Episode 200: The Boston Strangler
Between June of 1962 and January of 1964, women in Boston were on high alert as violent crimes and murders started and quickly escalated. Police initially tried to reassure people that the murders weren’t related and there was no threat, but as the murders continued and showed striking similarities between each victim, the city began to panic and police began to scramble to apprehend the serial killer.
55-year-old Anna E. Slesers and her children had fled Latvia and ended up in Boston, specifically the Back Bay area. She was living in an apartment there and was a single woman following a divorce at the time of her murder. On June 14th, 1962, Anna was getting ready to take a bath before her son Juris was going to pick her up for her local church’s Latvian memorial service. Her son found her on the floor of her bathroom with her bathrobe string tied tightly around her neck in a bow, and worried it was a suicide, he called police. Detectives arrived on scene to find the apartment ransacked, but oddly nothing was stolen. Anna had also been sexually assaulted and positioned in a vulnerable way to further expose her naked body. It was thought that it was a burglary gone wrong that had escalated into sexual assault and murder once the burglar realized Anna was home. This theory quickly changed.
On June 30th, 68-year-old Nina Nichols was found murdered in her apartment in the Brighton area of Boston. The apartment looked like it had been burglarized with all of the drawers ripped open and Nina’s belongings thrown around. Despite this, the money in her purse, her set of sterling silver, her watch and her expensive camera were all left untouched, baffling investigators. Strangely, her mail and her address book were both rifled through. Nina’s body was found in a vulnerable position, her legs were propped so they were more revealing and her housecoat and slip were pulled up to her waist. Her nylon stockings were found tied around her neck in a bow, and she had also been sexually assaulted.
65-year-old Helen Blake was a retired physiotherapist who enjoyed her quiet and peaceful life after her husband had passed away about two decades ago. On the morning of June 30th, 1962, Helen’s body was found in her Lynn, Massachusetts apartment about 15 miles north of Boston. She had been strangled with one of her nylon stockings that was tied in a bow around her neck after it had been looped through her bra. She was face down, naked, and on her bed left in a vulnerable position. She had also been sexually assaulted. Her apartment was ransacked, and this time there were items stolen: Helen’s two diamond rings had been slipped off of her fingers. She had been murdered in the morning just hours before Nina’s murder, sparking panic as the Boston police urged women to lock their doors and windows and avoid talking to strange men. Police Commissioner Edmund McNamara jumped into action, focusing his detective’s efforts on these cases and cancelling summer vacations for his officers. He also called in the FBI as he felt as former FBI himself that the perpetrator was a man targeting older women as he had a deep hatred for his mother.
On August 19th, a shy, lovely widow, 75-year-old Ida Irga, was murdered in her apartment in the West End of Boston. Ida was very quiet and kept to herself, and devastatingly her body and the horrific scene inside her apartment weren’t discovered until two days after she had been killed. She had been strangled with a pillowcase and her nightdress had been pulled up to expose her naked body. Most disturbingly, her body had been posed with her legs spread and her heels propped on individual chairs about four to five feet apart so that anyone entering her apartment would find her in this grotesquely vulnerable position.
Less than 24 hours after Ida’s murder, a nurse, 67-year-old Jane Sullivan, was killed in her Dorchester apartment across town from Ida’s apartment. She was found ten days after her murder. Police found Jane’s body propped in her bathroom with her placed on her knees, head under the faucet and feet over the back of the tub to expose her. Her nylons were tied around her neck in a bow. A broom was found with blood on the handle, indicating sexual assault, but it was impossible for police to determine this for certain due to the level of decomposition that had already taken place. While the apartment was not ransacked, the perpetrator had gone through Jane’s purse.
On December 5th, 1962, 21-year-old Sophie Clark, a beautiful, popular African-American student at the Carnegie Institute of Medical Technology, had been found by her two roommates in the apartment they all shared in the Back Bay area of Boston. Sophie was naked and her body was posed with her legs spread in a vulnerable and exposed position. She had been strangled with three of her nylon stockings and her half-slip she had been wearing. She had been sexually assaulted, and police found semen on the rug near where her body was found. This attack baffled her roommates and police because Sophie was someone who took her safety and security seriously, now with heightened worry because of the other murders. She was also the youngest victim by far, was Black, and did not live alone. This was also the first case where semen was found at the scene. A neighbor named Marcella Lulka had been approached in her apartment by a man between the ages of 25-30, of average height and build with “honey-colored hair” and wearing a dark jacket and dark green work trousers. He claimed the building super had sent him to ask about painting in her apartment. When she told him her husband was in the next room after the man made a comment about her figure, he grew panicked and ran out the door. This took place just ten minutes before Sophie’s attack.
Three weeks later, police got an alarming call about another young victim, 23-year-old Patricia Bissette. Patricia was a secretary for a Boston engineering firm and her boss had arrived that morning on December 31st, 1962, to drive her to work. She didn’t answer and he left, assuming she was finding another way there. When Patricia didn’t show up to work, her boss drove back to her Back Bay apartment and was able to get in through a window with the help of a janitor at the building. She was in bed, tucked under the covers with the blankets pulled up to her chin. When the covers were pulled back, it was revealed that Patricia had been strangled with several of her stockings tied around her neck and looped through one of her blouses. Horrifically, Patricia was in the early stages of a pregnancy and the perpetrator had sexually assaulted her. Her apartment had also been ransacked. Following Patricia’s murder, two female journalists coined the name “The Boston Strangler” for the killer and this name quickly gained popularity and took off in the media.
In early March of 1963, 25 miles north of Boston in Lawrence, Massachusetts, 68-year-old Mary Brown was found beaten to death in her apartment. She had also been strangled and raped. While she is not considered one of the eleven official victims of the Boston Strangler, based on a later confession and investigation she is a possible victim of the Strangler and her case is still incredibly important.
On May 8th, 1963, 23-year-old Beverly Samans was found by a friend after she missed choir practice and he had gone to her Back Bay apartment to check on her. Beverly was found facing the front door on a sofa bed with her legs positioned open to expose her. Her hands were bound behind her back with one of her scarves and two cloths on her face: one shoved into her mouth and one draped over her mouth. She had been strangled with nylon stockings and two handkerchiefs, but underneath the ligatures there were four stab wounds to her neck. There were eighteen more stab wounds forming a circle around her left breast. She had not been sexually assaulted. Despite the difference of Beverly being stabbed, she was an opera singer training for a position in New York and police felt her throat muscles may have been too strong for the Boston Strangler to have strangled her alone.
Police consulted a psychic, desperate for answers as the killings continued and were escalating to younger victims and with more violence. The psychic felt that several of the women had been killed by other perpetrators and not by the same man, such as an ex-boyfriend having murdered Sophie Clark. The psychic did say that a psych patient at Boston Hospital, 26-year-old Arnold Wallace, was responsible for most of the murders. Police found he had left hospital grounds on multiple occasions and all on nights where women had been murdered, but he was found to have had a very low IQ and was unable to partake in questioning or in a lie detector test.
After another lull in the murders, on September 8th, 1963, 58-year-old Evelyn Corbin was found in her Salem, Massachusetts apartment. She had been strangled with her nylon stockings and was found on her bed naked and lying face up. Her underwear had been removed and stuffed into her mouth. All around the bed were tissues covered in lipstick that also had some traces of semen, and semen was found in her mouth as well. Her apartment was ransacked, a tray of her jewelry was put on the floor but not stolen and her purse was emptied out onto the couch. One thing about this murder that baffled police was that there was a fresh donut left out her window on the fire escape.
Three days after the assassination of John F. Kennedy, the body of 23-year-old Joann Graff was found in her Lawrence, Massachusetts apartment. She was a very religious and conservative girl who worked as an industrial designer. She had been strangled with two nylon stockings that had been tied around her neck in a bow, and she also had teeth marks on one of her breasts. Joann had also been sexually assaulted. She had actually been murdered on the same day as John F. Kennedy, and at 3:25 p.m. a student who lived on the floor above Joann had heard footsteps. His wife had him check outside as she was worried someone was sneaking around the hallways of the apartment building, and the student heard a knock on the door across from his. When he opened the door to see what was going on, he saw a man that looked to be around the age of 27. He was wearing dark green pants and a dark-colored jacket and he asked the person who opened the door for a “Joan Graff.” The person at the door directed the man to the floor below them, and the student could hear Joann’s door open and then close. When a friend called Joann ten minutes later, she didn’t answer the phone.
The last murder took place on January 4th, 1964. 19-year-old Mary Sullivan had recently moved into a Boston apartment with two young women, and the two women had come home after work to find Mary brutally murdered. She had been strangled with a dark-colored nylon stocking, but over that a pink silk scarf had been tied in a bow around her neck. Over that was a pink and white flower print scarf. Against her feet was a colorful card that read “Happy New Year.” Mary was naked and posed in a sitting position on her bed. Her back was against the headboard and she was facing the door. Semen was in her mouth. Most disturbingly, the handle of a broomstick had been inserted three and a half inches into her vagina. This was a huge escalation in the Boston Strangler’s brutality and an attempt to degrade his victims.
Just a few weeks after Mary’s murder, Massachusetts Attorney General Edward Brooke took over, and on January 17th he announced that he was taking over the Boston Strangler case. Edward Brooke was the only African-American attorney general in the country at the time, and it was a risky move to take the case on, especially after just having been made Attorney General. He quickly assembled a team of officers, detectives, and forensic experts that would focus only on the Strangler murders as by this time the murders spanned across five separate police jurisdictions and needed closer inspection. The task force was to be headed by Assistant Attorney General John S. Bottomly, and the team was later called “The Strangler Bureau.” Governor Peabody offered a $10,000 reward to any person with any information leading to the arrest of the Boston Strangler, and with this, the Strangler Bureau got to work. Despite forensic experts urging the rest of the Bureau that the Boston Strangler was likely multiple perpetrators as opposed to one serial killer, the Bureau moved forward with a profile of one man, likely 30-years-old or older, who worked with his hands and had only acquaintances and no close friends. The Strangler Bureau even consulted a psychic themselves, but this resulted in no further leads.
Several years before the start of the Strangler murders, women in the Cambridge area found themselves on high alert after word spread of a man knocking on doors and engaging in bizarre behavior. If a young woman answered the door, this man would say that he worked for a modeling agency and was sent to that woman’s apartment to be scouted and get their measurements. If let inside, he would pull out a measuring tape and get the women’s measurements, but go on to grope them. Many women called police to report this and give a description of the man later coined “The Measuring Man.”
This man was caught trying to break into a house in Cambridge on March 17th, 1961, and this man told police that he was indeed breaking into a home, but he was also “The Measuring Man.” This man was 29-year-old Albert DeSalvo, and Albert had a lengthy record for breaking into apartments and stealing money. He was sentenced to eighteen months in prison that became an even shorter sentence after good behavior, and he was released in April of 1962. The first murder by the Boston Strangler was committed two months later.
Albert DeSalvo had an extensive history of abuse at the hands of his father and often was forced to witness his father bring home sex workers and have his way with them in front of his wife and children. He joined the Army as a way to escape the abusive household and was stationed in Germany. While in Germany he met his wife Irmgard. Albert got demoted for failing to obey an order, and soon after this in 1955 he was arrested for molesting a little girl. His daughter Judy was born that same year with a congenital pelvic disease, making her life and development more difficult due to this challenge. After this, Irmgard grew very fearful of going through this again with another child and having a child with a disability, so following Judy’s birth she avoided sex with Albert whenever she could. This posed as a major challenge and a huge strain in their marriage because Albert said that he “required” sex multiple times a day and would try to have sex as often as he could.
His arrests for breaking and entering began in 1956, and in 1960 his son Michael was born. Albert was known to friends and colleagues as a nice guy, but he was also known for being a huge narcissist who always had to outdo everyone. In the words of Police Commissioner Edmund McNamara: “DeSalvo's a blowhard."
Albert’s next arrest was in November of 1964. On October 27th, Albert broke into the apartment of a newly married woman shortly after her husband had left for work. He held a knife to her throat and removed her underwear before stuffing it into her mouth. He then tied her in a spread eagle position to the bedposts with her own clothing and began touching her and kissing her. He then stopped, asked her how to get out of the apartment, and told her to be quiet for ten minutes. He then apologized and fled the scene, leaving her tied up. When the woman described the man to police, they realized with shock that the composite sketch matched that of “The Measuring Man.” Albert was arrested and released on bail, but not before his photo was sent out among the police network.
Shortly after his photo was released, multiple departments in Connecticut reached out as Albert fit the description of an assailant that was breaking into homes and apartments and assaulting women at an alarming rate. This man always wore dark green work pants, and he was called “The Green Man.” Albert was arrested at his Malden, Massachusetts home in front of his wife and children, much to his humiliation. Irmgard was not surprised as she knew Albert’s immense sexual cravings and suspected he was meeting that with other women. “The Green Man” had broken into apartments and assaulted four women in four separate towns across Connecticut in a single day. As Albert was known to embellish things, his confession of breaking into 400 apartments, assaulting over 300 women, and countless rapes was difficult to tell what was factual and what was not. He was sent to the Bridgewater State Hospital for psychiatric observation.
Albert quickly became close with another man who had been sent to the hospital shortly after Albert. His name was George Nassar, a violent murderer with an almost genius level IQ. George was known to be a master manipulator.
Much to the shock of anyone that knew him, in March of 1965, Albert confessed to being the Boston Strangler. Apparently, Albert and George Nassar had come up with a scheme where Albert would confess to the murders as the Boston Strangler and they both would get the reward money. However, George and Albert thought that $10,000 would be paid for each victim of the Strangler for a total of $110,000 instead of $10,000 in total. Albert knew he would be in prison for the rest of his life for the Green Man assaults and felt guilty for leaving his wife and children without an income, so this scheme is highly regarded as one of the reasons Albert confessed to being the Boston Strangler.
Not only did Albert confess to being the Boston Strangler, he confessed to two additional murders: the murder of 68-year-old Mary Brown and the murder of another elderly woman who died of a heart attack during his assault on her. Authorities initially did not believe Albert, but he began relaying in extraordinary detail the layout of each victim’s apartment, the way their bodies were left, and even small details like the brand of a pack of cigarettes on the floor in Sophie Clark’s apartment, a notebook under Beverly Saman’s bed and Christmas bells on Patricia Bissette’s door.
George Nassar’s attorney, F. Lee Bailey, had taken an interest in Albert and took him on as a client. F. Lee Bailey was later part of legal teams for several infamous cases including O.J. Simpson, and he developed a fascination with Albert. The Strangler Bureau was also thrilled to have finally named a suspect in the Strangler murders, and they desperately needed this victory.
Multiple other people, including several experts, brought up compelling evidence that Albert was not the Boston Strangler and he was simply confessing to either take credit or get financial gain out of it. With Albert constantly wanting credit and trying to outdo others, it would make sense that he wanted to make a name for himself as the Boston Strangler. Physically, he did not at all match the description of the man that Sophie Clark’s neighbor Marcella Lulka saw or the man Joann Graff’s upstairs neighbor saw. Author of the book “The Boston Stranglers: The Public Conviction of Albert DeSalvo and the True Story of Eleven Shocking Murders” Susan Kelly goes into depth on a common theory that there were multiple perpetrators of the murders rather than one serial killer.
Marcella and another woman, Gertrude Gruen, were brought to Bridgewater to watch Albert from afar to identify him. Gertrude is likely the only survivor of the Boston Strangler as she fought him off until he ran out of her apartment. Neither woman recognized Albert, but both had visceral, emotional reactions when they saw George Nassar. George was witnessed giving Gertrude sharp, cutting looks and Gertrude told police after calming down from an emotional reaction to seeing George, “I realize how shocked I was when I saw him. To see this man, his eyes, his hair, his hands, the whole expression of him... My deep feelings are that he had very great similarities to the man who was in my apartment."
Albert was also found to have a photographic memory. This was even tested several times by doctors at the psychiatric hospital with Dr. Robey determining that Albert had “absolute, complete, one hundred per percent total photographic recall." One of the biggest frustrations police had with how the Strangler case was handled was how the media took off and shared incredibly detailed information about the murders. One article released was called “The Facts: One Reporters' Strangle Worksheet” that was a chart with photos of the victims that detailed key specifics of the crimes down to what each victim was wearing, their hobbies and information about them and gruesome details like how their bodies were positioned. This article had small pieces of misinformation, and Albert essentially regurgitated this article with the misinformation back to police. The Strangler Bureau themselves were notorious for leaking exclusive information about the victims, such as details from their autopsies. With a photographic memory, Albert easily could falsify knowing these intimate details as if he were the Strangler.
While there are glaring similarities with most of the murders, there were some significant details that set some of the cases apart. There are glaring differences in age between many of the victims, Beverly Samans wasn’t sexually assaulted and was stabbed, some women had anal trauma while others had vaginal trauma, some of the victims were left face down, others were face up, and others were propped to expose and degrade them. Mary Sullivan was left with “props” with the broom handle and the holiday card left with her body. Patricia Bissette had been tucked into bed, which is a stark contrast from sexually degrading and grotesquely posing the other women.
Despite there being doubts still to this day, the Bureau had decided that Albert DeSalvo was the Boston Strangler.
He was never tried for any of the murders, but in January of 1967 he was sentenced to life in prison for the Green Man assaults. This immensely disappointed F. Lee Bailey, who had advocated for Albert to go back to a psychiatric hospital as opposed to prison. Albert was eventually transferred to Walpole, a maximum security prison.
On November 24th, 1973, Albert called Dr. Robey and said that he was scared and needed to meet with him urgently. Dr. Robey promised to meet with Albert the next day. In the middle of the night, Albert was found stabbed to death.
Dr. Robey stated, “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 lockup about a week before. Something was going on within the prison, and I think he felt he had to talk quickly. There were people in the prison, including guards, that were not 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 or something. But somebody put a knife into Albert DeSalvo's heart sometime between evening check and the morning."
In the early 2000’s, the possibility of DNA testing for the Boston Strangler murders began and did not stop until 2013. The only DNA evidence in the entire investigation was a sample of semen collected off of a maroon blanket found with 19-year-old Mary Sullivan’s body. Boston Police Crime Lab's lead forensic scientist Robert Hayes preserved this, knowing technology would advance to where the sample would be of use. A surveillance expert with the Boston Police Department named Brian Albert found and followed Albert’s nephew Tim DeSalvo to his worksite in Boston. Brian watched and waited while Tim drank and finished a water bottle and then left it behind. Brian then grabbed this water bottle and DNA tested it and found that it was a match to the samples found at the crime scene of Mary’s murder. This was a familial match, so it excluded 99.9% of the male population and pointed to Albert DeSalvo with near certainty as the man responsible. Mary’s body had been exhumed for full DNA testing after the familial match was confirmed, and nine days later on July 20th, 2013, it was announced that evidence revealed “no doubt that Albert DeSalvo was responsible for the brutal murder of Mary Sullivan.”
As for the other ten murders if not the other twelve with the addition of the two women not previously regarded as victims of the Boston Strangler, who is responsible? Is it Albert DeSalvo or another killer entirely?
Image sources:
abcnews.go.com - “Boston Strangler Case Solved 50 Years Later”
serialkillersinfo.com - “The Boston Strangler”