, a construction worker already in prison
for unrelated burglaries and sex offenses, confessed to attorney f
Lee Bailey, who cut a deal that sent him to
prison without ever being tried for the murders. Yet, apparently,

(01:15:37):
some members of the Boston area police force were not
convinced that the killer had been caught, and they voiced
their doubts to Susan Kelly, a writer. She was at
the police department in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on November eighth, nineteen
eighty one, to do research for a novel about a
serial killer, A believer herself, and the official story about Dissalvo.
She was surprised to learn that quite a few people

(01:15:58):
involved with the case thought there were sious problems with
its packaging. Politically, city officials had benefited from assuring the
terrorized city that the Boston strangler had been caught, but
few who knew better accepted that statement. Yes, DeSalvo had confessed,
and yes he'd gotten many details right, but there were
reasons for that which had nothing to do with him

(01:16:19):
being a killer. Kelly was urged to investigate the story herself,
and she found plenty of officers willing to tell her
what they knew. As a result, she wrote The Boston Stranglers,
published in nineteen ninety five, to assert that not only
was DeSalvo a liar, but also that there had been
more than one good suspect for these murders, and it
was unlikely that the incidents were all linked to a

(01:16:41):
single person. Kelly provides a convincing argument, based on facts
from files and interviews, that we should remove Dissalvo from
the pantheon of infamous serial killers and remember him only
as the pathetic green man and measuring man. We should
also remove the series of crimes attributed to a Boston
strangler from all the encyclopedace and criminological studies of serial murder.

(01:17:03):
More than likely they were not so neatly linked. Since
DeSalvo's confession is so central to the belief that he's
the notorious killer despite an alleged recantation, Kelly cites a
number of sources of information available at the time from
which he could have learned key details about the crimes.
Some newspaper accounts were extraordinarily detailed. The Record American printed

(01:17:25):
a chart along with victim's photos called the Facts on
Reporters Strangle Worksheet. This chart was a summary of all
the important details of each crime, as well as items
about what victims were wearing and about their hobbies and affiliations.
Kelly says that DeSalvo had memorized this charge as apparent
because in his confession to John Bottomley, he regurgitated not

(01:17:47):
only the correct date on it, but the few pieces
of misinformation it contained, as well leaks by law enforcement agencies,
particularly the Strangler Bureau, which was criticized for being lack
with its accumulated material, and the Suffolk County Medical Examiner,
who allegedly held a number of unauthorized press conferences in
which he freely distributed information about the victim autopsies. Albert's

(01:18:11):
own research as a burglar put him in many of
the apartment buildings in which women were murdered. He knew
the layouts of the apartments and had even visited each
apartment after the murder. The addresses had been published information
deliberately and inadvertently fed to him by people anxious to
wrap up the investigation, such as John Bottomley, who, according

(01:18:31):
to Kelly, did knowingly and quite intentionally provide Albert with
information about the murders while he was taking the latter's
confession to them, which explains why the only version of
the confession ever made public were abbreviated and heavily doctored.
The full version virtually exonerates des Salvo possible information provided
by the person who did commit some of the crimes.

(01:18:53):
Police speculated that George Nasser, a man in prison with
des Salvo, could have been one such source of information,
or could have been someone like Nasser. Since Dissalvo appeared
to be willing to confess in order to have the
reward paid to his family and to also become famous,
he had nothing to lose. Another inmate could easily have
exploited this. It's been done in other cases. The real

(01:19:17):
problem with the notion of the Boston strangler, says Kelly,
is that the ems from one murder to another were
less similar than the official police statements admitted. Kelly summarizes
some of the more obvious differences. No similarity whatsoever exists
between the somewhat delicate killing of Patricia Bissett, whose murderer
tucked her into bed, and the ghastly homicidal violation inflicted

(01:19:38):
on Mary Sullivan, whose killers intent was not just to
degrade his victim by shoving a broom handle into her vagina,
but to taunt whomever discovered her corpse by placing a
greeting card against her foot. One woman was stabbed but
not sexually assaulted. Another raped fationally and strangled. One was
left on a floor post provocatively. Another leaned over a bathtub.

(01:20:00):
There were cigarette butts at two crime scenes, but not
at others. That doesn't necessarily prove anything, but with other concerns,
Kelly raises, it tends to undermine the official story. De
Salvo was stabbed to death at Walpole Prison in nineteen
seventy three, supposedly the evening before. He'd phoned a psychiatrist
he knew, inviting him to the prison the next day.

(01:20:22):
He said he had something important to reveal and suggested
that a reporter come as well, but the meeting never
took place, Asdsalvo died that night from a brutal attack
by other inmates. The psychiatrist, who never Believedsalvo was a killer,
went on the record to say that DeSalvo had intended
to reveal what the charade was about and who the
real killer. Was, but he never got that chance. Kelly

(01:20:47):
believes that there were at least six killers operating in
the area during the time of the stranglings, and possibly
even eight or nine. Some murders were situational and some
were committed to eliminate witnesses to a burglary the ordinary
in a large city. Kelly saw signs that a more
solid case was being developed on another suspect, up until
Dessalvo confessed, at which point that investigation was abruptly dropped

(01:21:11):
to her way of thinking. Thanks to hanging all the
crimes ond Salvo, a number of men managed to get
away with murder. A new edition of Kelly's book came
out in two thousand and two because she was included
among the party of forensic professionals who exhumed the remains
of both Mary Sullivan and Albert de Salvo. Kelly describes
the results, which affirm what she'd believed all along. DeSalvo's

(01:21:33):
rendition of what he'd done to Mary Sullivan did not
match the condition of her remains, Thus he'd gotten it
all wrong, although no one back in nineteen sixty four
had bothered to check. In addition, there was semen honor
that did not match DeSalvo, indicating that someone else had
committed the murder. These results cast out on his entire confession.

(01:21:54):
Perhaps one day the encyclopedias and textbooks will recognize the
extraordinary work Susan Kelly is done to set the record straight.
Dessalvo was never convicted of these crimes and there was
never any physical evidence to corroborate his confession. Kelly shows
enough alternate evidence to place his confession in substantial doubt.
He had motives to falsely confess, and any good investigation

(01:22:18):
wouldn't accept a confession at face value. Kelly is to
be commended for her work, but unfortunately American myths generally
die hard. Anyone truly interested in this case would be
remiss not to read the Boston Stranglers.

Speaker 2 (01:23:31):
Mis booms its boomedicating its people mis boom as it's boomed,
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