The Boston Strangler

by Frank, Gerold;

  Yet DeSalvo had given Bailey details about the other murders that had not appeared anywhere, so far as could be determined by members of Bottomly’s staff, reading and rereading the published accounts.

  At that moment DeSalvo appeared to the police and the Attorney General’s office the most likely suspect so far unearthed in the search, although some pointed out that Paul Gordon’s knowledge was as baffling as DeSalvo’s. In addition, one fact continued to work powerfully against DeSalvo: he exhibited none of the classical traits of the Strangler as analyzed by psychiatrists—the sadistic, impotent male bearing an unendurable rage toward his mother and all women like her.

  And one other fact: no witness had been able to identify him.

  And hovering over all, a huge question mark: George Nassar.

  If only, thought Bottomly, trying to make sense out of this jumble, if only Gertrude Gruen, the one victim believed to have looked upon the Strangler’s face and lived to tell the story, could remember her assailant. She had almost made a positive identification of Nassar, but she could not be sure …

  Two weeks later, in early April 1965, the Boston Society of Psychiatry and Neurology played host to an international psychiatric convention. Among the distinguished psychiatrists who came from abroad to address the meeting was Dr. William Sargant of St. Thomas Hospital, London—the man who had had such a success with the shell-shocked survivors of Dunkirk nearly a quarter of a century before. Dr. Alexander asked him if he would volunteer to help Gertrude Gruen attempt to recall her assailant’s face. The British psychiatrist was challenged by the proposal, but reluctant to accept it. He had not attempted anything of the sort since the war, and the experience would bring back distressing memories. But he went ahead. Bottomly arranged for him to use the facilities of Bournemouth Hospital in Brookline. There, for three successive days, the third, fourth, and fifth of April, 1965, Dr. Sargant worked with Miss Gruen.

  To the spectator, these attempts to break through to the memory she had erased so completely were like visits to one of the lesser hells of Dante’s Inferno.

  In a hospital room whose walls were lined with tanks of oxygen and carbon dioxide, Miss Gruen lay in bed. The sickly sweet smell of ether—used by Dr. Sargant—hung over everything. Other physicians—anesthetists, psychiatrists, staff doctors—as well as Bottomly, Lieutenant Tuney, and other detectives, remained behind a screen as witnesses.

  Repeatedly, Dr. Sargant dripped ether upon cloths applied to Miss Gruen’s face. The tanks whistled and hissed as he adjusted the oxygen and carbon dioxide. During these long sessions, Dr. Sargant used all his skill to make her relive her attack, and in the vividness and terror of that recollection see again the face of her assailant. She lay gasping, struggling for breath, now moaning, now uttering panicstricken … “He is standing there, he is coming nearer, nearer, oh, my God, ohhhhhhhhhhhh!” Through her words the crisp, British accents of the psychiatrist: “There’s a knock on the door. A knock on the door. He’s coming in … he’s coming in … He wants to—what?… He wants to—what?… Hold my hand, take a deep breath, hold my hand … You hear the knock. You open the door. You see his face, his face …”

  “No! No!” screamed Gertrude. “I see him walking around the room, but I cannot see him—”

  Dr. Sargant’s voice was smooth, persuasive. “Take a deep breath. Again. Again. Can you see the man? Can you see the man? He’s coming into the room—that chap’s coming into the room … Can you see him now? Can you see him now?” Gertrude shrieked, the sound of it filling the room and seeming to echo down the corridors outside. “Can you see him now?” Relentlessly. “Can you see him now? Can you see the man?”

  Gertrude struggled, half-asleep, tearful. “I was sleeping … He was standing in the corner … There was a little wooden table …” Carefully she described everything in her apartment, always avoiding the description of the face of the man who sought to strangle her. Then, at one point, “Oh, I am so sorry. I cannot see the man. It will take a long time until I see the man again. It might not be possible if I am like I am now—if every move, every whisper, every thought, is in my stomach, like now …”

  She turned and tossed.

  Dr. Sargant tried again. “You’re opening the door, aren’t you? He’s in that room …” She began to tremble. “He’s in that room … Putting his hand around your neck … Putting his hand around your neck … You’re fighting for your life, aren’t you? Look at him! Look at him! Call for help! Call for help! Call—for—help!” His voice was firm, insistent. “Call—for—help!” Gertrude sobbed hysterically. “I can’t … I can’t …”

  He revived her. Had she been back in the room? “Yes,” she said. “But I couldn’t scream until he left. I screamed and I was frightened and I ran out—I heard him running away—I screamed like I never screamed in my life. Then I closed all the doors. I ran to the window first and I screamed to the two people who were on the roof, ‘Where is the other man you’re working with?’ and one said, ‘There’s only the two of us …’ At this moment I saw him running around the corner. I closed everything and I was sweating, I was so panicked I was afraid even to be in the room …”

  Then she was under again, and Dr. Sargant approached her and put his hands around her throat.

  She jerked convulsively. “What happened?” she cried in panic.

  “I’m touching your neck like that man did,” Dr. Sargant said quietly. “Do you see him? Bring that man in! Bring that man in!” His hands touched her neck again, the sound of hissing gas grew louder. She began to choke. It was a reenactment of her terrible experience. Over her gasps for breath, the psychiatrist’s voice: “See his face. See his face. Close your eyes … Is he coming back? Is he coming back?”

  “No, no,” cried Gertrude, “I try—”

  “Take some deep breaths. Again. Again. Now, you’re opening the door, aren’t you? What do you see? You’re opening the door—is that right?”

  Her voice, like an automaton: “I open the door—”

  “What do you see?”

  “I see there was this man standing there. In this moment I am thinking that … I looked at him … It wasn’t a man I knew, it was no man I knew!… I know it—”

  “You’re looking at his face now, aren’t you? Just look at that face—”

  “I don’t know this man—” Plaintively.

  “Just look at that face. He has a sarcastic look on his face, hasn’t he?”

  “I see him, but I can’t … describe him.”

  “That’s all right. Just look at him now. Take a good look at him. Are you taking a good look at him?”

  “Yes—” A long sigh.

  “You’re going to let him in now, aren’t you? You let him in. He’s going into the bathroom to tell you about the leak, isn’t he?”

  “I let him in … In the room there was—” A pause. “I have to explain the bathroom,” she began, and again a catalogue description of her apartment—everything, save the face of the murderer.

  So it went for the three days, Gertrude laboring to remember yet unable to remember. On the third day, Dr. Sargant suggested that she bring to the hospital the attire she wore the morning of her attack—her nightgown and the coat she wore over it when she answered the door.

  She lay in bed in her nightgown, she rose, threw on the coat, and under drugs tried again to relive that moment. She could see him, his hands in his pockets, his white T-shirt. But not his face.

  The wall of her memory that had blotted out completely the eyes, face, features of the murderer, held firm. She was beside herself at her failure.

  Bottomly, too, was almost ready to explode with frustration. For the school teacher who saw a man in Mary Sullivan’s window the afternoon of her murder stated that George Nassar resembled the man she saw. Mr. Bottomly must not eliminate him. In height and profile, the likeness was very strong. Yet she, too, could not be absolutely sure. She had seen Albert DeSalvo. She did not recognize him, she said, as the man in Mary Sullivan’s wi
ndow.

  So it stood, still a stalemate. The man who said he was the Strangler and gave details with such uncanny accuracy was not recognized by the few witnesses available. The man who denied he was the Strangler was all but identified by them.

  Listening to the tape of DeSalvo’s hypnoanalysis by Dr. Bryan, Lieutenant Tuney was impressed particularly by the words the man attributed to Evelyn Corbin. Her doctor had told Tuney that he had cautioned her against sexual relations because of her great discomfort as she approached the menopause. Tuney asked himself how Albert DeSalvo could have known this unless she had, indeed, told him.

  DeSalvo said the original attack took place just outside her bathroom. That was true. The buttons from her robe were found there. The type of intimacy he said he had with her also accorded with laboratory and autopsy reports.

  DeSalvo’s claim that he simply stumbled upon his victim by chance also carried the mark of truth, Tuney thought. For had the Strangler planned his attacks, had he chosen his victims, followed them, bided his time until he found them alone—surely something would have gone wrong.

  Again, reasoned Tuney, had he planned them he would not have chosen elderly women—nor girls with roommates. How could he be certain that one of the roommates (Mary Sullivan’s or Sophie Clark’s) might not return unexpectedly … And in the case of Mary, she had been at 44A Charles Street only three days. No routine had yet been established; it would have been impossible to plan an attack there. Even more so, Evelyn Corbin. She lived in a busy building; down the corridor lived her boyfriend and his mother, the three visiting back and forth at all hours—certainly he could not have planned that.

  How persuasive, too, was the logic of DeSalvo’s approach—that of the maintenance man. Many had theorized that the Strangler disguised himself as a mailman, a messenger boy, laundryman, even a priest—allowing him to move about without calling attention to himself, and at the same time, giving him entry into most apartments. But, thought Tuney, even though a cautious woman might allow such a man to come into her apartment, how could he determine that she was alone? How could he justify wandering about so he could check if a husband or son might not be in the rear of the apartment?

  A handyman, however … Most women living alone are always complaining to their landlord of maintenance work that needs to be done. When a man, therefore, shows up, saying, “The super sent me,” a woman would be apt to invite him in gratefully. He could then go from room to room, saying, “Yes, we’ll have to fix that pipe,” or “We’ll have to tile that—” making sure that no one else was in the apartment.

  John Bottomly, however, was doubtful about Albert DeSalvo. Dr. Kenefick, Dr. Robey, and Dr. Allen declined to accept him as the Strangler. Dr. Luongo, the medical examiner, had found no spermatozoa in his autopsies of the Old Women. DeSalvo said he caught his victims about the neck in the crook of his arm. Dr. Brussel questioned this; it would mean a struggle, signs of which would have to show in the victims’ faces—fear, terror, distortion—and the faces of virtually all the women were peaceful.

  In short, on the basis of what was now known, the doctors and psychiatrists would not accept him.

  And no witnesses had been able to identify him.

  Finally, Bottomly himself faulted the man. To remember every detail, the interior of every apartment, the position of the bodies, every type of ligature, the location of every piece of furniture, and all the rest … How could he? Could a man driven by an insane compulsion, caught up by an uncontrollable fury, have his wits sufficiently about him to see all this, register it, remember it?

  And to accept the blame for every strangling listed in the newspapers, every one of the eleven, and two more, in addition, that no one had even attributed to the Strangler …

  The confusion was only underlined by a letter from C. Russell Blomerth, owner of the construction-maintenance firm for which DeSalvo had worked from September 1962 to September 1963. In response to a request by Lieutenant Tuney for DeSalvo’s employment record on December 5, 1962—the day of Sophie Clark’s murder—and December 30–31, 1962—the period of Patricia Bissette’s death, Blomerth wrote:

  There was no doubt that Mr. DeSalvo only worked for three hours for me on December 5. During the December 30 period, which was a Sunday, he would have been going to Belmont to check diesel heaters that he had on the job to keep concrete from freezing. This required a couple of visits each day. The exact hours that he did this I have no way of knowing. He would just call and say it had been done. Although my record books show a full day’s pay for Christmas Day, and also for the Saturday just prior to New Year’s Day, he did not work the full day; he just went out and maintained those heaters.

  DeSalvo would have had time to commit those murders.

  What remained with Lieutenant Tuney—and John Bottomly—however, was the final paragraph in the letter from DeSalvo’s employer:

  Thinking it over now, I must tell you that Albert was truly a remarkable man. He had unbelievable strength, energy, and endurance way beyond anything that could be expected of the average man. He was completely lovable to every individual while working for me. Never was there any deviation from the highest proper sense of things.

  “Completely lovable … the highest proper sense of things …” Was this the man who murdered thirteen women?

  Astonishingly enough, he was.

  * Hypnoanalysis is a combination of hypnosis and psychoanalysis in which the patient, while in a hypnotic state, is encouraged to free-associate and recall memories that he has long since blocked out. The physician makes use of suggestion and interpretation to help the patient talk freely about his concealed fears, guilts, and experiences. Although all psychoanalysts may use hypnosis now and then in their treatment, Dr. Bryan had been described as the only M.D. in the United States who limited his practice to hypnosis.

  * Charles C. Thomas, Springfield, Illinois, 1962.

  20

  It is hard to know when the conviction first struck home that Albert DeSalvo was indeed the Boston Strangler.

  He had said so; he had told his attorney F. Lee Bailey enough to indicate that he had an extraordinary knowledge of the crimes. Yet obviously his guilt had to be proved. Police and doctors assumed that any man qualified to be a suspect must be demented. Therefore, he might well be unable to distinguish between truth and fantasy. DeSalvo might have strangled one victim and imagined that he strangled the others as well. He might have killed one and wanted to pretend that he killed the others. He might have murdered two, three, five, ten. He might have murdered them all. He might have murdered none of them. Any other suspect—Arnold Wallace, Paul Gordon, Thomas O’Brien, David Parker, Lewis Barnett, Carl Virtanen, George McCarthy, Christopher Reid, George Nassar—any of these might have committed one or more of the crimes for which Albert DeSalvo took full responsibility.

  It was now spring of 1965; the manhunt, in its third year, had begun to slow down. Bottomly’s investigative squad had been reduced by two. Steve Delaney had returned to his original duties as a patrolman; and Jim Mellon, realizing that his obsession now with one suspect, then with another, was actually undermining his health, had at his own request been transferred to another department.

  Yet perhaps at no time had those leading the hunt found themselves in so exasperating a position. If DeSalvo was the Strangler, he had been under their noses all the time! More, the police and the courts had actually had their hands on him several times before. And one could only ask—after the ceaseless interrogations and checking out of thousands of leads, after the mystics, the ESP experts, and the computing machines, after the sodium pentothal examinations and the lie-detector tests, after the wild speculation by press and public, after the assumptions of a master criminal of near-genius ability, after the dogged attempts by police to find a common denominator among the victims, after the painstaking psychiatric analyses of the madman who held an entire city at bay, after all that—was he to turn out to be this nondescript house painter and handyman who killed
at random, this mild-mannered, tearful husband and father living quietly with his wife and two children in a Boston suburb? A Jekyll and Hyde living in a mortgaged one-family house in Malden? A man treated all but contemptuously by his wife and dismissed as a bore and a braggart by his friends?

  And where before in the annals of crime had a man whom no one accused of murder virtually pleaded to be given the opportunity to prove he was not only a murderer, but a multiple murderer? No novelist would have dared create an Albert DeSalvo because no reader would have believed him.

  The question rose: Who could authenticate DeSalvo’s confession? His victims could not testify against him. There were no eyewitnesses to the crimes. How could he be proved the Strangler so the city of Boston need never fear him again?

  After several meetings, John Bottomly, F. Lee Bailey and former Corrections Commissioner George McGrath, DeSalvo’s court-appointed guardian, agreed upon the next step. Obviously, psychiatrists had to examine DeSalvo. They would have to base their evaluation on his history, and as things now stood, they did not know whether or not he was telling the truth or fantasizing the murders. Therefore, Bottomly would go to Bridgewater and interrogate DeSalvo first. He would ask, “How did you kill? How can you place yourself, beyond all question, in each apartment at the time of each murder? What can you tell us that will convince us beyond all doubt that you committed these thirteen crimes?”

  DeSalvo, a mental patient, had to have his rights scrupulously protected. He would tell all to Bottomly but nothing he told could be used against him in court. Bottomly would interrogate him in the presence of McGrath. Then Detectives Tuney and DiNatale, in consultation with Lieutenants Donovan and Sherry in Boston, and with police officials in Cambridge, Lynn, Salem, and Lawrence, would check every statement by DeSalvo.