Serial Killer Albert Desalvo - "The Boston Strangler" ---
Uploader: forthedishwasher ---
The Boston Strangler was America's first "serial killer" of the modern era. Of course, there had been serial killers before – Jack The Ripper in the East End of London in the late 1880s, and Peter Kurten, the Vampire of Dusseldorf, in the 1920s.
But by the 1960s, mass market television, radio and newspapers had appeared on the scene and they seized on the Boston Strangler phenomenon and unwittingly created widespread panic...
Between June 1962 and January 1964, 13 women in the Boston area were strangled. The police did not believe they were the work of one individual, but the public were convinced by the media that they were all victims of a murderer they dubbed, "the Boston Strangler".
What was so terrifying to the residents of Boston was that the Strangler's victims were not prostitutes or vagrants, but respectable, middle aged or elderly women who were attacked in their own homes.
The first victim
On the evening of June 14th 1962, Anna Slesers, a 55-year-old Latvian-born seamstress, had just finished dinner. She decided to have a quick bath before her son Juris arrived to pick her up for a Latvian memorial service which was being held in her church.
As the trickle of running water merged with the music of the opera Tristan und Isolde coming from her gramophone, there was a knock at the door.
It was the Boston Strangler.
When her son arrived about an hour later, he could not get an answer. And knowing that she was inside, he forced the door open and found her lying dead in the bathroom with the cord from her bathrobe tied around her neck.
Legacy of doubt
The Boston Strangler case continues to fascinate Americans almost 40 years after his reign of terror began. In December 2001, new DNA tests cast doubt on whether Albert DeSalvo, the man who confessed to the murders, was the real killer after all.
In fact, DeSalvo was never actually convicted of the murders. He was officially committed to a psychiatric hospital for a series of rapes known as 'The Green Man' offences, but Boston police have always considered him to be The Strangler.
However, James Starrs, Professor of Forensic Evidence at George Washington University, states that DNA evidence found on the body of the last victim, 19-year-old Mary Sullivan (pictured below centre), did not match DeSalvo's, who was murdered in his jail cell in 1973. In addition, Mary Sullivan's nephew Casey Sherman has spent the last 12 years trying to prove that DeSalvo did not kill his aunt. Mr Sherman, who is a TV producer, told BBC Crime: "He was convicted solely on the basis of a confession, which was riddled with inaccuracies."
Mr Sherman went on to say that many people, including lawyers, police officers and journalists, used the Boston Strangler as a "golden goose" to boost their careers. But he said he believed the case against DeSalvo was fundamentally flawed.
He also believes that DeSalvo, who was already facing many years in jail for the Green Man offences, made up his confession in the hope that it would lead to a lucrative book and film deal which would take care of his wife and two children.
DeSalvo silenced
He told BBC Crime: "I'm convinced DeSalvo was stabbed to death because he was going to tell the real story. He had told his psychiatrist he was fed up with the charade of being the Boston Strangler and was going to tell the truth."
To this day, DeSalvo's killer has never been caught.
Mr Sherman also claims that DeSalvo's murder in Walpole State Penitentiary was a "contract killing" ordered by someone who wanted to shut DeSalvo up. "His killer had to go through six checkpoints, stab him 28 times and then go back through those six checkpoints covered in blood. Prison officers must have colluded in the attack," he said.
In 1995, Sherman tried to "reach out" to the DeSalvo family, who had their own doubts about Albert being the killer, in an effort to prove once and for all that he was innocent. The debate about the Boston Strangler continues and Mary Sullivan's body was eventually exhumed in 2000; with DeSalvo's corpse being dug up a year later.
DNA tests
Thomas Reilly, the Massachusetts Attorney General, re-opened the DeSalvo case in 2000, in an effort to use modern DNA technology to confirm whether or not he was the real Boston Strangler. But despite this seemingly positive move, Mr Sherman claims the case was only reopened as a "public relations exercise" and he accused the Attorney General's office of being obstructive.
However, a spokeswoman for the Attorney General's office, Ann Donlan, refutes this accusation: "We have tried to carry out DNA tests, but the testing is at a stage where we need the co-operation of the DeSalvo family."
