The Evil Within - A Top Murder Squad Detective Reveals The Chilling True Stories of The World's Most Notorious Killers

by Trevor Marriott

  31 December 1962: 23-year-old Patricia Bissette, a secretary for a Boston engineering firm, was found dead. She had failed to turn up for work and her boss went to look for her. Her apartment was locked, so he climbed through a window into the apartment. He found her lying face up in bed with the covers drawn up to her chin; it looked as if she was asleep. When he pulled the covers back he could see that she had several stockings knotted and interwoven with a blouse tied tightly around her neck. There was evidence of recent sexual intercourse and it was later revealed that she was in an early stage of pregnancy. There had been some damage to her rectum. The killer had made a search of her apartment.

  8 May 1963: Beverly Samans, a pretty 23-year-old student, missed her Wednesday night choir practice at the Second Unitarian Church in Back Bay. Her friend went to her apartment and opened it with the key she had given to him. On opening the door, the friend saw Beverly lying directly in front of him on a sofa bed, her legs spread apart. Her hands had been tied behind her with one of her scarves. A nylon stocking and two handkerchiefs tied together were tied and knotted around her neck. A cloth had been placed over her mouth. Under it, a second cloth had been stuffed into her mouth. It appeared that Beverly had been strangled, but she had, in fact, been killed by the four stab wounds to her throat. She had sustained 22 stab wounds in all, 18 of which were in a bull’s-eye design on her left breast. The ligature around her neck was like a necktie and was not tied tightly enough to strangle her. A bloody knife was found in her kitchen sink. She had not been raped either by man or by object, nor was any semen present in her body. It was estimated that she had been dead approximately 48–72 hours and had probably been killed between late Sunday evening and Monday morning.

  8 September 1963: Evelyn Corbin, a pretty 58-year-old divorcée, was found murdered. She had been strangled with two of her nylon stockings. She lay across the bed, face up and naked. Her knickers had been stuffed into her mouth as a gag. Around the bed were lipstick-marked tissues that had traces of semen on them, and semen was also found in her mouth but not in her vagina.

  25 November 1963: 23-year-old Joann Graff was raped and murdered in her apartment. Two nylon stockings had been tied in an elaborate bow around her neck. There were teeth marks on her breast. The outside of her vagina was bloody and lacerated. At 3.25pm, a tenant living above her had heard footsteps in the hall. His wife had been concerned that someone had been sneaking around, so he went to the door and listened. When he heard a knock on the door of the apartment opposite his, he opened his door to find a man of about 27 with pomaded hair, dressed in dark green slacks and a dark shirt and jacket. ‘Does Joan Graff live here?’ he asked, mispronouncing Joann’s name. The tenant told him that Joann lived on the floor below. Moments later, he heard the door open and shut on the floor beneath him and assumed that Joann had let the man into her apartment. Ten minutes later, a friend telephoned Joann, but there was no answer. The morning before Joann’s death, in the apartment down the hall from Joann’s, a woman had heard someone outside her door. Then she saw a piece of paper being slipped under her door. She watched, mesmerised, as it was moved from side to side soundlessly. Then suddenly the paper vanished and she heard footsteps. The description of this man was similar to the one who had been seen and spoken to in the apartment block where Sophie Clark was found murdered on 5 December 1962.

  4 January 1964: Two young women came home after work to their apartment. They were horrified to find their new roommate, 19-year-old Mary Sullivan, murdered in the most grotesque and shocking fashion. Like the other victims, she had been strangled: first with a dark stocking; over the stocking a pink silk scarf tied with a huge bow under her chin; and over that, another pink-and-white flowered scarf. A ‘Happy New Year’ card had been placed against her feet. She had been left in a sitting position on the bed, with her back against the headboard. Thick liquid that looked like semen was dripping from her mouth onto her exposed breasts. A broomstick handle had been inserted almost 4in into her vagina.

  Despite all the murders, police had no evidence or any clues as to the identity of the killer or killers and a Strangler taskforce was formed. Its enquiries revealed a series of strange sexual offences that had occurred in the same area some two years previously. These offences had been committed by a man who would knock on the doors of apartments occupied by young, attractive women. He would tell them he was from a modelling agency and ask if they were interested in becoming models. He would then ask if he could take their measurements. He then left each time, telling them that someone from the agency would be in touch. All the details were, of course, false. Police subsequently arrested a man for these offences – Albert DeSalvo, who was 29 at the time. He was sentenced to 18 months’ imprisonment and was released two months before the first murder in 1962.

  In November 1964, DeSalvo was arrested again on a more serious charge relating to an offence that had taken place on 27 October, when a woman who was in her bed suddenly found a man in her room holding a knife. The man had put the knife to her throat and threatened to kill her if she made a sound. He stuffed her underwear in her mouth and tied her in a spreadeagle position to the bedposts with her clothes. He kissed her and fondled her, then apologised before fleeing. Police arrested DeSalvo and the woman later identified him on an identity parade. DeSalvo was released on bail. His photo and details were circulated to other police forces and soon calls came in from Connecticut where police were seeking a male sexual predator they called the Green Man, because he wore green work trousers. This offender had assaulted four women in one day in different towns in Connecticut.

  DeSalvo was arrested yet again at his home and in front of his wife, who told him to confess to whatever he had been responsible for. It appeared that DeSalvo heeded her advice and, when interviewed, admitted to breaking into 400 apartments and a couple of rapes. He had allegedly assaulted some 300 women in a four-state area. The police were also aware of DeSalvo’s tendency to exaggerate and tell lies. This was borne out by the police not having the reported crimes to corroborate his admissions. They attributed this to the fact that a lot of the women had not reported the crimes.

  DeSalvo was detained at the state medical hospital for mental assessment. At the hospital, he was put in the same ward as another murderer, George Nasr, with whom he became close friends.

  In March 1965, DeSalvo confessed to his lawyer that he was responsible for all 11 of the strangulation murders, in addition to two other deaths of women who had apparently died of heart failure before he could strangle them. It would appear that while in custody he had realised that he was likely to spend many years in prison. He had been thinking about his wife’s future and her financial security and considered the financial rewards that his story could bring. DeSalvo and Nasr got together and discussed the reward the police were offering for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the killer. They discussed the possibility of DeSalvo admitting to the stranglings; Nasr would tell the police about DeSalvo and then they would split the reward money between them. DeSalvo believed that he would not receive the death penalty, so the plan was agreed. DeSalvo contacted his lawyer and made the confessions to him.

  DeSalvo’s lawyer was unsure what to do with the confession his client had given him. His priority was to satisfy himself that DeSalvo had actually committed the murders. He obtained some information about the murders from the police that only the killer would have known about. He went to visit DeSalvo a second time on 6 March 1965. DeSalvo mentioned that a detective had come to take his palm print the day before. His lawyer knew that he had to work fast if he was going to be able to protect his client, so he recorded a lengthy interview with DeSalvo. After hearing the confession in great detail, he believed that DeSalvo was the killer. The lawyer then went to the police and played the tape to them with the voice disguised. This was in an attempt to plea-bargain to avoid DeSalvo receiving the death penalty. Finally, this was agreed and DeSalvo made a full confession to the police. However, many people
connected to the police and to DeSalvo still had their doubts. Some of the evidence did not point to DeSalvo. Cigarette butts had been found at some of the crime scenes, yet DeSalvo did not smoke. The witness descriptions of the workman seen and spoken to did not match DeSalvo.

  Another important factor that suggested DeSalvo was not the killer was that police had taken two female witnesses to secretly view him in the prison hospital, with one being the only woman to survive an encounter with the Strangler. Police were hoping that the women would positively identify DeSalvo. What the police had not foreseen was that they would identify someone totally different – George Nasr. The women posed as visitors in the prison’s visiting room. Nasr was the first to enter the room to meet with a prison social worker. He glanced at one of the women then immediately took a second look. She was disturbed by his presence and wondered if she knew him, or vice versa. At that moment, DeSalvo came in and sat down. Straightaway, the woman realised DeSalvo was not her attacker. She had been shown his photograph previously and was unsure then; now she was positive. She later made a revelation to police, stating that she believed that the other man she had seen that day, George Nasr, looked like her attacker but she could not be 100 per cent sure. The second female witness also failed to identify DeSalvo but, having seen Nasr, believed he was the man who had called at her apartment posing as a workman.

  Despite these doubts and relying totally on DeSalvo’s confession, the legal wrangling continued. In the interim, on 10 January 1967, Albert DeSalvo was tried on the original charges relating to the Green Man offences. DeSalvo’s legal team explained that they hoped to convince a jury to find him not guilty by reason of insanity. They would attempt to use the 13 murders he had committed as the Boston Strangler to show the extent of his insanity in this trial. To do this, they would attempt to get evidence to support his confession and its corroboration by the police. However, the ploy failed and he was deemed sane enough to stand trial. The jury subsequently found DeSalvo guilty on all counts and sentenced him to life in prison without any hope of psychiatric help. DeSalvo was not charged at that time with any of the murders attributed to the Boston Strangler.

  In November 1973, Albert DeSalvo, while serving out his life sentence, was stabbed to death in the prison hospital. The night before he was murdered, he had telephoned his doctor and asked to meet him urgently, apparently very frightened. The doctor promised to meet with him the following morning, but DeSalvo was murdered that night. He had also asked a reporter to meet him that same night, and was going to reveal the identity of the Boston Strangler. DeSalvo had asked to be placed in the hospital under special lock-up about a week before. According to the doctor: ‘Something was going on within the prison and I think he felt he had to talk quickly.’ DeSalvo had indicated that there were people in the prison, including guards, who were not happy with him. Following his death, the doctor remarked that somebody must have had to leave an awful lot of doors open, because for anyone to get to DeSalvo there were several guards to go past. But the reality is that someone did get through and stuck a knife into Albert DeSalvo’s heart sometime between the evening check and the morning. Prison officials believed that DeSalvo’s death was related to his involvement in drugs. Three men were later tried, but twice the trials ended in hung juries.

  Since DeSalvo’s death, there have been lingering doubts as to whether he was the Boston Strangler, so much so that the relatives of DeSalvo and of one of the victims, Mary Sullivan, joined forces in 2000 to have Sullivan’s remains exhumed for DNA testing, not available in the 1960s. In his confession, DeSalvo said he had strangled Mary Sullivan with his hands. In fact, she had been strangled with her own clothing. DeSalvo also claimed to have raped her when evidence proved that she was sexually assaulted with a broomstick. A forensic scientist who took part in an autopsy arranged by the families said that experts were unable to find the effects of a blow DeSalvo claimed to have inflicted on Sullivan. Also, the families said DeSalvo claimed to have left a knife and a sweater at the murder scene, but neither was found. Tests were also conducted on samples of hair, semen and tissue taken from Sullivan’s exhumed body. The Attorney General’s office reviewed the Sullivan case but has continually refused the families access to evidence because it considers the case unsolved.

  In October 2000, a judge ordered the two sides to try to work out a compromise but the Boston authorities have been less than cooperative. Jerry Leone, chief of the Massachusetts Attorney General’s criminal bureau, said that if evidence does point to someone other than DeSalvo as Sullivan’s killer, it doesn’t necessarily cast doubt on all the other Boston Strangler murders and doesn’t mean the other cases will be re-investigated. ‘We are looking into the Sullivan case because it’s the only case that has any evidence that can be used in a viable prosecution right now,’ Leone said. On the other hand, DeSalvo’s brother Richard believes that if it is proven that his brother didn’t kill Mary Sullivan, it raises a serious question about who really killed the other victims. On Friday, 26 October 2001, the body of Albert DeSalvo was exhumed and taken to a forensic laboratory for examination. An autopsy was conducted on the remains, attempting to prove DeSalvo’s innocence of the murders and, possibly, to identify his killer. On Thursday, 31 December 2001, it was confirmed that DNA evidence taken from Mary Sullivan’s remains did not provide a match to Albert DeSalvo. A forensic scientist confirmed that they had found DNA evidence and that the evidence does not and cannot be connected to Albert DeSalvo. The scientist did make it clear that the evidence only cleared DeSalvo of sexual assault. To this day, the fight for the truth goes on.

  The murders attributed to the killer known as the Boston Strangler are known the world over and even now, over 35 years since the suspicious death in prison of the prime suspect, there is still a mystery surrounding the case.

  ROBERT BERDELLA, AKA THE KANSAS KILLER

  In Kansas City over the Easter weekend of 1988, police received a report of a naked man running down the road. When the police came upon the man, they were startled and slightly amused. As they drew closer, they saw that he was totally naked and wearing a dog collar with a red lead attached. The naked man could barely talk and his foot appeared to be injured. His eyes were swollen and red, and he seemed to be having trouble seeing in the daylight. When the officers asked him what had happened, it was clear that he was distressed and visibly shaken. A witness told the police that the man had jumped out of the window of a house across the street. The naked man was Chris Bryson, and he initially told the police a lie about what had happened to him. He told them he had been picked up in a pick-up truck by a man and a woman who had taken him to a house and held him captive. However, he would later retract that statement as facts emerged to show that there had only been one man and that Bryson was in fact a male prostitute.

  The man who picked up Bryson on 29 March was called Bob – an older and taller man than Bryson. They drove to a house. Inside, the house was a mess. Junk was piled up in several rooms and it smelt strongly of dogs. Bob invited Bryson to go upstairs. As Bryson reached the top landing, he was hit from behind on the back of the head. He tried to turn and defend himself, but he felt the prick of a needle in his neck and knew that Bob was injecting him with something; he couldn’t fight. Bryson couldn’t move and he blacked out.

  When Bryson came round he found himself gagged and on a bed, spreadeagled and tied to the bedposts. He had no clothes on and he had no idea how much time had elapsed. He passed out again and when he came round he found that he had a dog collar around his neck. Bob had been sexually abusing him while he had been unconscious and placing drops in his eyes, which caused him great pain. On waking again, he was subjected to more physical torture of the worst kind. Bob had attached an electrical device to Bryson’s testicles and thigh, and he felt a sudden strong jolt of electricity going through his lower body. The pain was excruciating, and he gave out a muffled scream. He saw a flash of light and heard a whirring sound. He realised that Bob was taking pictures of
him in these humiliating, involuntary poses. By now, Bryson had realised that he was in the hands of a sexual sadist and that he had to try to escape or risk being killed. For the next four days, Bryson was kept a prisoner at the house, alternately drugged, bound, tortured with shocks and sexually assaulted. He was always tied to the bed with the dog collar and lead even when a hand or foot was freed. Bob sometimes injected his throat with drain cleaner and sometimes hit Bryson with an iron bar. Bob also warned Bryson that others before him had died for misbehaviour. To prove this, he showed Bryson photographs of men who looked deceased. They might have been just sleeping, but Bryson could not tell.

  However, Bob made one mistake. He tied Bryson’s hands in front of him rather than to the bed and, once Bob was gone from the house, Bryson managed to get free and escape. After Bryson told his story to the police, they decided to go and arrest the man they had by then identified as Robert Berdella (b. 1949). He was not at home when the police called so they waited for him to return. When he did, they immediately arrested him on suspicion of sexual assault and asked if he would sign a consent form to allow them to search his home.

  Berdella asked for an explanation and refused the police entry to his house without a warrant. He was arrested and taken to the police station without his house having been searched. However, the police soon returned with a warrant and commenced a search. The upstairs bedroom was just as Bryson had described it, with a bed and a television. On the bed were some burnt ropes, which Bryson said he had set light to with discarded matches to free himself, and some bindings tied to the bars on the headboard. Near the bed was a homemade electrical device, plugged in, with wires that led to the bed. The police also found syringes on a tray on a table, prepared and ready, along with a bottle of eye drops and a bottle of what appeared to be a liquid drug. Pornographic magazines were scattered on the floor. The police also found a collection of audiotapes, together with what appeared to be a log or notebook full of scribbled notes that looked like code, and photographs of men who appeared to be asleep. In another room, police found a box of Polaroid photos of Bryson, who appeared to be frightened and suffering. They catalogued everything methodically, unaware that the investigation was soon going to escalate. When they searched Berdella’s bedroom the police found two human skulls and two envelopes containing human teeth. One skull was identified as being human, the second a fake. The teeth were believed to have come from the skull and belonged to a young male. By now, a full forensic team was combing the house for evidence.