The Boston Strangler left his obscene signature on the women he murdered in the form of a bow elaborately tied around their throttled necks. Was this a clue to the killer’s identity, or simply the fulfilment of some kind of sick fantasy? Until his capture in 1964 only Albert DeSalvo knew the answer.
In an 18-month period, from June 1962 to January 1964, 11 women were raped and murdered in Boston. In almost every case a woman living on her own was sexually assaulted, strangled and left with the killer’s ‘signature’ on them, an item of their own clothing tied in a bow around their necks. There was no sign of forced entry at the crime scenes. The killer either knew the victims, an unlikely scenario because of the number involved, or had talked his way into the women’s apartments. Considering the avalanche of publicity the case attracted, the murdered women must have been aware of the danger of allowing a strange man into their homes. Whatever the killer said to persuade them to let him in, it must have been a very convincing story.
The first victim was Anna Slesers, a 55-year-old divorcee. On 14 June 1962 she was raped and strangled with the belt from her dressing gown. The belt was then tied around her neck and fashioned into a bow under her chin. Two weeks later Nina Nichols, 68, was killed in an almost identical way. The only difference was that the killer had used her stockings rather than a belt to strangle her. The time of death was established almost to the minute. At 5pm she had been talking to a friend on the phone when the door buzzer sounded. She said she’d ring straight back after she’d answered the door, but never did. Her body was found two hours later.
Two days later Helen Blake, who was 65, was reported missing. The police went to her apartment, where she lived alone, and found her lying face down on her bed. She had been strangled with her stockings, which were then tied around her neck in a bow. If there had been any doubt before, the police now knew for certain there was a maniac on the loose. With the police investigation apparently getting nowhere, the city was gripped by panic. The newspapers found a name for the anonymous madman – the Boston Strangler.
Three weeks later, on 21 August, the 75-year-old widow Ida Irga was found in her apartment. Unlike the previous victims, she had been strangled by hand and a pillowcase had been knotted around her neck. But nobody was trying to pretend that she was not another victim of the Boston Strangler. It was obvious to all that the murder had been committed by the same man. At the end of August another body of an elderly woman was found in her apartment. She was 67-year-old Jane Sullivan and had been dead for more than a week, placing the time of her death very close to that of Ida Irga. On this occasion the killer had dragged the body into the bathroom after he had strangled her. She was left resting against the bath with her head underwater. The stockings used to strangle her were tied around her neck in the usual fashion.
And then nothing happened for three months. For the people of Boston, waiting in trepidation for the next attack, this was almost as bad as news of the attacks themselves. A Boston newspaper printed an appeal for the Boston Strangler to give himself up. They said he was a sick man and would be helped if he came in, but they got no response. Just when the public were beginning to believe the terror was over, the Strangler struck again. But, this time, he did something that serial killers very rarely do. He changed the type of victim he chose to attack. Up until then all his victims were elderly or middle-aged women. This time he would attack a much younger one.
On 5 December 1962, twenty-year-old student Sophie Clark was murdered in the apartment she shared with two other students. She had been raped and strangled. Had it not been for the stocking tied in a bow around her neck, the police would not have attributed the murder to the Boston Strangler. As it was, they were not convinced the same man was involved in all the murders, but, as far as the Boston public was concerned, the Strangler was back. On New Year’s Eve another young woman, 23-year-old Patricia Bissette, was raped and strangled with her stockings.
No more attacks occurred until 8 May 1963, when another 23-year-old, Beverly Samans, was murdered. Unlike the previous victims, her hands had been tied behind her back before she was stabbed repeatedly in the throat and chest. Her killer then tied stockings and scarves around her neck. Was this another victim of the Boston Strangler or was someone trying to make it look that way? The Boston Police Department appeared clueless and the psychological profilers they had brought into the investigation were coming up with contradictory statements. The police even consulted a psychic, who told them the killer had a scar on his left arm and loved shoes. It was not much help.
There was another four-month break and then another series of murders. The first victim was the 58-year-old divorcee Evelyn Corbin. The assault, carried out on 8 September 1963, bore all the hallmarks of a typical Boston Strangler attack, although the level of violence and sadism involved had increased. It appeared as if the strangler had reverted to his former choice of victim. But, in November and January of the following year, two more young women were raped and strangled. These attacks were more violent still.
By this time public confidence in the Boston Police Department’s handling of the case had all but disappeared. The state police were called in and a special task force was set up to crack the case. Throughout the spring and summer of 1964 huge resources of manpower and money were poured into the investigation. Known sex offenders were interviewed, each case was gone over again and again, but still the investigation got nowhere. Time dragged on and, by October, ten months after the last attack, people were beginning to think the Boston Strangler had died, or moved away or just given up. On 27 October a young married woman was attacked in her apartment. She was tied up, indecently assaulted and then the attacker stopped before raping her, apologized and left. She gave a description to the police and they knew who it was straight away – Albert DeSalvo.
The police didn’t suspect him as being the Boston Strangler. DeSalvo had served time for minor sexual assaults, but when his photograph was shown to rape victims in Massachusetts and then other states, there was an enormous rush of positive identifications. They had caught a serial rapist, who had committed more than 300 assaults. He was sent to a mental institution for psychological assessment and, while he was there, bragged to another inmate that he was the Boston Strangler. An attorney recorded a confession and handed it over to the police. In it he revealed knowledge of some details of the murders the police had not made public and admitted two other killings not previously attributed to the Boston Strangler. Rather than investigate DeSalvo further, he was put on trial for four of the sexual assaults out of the hundreds he had committed. He was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment. On 26 November 1973 he was murdered in his prison cell, stabbed by an unknown assailant.
Albert DeSalvo certainly fits the profile of a serial killer. His father violently abused both his wife and their children, until she divorced him when DeSalvo was 13. At about this time he was beginning to commit petty crimes which would earn him several spells in young offenders’ institutions. On the last occasion, after he was caught trying to steal a car, on his release, he joined the army. While serving in Germany he was court-martialled for the indecent assault of a nine-year-old girl, but the charges were dropped when her mother decided not to continue with the prosecution. By 1958, DeSalvo was out of the army and living in Boston with his wife and two children. He was working as a maintenance man, but was also breaking into houses. On a number of occasions over the next two years he attempted to talk his way into young women’s houses, telling them he was an agent for a modelling agency and was looking for models. Once inside he would take the women’s measurements, attempt to seduce them and, if that failed, leave. Until they caught him during a break-in, the police called him the Measuring Man and thought of him as being a nuisance to women rather than a danger. DeSalvo served ten months in prison for the break-in and, after his release, began his career as a serial rapist.
Although the progression from bothering women to raping them and then going on to kill them is typical of a serial killer, questions about the case continue to this day. The former FBI Agent Robert Ressler, who was a pioneer in the use of profiling in investigations and is often credited with introducing the term serial killer into public usage, has written that he believes there must have been more than one person responsible for all the murders. In his opinion there were too many differences in the behaviour patterns exhibited during the different murders to be able to pin them all on DeSalvo.
One of the extraordinary things about the case is that DeSalvo was not considered as a suspect at any point before he confessed. Some of the psychological profiles built up during the investigation were an almost perfect match for him and he had a history of sexual assault, so why wasn’t he questioned about the Boston Strangler murders? And then, after he had confessed, why didn’t the police investigate the claims he made in his confession? It is possible they were confident he would be found guilty on the rape charges so didn’t charge him with crimes they were less sure about. The taped confession, in the absence of physical evidence, might not have been enough to secure a conviction. At least he would be off the streets and in prison if he was convicted of the rapes. Or, perhaps, they were trying to cover up a bungled investigation which should have identified DeSalvo at a much earlier point, saving the lives of some of his victims. In the absence of a full investigation it is impossible to get to the real story, or know for sure if Albert DeSalvo was definitely the Boston Strangler. Surely the victims and their families deserve better than that.