As streaming platforms continue to mine the crime sheets of historical mass-murderers for the world's entertainment – or morbid fascination, anyway – Disney+ is about to drop a film dedicated to one of New England's worst perpetrators: the Boston Strangler.
Directed by Matt Ruskin and co-produced by Ridley Scott, the film of the same name tells story of real-life reporter Loretta McLaughlin (played by Keira Knightley) who, along with her colleague Jean Cole, broke the story for the Boston Record American in the Sixties.
But what was the true story behind the Boston Strangler, and why was the case still being investigated as late as 2013?
The case of the Boston Strangler
Back in June 1962, for two terrifying years, women in and around Boston were being sexually assaulted, raped and murdered in their own homes. There were a total of 13 women – who were single, and aged from 19 to 84 – who were abused and killed, often strangled with a silk stocking or rope, which was then tied in a bow. As there was never any sign of forced entry, it was thought that the killer might have posed as a delivery or buildings maintenance man.
It wasn’t until October 1964 when one of his victims – who he had approached as a detective and then raped – was able to identify him to police as Albert DeSalvo. He wasn’t initially charged with all the murders, but he was charged with rape, and then he confessed.
DeSalvo was able to cite details about the crimes that hadn’t been made public knowledge, which led authorities to believe him. However, there were a few inconsistencies in his confessions, and in a time before DNA testing, police were unable to link him with certainty to the crimes, as there was no physical evidence to do so.
He was tried instead for earlier sexual offences and of robbery charges – not any of the Boston Strangler crimes – and was sentenced to life in prison in 1967.
In February of that year, he escaped Bridgewater State Hospital with two other inmates. He tried to disguise himself as a Navy officer, but handed himself back a day later. He was then transferred to a maximum security prison, and six years later, he was stabbed to death in that same prison.
Doubts over DeSalvo?
While he was in prison, there were several people who believed that DeSalvo had made up the confession. In 1968, according to Dr. Ames Robey of Bridgewater State Hospital, DeSalvo wasn’t the murderer, just “a very clever, very smooth compulsive confessor who desperately needs to be recognized.”
Others claimed that the killings were more likely to be the work of a number of people, rather than just one, while in a 2001 documentary on the case, The Boston Strangler, one former FBI profiler said: “it's inconceivable behaviorally that all these [murders] could fit one individual.”
However, in 2000, a lawyer and journalist took up the case again and the bodies of DeSalvo and his last victim, Mary Sullivan, were exhumed. In 2013, the Boston Police Department announced that they had found DNA evidence to link DeSalvo with Sullivan.
Taking DNA from a water bottle belonging to a nephew of DeSalvo, they found a near certain match to Y-DNA – passed through men’s ancestors in the paternal line – and then DeSalvo’s exhumed corpse was tested, and his DNA (in seminal fluid) was found at the scene of Sullivan’s murder. This led authorities to conclude that DeSalvo was likely to be responsible for the other killings.
As Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley said at the time to ABC News: "We may have solved one of the nation's most notorious serial killings.”
Boston Strangler streams on Disney+ in the UK from 17 March.
