Boston Strangler

'Boston Strangler' tells the story of a series of murders in the early 1960s from the perspective of the two journalists who broke the story.

[WBZ-TV in 2018](https://www.cbsnews.com/boston/news/boston-strangler-cellmate-interview-george-nassar-albert-desalvo-wbz-tv-i-team-cheryl-fiandaca/), Nassar denied having taken part in the killings and claimed he told Bailey to take on DeSalvo’s case. In the following years, Marsh moved to Ann Arbor, Mich., where a series of similar murders later took place. Lee Bailey (played by Luke Kirby), who took on DeSalvo as a client when he became the prime suspect in the case. The question of whether DeSalvo committed the other 12 murders remains unanswered. [Boston Globe](https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2018/11/25/loretta-mclaughlin-groundbreaking-reporter-and-former-globe-editorial-page-editor/SfVdYxacCQtG5JfUSru5gL/story.html) about what pushed her to cover the case, explaining how it was the fourth murder in the summer of 1962 that “galvanized” her attention. DeSalvo recanted his confession in prison in 1973 shortly before he was stabbed to death by a fellow inmate. It was at this point in time that McLaughlin and Cole started to come up against significant resistance from authorities who took the stance that the level of detail included in their reporting wasn’t helping the investigation and could inspire copycat crimes. That said, in terms of trying to tell a story that spanned several years in a feature film, you obviously have to take some liberties.” In October 1964, 34-year-old Albert DeSalvo (played by David Dastmalchian) was arrested for sexually assaulting a woman after pretending to be a police officer to gain entry into her home. DeSalvo was sent to await trial at Bridgewater State Hospital, a state facility for the criminally insane, and it was there that he allegedly confessed to his cellmate, George Nassar (played by Greg Vrotos), that he was responsible for the murders associated with the Boston Strangler case. The majority were sexually assaulted before being strangled to death. That was what made them so interesting…sisters in anonymity, like all of us.”

Albert DeSalvo reportedly raped and killed 13 women as the Boston Strangler. Read ahead for a complete timeline of the Boston Strangler's victims.

He did receive a life sentence for the "Green Man" assault. Upon his release DeSalvo began breaking into the homes of women across New England, where he'd tie them up and sexually assault them while wearing green handyman clothes, earning him a new nickname, "Green Man." He was arrested and spent nearly a year in prison for those crimes. The outlet claims DeSalvo was nicknamed the "Measuring Man" after he would knock on the doors of young women, claiming to represent a modeling agency, and "crudely fondle" them with his tape measure. Read ahead for everything we know about the Boston Stranger and his murder victims. He was never charged with the crimes, as he was serving life in prison for other crimes.

More than 60 years after the Boston Stranger took their first of at least 11 victims, no charges have ever been brought. A new Hulu film starring Keira ...

“But we do believe that we stand on the threshold of unprecedented certainty regarding Mary Sullivan’s murder.” Some have posited that more than one person could have been responsible for the Boston Strangler killings. The question of whether DeSalvo really was the Boston Strangler lingered. “We don’t claim with certainty that Albert DeSalvo is a suspect in each of them,” District Attorney Daniel F Conley told The New York Times then. The unknown always holds a certain element of terror, and because so much about the Strangler is completely unknown, and because what is known is so bizarre, he has had a far-reaching effect on the city.” [The New York Times](http://go.redirectingat.com/?id=44681X1458326&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F1967%2F01%2F19%2Farchives%2Fboston-strangler-guilty-in-4-attacks-strangler-gets-life-in.html&sref=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/boston-strangler-documentary-true-story-b2302597.html) reported at the time. DeSalvo was dead by then (he died in prison in 1973 after being stabbed to death in prison). Six decades after Slesers’s death, the story of the Boston Strangler remains in part shrouded in mystery. The women were found in their homes. It is a dark, distressing true-crime saga, involving a controversial confession, breakthrough DNA evidence, and a pioneering journalist who first connected the deaths to one another. In the months that followed, more women were found, apparently killed by the same perpetrator. More than 60 years after the Boston Stranger took their first of at least 11 victims, no charges have ever been brought. The Boston Strangler’s first victim, Anna Slesers, was found dead on 14 June 1962.

Relative of serial killer's last victim is convinced the bogeyman figure of the Boston Strangler never existed, and he has spent 36 years on a ceaseless ...

There was no DNA from DeSalvo in Mary’s body. DeSalvo, who one medic diagnosed as schizophrenic, told his therapist he had visited the Strangler crime scenes, which Casey thinks might account for the DNA found on the blanket. Casey says: “We did find evidence of my aunt’s killer inside her body. Ten months after the murder, Albert DeSalvo, a handyman, was apprehended for an unconnected string of sexual assaults and sent to a state mental hospital. In 2021, Casey acquired letters said to be from DeSalvo, in which he vowed to expose the “big” people who had been “using him”. Nobody was ever convicted of his murder. Casey also examined 60 hours of interview tapes, and found inconsistencies with DeSalvo’s claims. There was no physical evidence or pattern to suggest the murders were by one person. And he is convinced the bogeyman figure of the Boston Strangler never existed. One of the victims died of a heart attack, another was stabbed and a third was both stabbed and strangled. Mary had been strangled with three ligatures, two scarves and one of her own stockings. It was haunting and beautiful.”

Disney Plus' true-crime film tells the story of one of America's most notorious killers.

But in 2013, just shy of 50 years since DeSalvo’s arrest, DNA was found that confirmed a link between him and the Strangler’s victims. Douglas, the former FBI special agent who was one of the first criminal profilers, have both publicly stated that they do not believe DeSalvo was the Boston Strangler. Over the years, there has been significant doubt that DeSalvo was the Boston Strangler, or that he did not work alone. He described details about the crimes that had not been made public, but police found no DNA or physical evidence to definitively link him to the murders. He was initially charged with rape, but later confessed to the Strangler murders. In October 1964, DeSalvo was arrested after raping a young woman who’s home he entered by posing as a detective. With each case there appeared to be no signs of forced entry, leading authorities to believe the killer was known to the victims or had duped them into gaining entry into their homes. In the early 1960s, 13 women were found dead in and around Boston, Massachusetts. Directed by Matt Ruskin and co-produced by Ridley Scott, the true-crime thriller stars Keira Knightley as McLaughlin and Carrie Coon as her colleague and confidante Cole. He was instead convicted of sexual offences and robbery unrelated to the Strangler murders, and was sentenced to life in prison in 1967. On July 11, the Boston Police Department announced that they had found DNA evidence that linked DeSalvo to the murder of 19-year-old Mary Sullivan, the final victim officially attributed to the Strangler. The man believed to be the Boston Strangler was Albert DeSalvo, although he was never convicted of any of the 13 murders.

The 1968 film “Boston Strangler,” starring Henry Fonda as the lead investigator and Tony Curtis as suspected Strangler Albert DeSalvo, debuted to generally ...

In the same documentary, Phil DiNatale, the lead investigator of a Boston Strangler task force, said he believed that DeSalvo, his prime suspect in the case, was guilty. A 1964 Record-American story tells of Hurkos touching crime scene objects and using ESP to identify an unnamed 57-year-old suspect who Brooke said matched the description of a “prime suspect” in the case. Much like in real life, the ending of “Boston Strangler” doesn’t come to any tidy conclusion about who was responsible for the killings. The deal said that DeSalvo would be sentenced to life in prison for the multiple rapes he allegedly committed, but his confession to being the Boston Strangler would not be admissible in court. “Boston Strangler” also spends time with another alleged suspect, known as “Daniel Marsh.” Marsh did not exist in real life, but instead represents the many men who were at one point strongly considered to be the Strangler. It also speculates that perhaps Nassar himself may have committed some of the killings, and found DeSalvo as a willing scapegoat. Nivola, who doesn’t naturally speak with a Boston accent but capably pulls it off in the film, told Boston.com that he watched a police interrogation of the “It was actually the first time I’d ever really listened to a real police interrogation start to finish,” Nivola said. It was also true that McLaughlin wrote a number of lifestyle pieces during her time at the Record-American and its predecessor. “Growing up in Boston, I think everybody had heard of the Boston Strangler,” Ruskin told Boston.com. McNamara initially garnered positive headlines for his diligence on the case, with the Record-American noting that he had assigned 150 detectives to the case in September 1962. This isn’t the first time Hollywood has taken a look at the killing spree that rocked Boston in the 1960s, during which 13 women were murdered between June 14, 1962, and January 4, 1964.

The new true crime film is directed by Matt Ruskin, co-produced by Ridley Scott and stars Kiera Knightley.

He was transferred to the maximum prison security Walpole State Prison, however in November 1973 he was stabbed to death by a fellow inmate. It wasn’t until 2013 that the case was finally cracked with the help of DNA from DeSalvo’s nephew. However no physical evidence other than his confession tied him to the crimes, this meant that he was instead tried for his previous charges of sexual assault and robbery, in which his victims identified him as “The Green Man” and “The Measuring Man”. For two years the killer sexually assaulted and strangled 13 women in the Boston area between 1962 to 1964, earning him his nickname. The genre has seen a spike in interest following the success of Netflix’s series about serial killer The film tells the story of one of Boston’s most notorious killers who terrorised the New England city in the 1960s.

Who was the Boston Strangler? DNA evidence proved Albert DeSalvo was guilty of one of the 13 murders but there could be many Boston Stranglers.

In the fall of 1964, police were also trying to save a series of rapes committed by a perpetrator dubbed the “Measuring Man” or the “Green Man” in addition to trying to solve the Strangler cases. “There was not one Boston Strangler, but rather a bare minimum of six and much more likely eight or nine,” she wrote. The letters were part of a collection of correspondence between DeSalvo and a family who’d met him while visiting a friend at Walpole State Prison. “He’s the killer of my aunt, which is all this has been about for me.” Though DeSalvo has been conclusively linked to Mary Sullivan’s murder, there are doubts as to whether he’s responsible for the slayings of the other Strangler victims. DeSalvo was arrested in connection to the “Green Man” rapes but was not considered a Boston Strangler suspect. “That confession has been the subject of skepticism and controversy from almost the moment it was given.” Lee Baily and Senator Brooks and a lot of other big names.” “For almost five decades, the only link between Albert DeSalvo and Mary Sullivan was his confession,”. The DNA profiles matched one from a water bottle that had recently been used by one of DeSalvo’s nephews. He was never charged or convicted, however, as the technology that could link him physically to the crimes would not become widely used for another 20 years. 19-year-old Mary Sullivan, the last of the victims, was found raped and murdered in her apartment in January 1964. Even though local police’s primary suspect confessed to the slaying of at least 13 women, authorities had insufficient evidence to charge him with the crimes.

Here's what we know about Loretta McLoughlin the respected Boston Record American reporter who investigated The Boston Strangler in the 1960s.

There isn't much information on her cause of death, but the award-winning medical reporter and former Boston Globe editorial page editor was reportedly in her Milton, Massachusetts home when she passed away. She went on to appear in televised interviews surrounding the Boston Strangler, per She became the first journalist to find a connection between the infamous string of killings conducted by Albert DeSalvo and wrote a five-part series of stories about them in August 1962. Following the Boston Stranglers investigation, McLaughlin became "fascinated" by the psychological factors that prompted DeSalvo to kill his victims. Per the [Crime Museum](https://www.crimemuseum.org/crime-library/serial-killers/the-boston-strangler/), he would act as a delivery or repairman to lure his female victims into their apartments before sexually assaulting and killing them. [The Boston Strangler](https://go.redirectingat.com/?id=74968X1525086&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.hulu.com%2Fmovie%2Fboston-strangler-323eae40-5c62-4765-949a-5b4f7f8f2ba4), is based on the Boston Record American's investigation that revealed the chilling real-life murders conducted by Albert DeSalvo between 1962 and 1964.