The Boston Stranglers

by Susan Kelly

  The next accusation against him would be far graver.

  On December 5, 1953, Albert married his love of four years, Irmgard Beck. Five months later he was posted to Fort Hamilton, New York, and from there to Fort Dix. On January 5, 1955, Albert was arrested in Mount Holly, New Jersey, for carnal abuse of a child. A little over two months later, he was taken into custody in Wrightstown for loitering. He was fined and released.

  The carnal abuse charge was nol-prossed that December.

  Nineteen fifty-five also saw the birth of Albert and Irmgard’s daughter, Judy. What should have been a joyous occasion for the young couple in an otherwise bleak year was marred by the fact that the child was born with a pelvic disease. And Irmgard began to turn away from Albert. He was later to say that her fear of becoming pregnant with another child who might suffer a mental or physical handicap worse than Judy’s curtailed their sex life.

  In 1956 Albert left the army, and he and Irmgard moved to Albert’s hometown of Chelsea. He got a job. In September he was arrested for running a traffic light in East Boston. In the spring of 1957 he spent two months in the Veterans Administration Hospital being treated for a problem with his left shoulder. Upon his release, he resumed work.

  On January 8, 1958, Albert was arrested by the Boston Police Department. The charge was suspicion of breaking and entering in the nighttime; he was found guilty and given a suspended sentence. The Chelsea police picked him up on February 15, this time for staging two daytime breaks. (These burglaries were the ones he told the judge he had committed to underwrite his Valentine’s Day gifts to Irmgard and Judy.) Again, he was found guilty, and again, his sentence to the house of correction was suspended. A third arrest in Boston on a similar count on April 18 had the same result.

  In June of 1959, Albert took a leave of absence from work so that he and Irmgard could travel to Germany. Their visit lasted two months, and on their return to the United States in mid-August, Albert went back to his old job. And his old tricks. On October 26, he was arrested in Boston. The charge was the usual: breaking and entering and larceny in the nighttime. For this latest peccadillo Albert received yet another suspended sentence.

  Because the 1950s was an era in which the concept of revolving-door justice was relatively unknown, the question arises: How did Albert, with his record of repeat offenses, escape even a minimal prison term? It is possible that his defense attorney, Robert Sheinfeld, was unusually talented. It is also possible that Albert was lucky enough to appear before a string of very lenient judges. Then again, perhaps all the charges against him were flimsy. There is no way to be sure today.

  During 1960, Albert managed to stay on the right side of the law, or at least nobody caught him violating it. That year was a good one for other reasons for him and Irmgard: It saw the birth of their son, Michael. The baby was robustly healthy; a happy contradiction of Irmgard’s fears.

  Whatever peace and stability the family achieved with the arrival of Michael was shattered less than seven months later. On March 17, 1961, Albert was taken into custody by the Cambridge police. He had been interrupted in the process of trying to break into a house on Broadway in that city. A chase ensued, during which one of the pursuing officers fired a warning shot. Albert surrendered. At the police station he readily admitted to the breaking and entering charge, and also to possession of burglar’s tools. And then he began confessing to activities far more disturbing.

  Cambridge had been the locale of a series of bizarre sexual assaults. A man calling himself Johnson, purporting to represent the Black and White Modeling Agency, would appear at the homes of attractive young women, compliment them on their looks, and ask to take their measurements. Flattered, many of the women complied. Before departing, “Johnson” would assure them that someone from the agency would be in touch. That never happened. Some of the women subsequently called the police.

  Now Albert was claiming to be this Johnson, otherwise referred to by the Cambridge police as “the Measuring Man.” The court had him shipped off for a psychiatric examination at Westborough State Hospital, where he was diagnosed as a sociopath.

  On May 3, 1961, Albert went to trial in Cambridge on several counts of assault and battery, lewdness, and breaking and entering in the daytime. Judge Edward Viola found him not guilty on the lewdness complaints, guilty on the others. For each count Albert received a two-year sentence, all of them to be served concurrently. He was remanded to the Billerica House of Correction. In September, Viola, feeling the sentence was too harsh, reduced it. Albert was a free man as of April 1962.

  Two months later Anna Slesers was murdered.

  6

  The Green Man

  Those who knew Albert DeSalvo remember his smile more vividly than anything else about him. Wide and sunny, it lit his face and warmed all who saw it, including hardened cops. There was nothing otherwise extraordinary about Albert’s appearance: He was a man of medium height with powerful shoulders (he had boxed in the army), thick chestnut hair combed back in a modified pompadour, hazel eyes, and a protuberant nose. His voice was a soft, rapid tenor. His demeanor could be boyish and open or sullen and withdrawn, depending on the circumstances. He knew how to charm and disarm, the chief reason why his Measuring Man masquerade was so successful.

  Despite his frequent arrests, he was regularly employed, although he tended to shift from place to place. Prior to his March 1961 arrest he had worked as a press operator for American Biltrite Rubber Company in Everett, the city next door to Chelsea. Upon his release from the Billerica House of Correction, he took a job with the Monroe shipyard of Chelsea. After a few months he went to work for general contractor C. Russell Blomerth of Malden, where he and his wife and children now lived, and finally for Highland Contractors of Wakefield, for whom he was a construction maintenance man. Years later, after Albert had confessed to being the Strangler, Russell Blomerth would register his horrified disbelief at Albert’s self-indictment and extol his former employee as a good, decent, and kindly man who betrayed no psychological abnormality.

  First and foremost, Albert was a dedicated family man, a loving and involved father to Judy and Michael. To his nieces and nephews he was a devoted uncle; Richard DeSalvo’s son Timothy possesses an elaborate wooden fort Albert built him, plus a collection of letters enjoining the boy to be an obedient son and attentive student. To his sister-in-law Rosalie, Albert maintained a jaunty affection. He occupied an equal space in their hearts, and still does.

  It was as if in the area of family relationships and obligations, at least, Albert had set out to be the exact opposite of his own father.

  He treated his wife Irmgard as if she were a goddess, which indeed she was to him. Despite this, the marriage was not a particularly happy one. The sexual hiatus following Judy’s birth had put an enormous strain on it. And Albert perceived Irmgard as being cold emotionally as well as physically to him. It is obvious now that they were temperamentally unsuited to each other, Albert always needing and wanting more love than Irmgard could ever give. Perhaps no amount would have been sufficient for him. Long after their divorce, Albert would write a painful and bitter reminiscence of their life together.

  Irm when I came out of jail made me feel like nothing. In front of people she would scold me. Then she would say after wards don’t lie or say something thats not true and don’t make something bigger than what it is. Instead of saying nothing or agreeing with me—she would throw me down in front of people and when I would tell her about it she would say next time you will no better. She told me she wasted one year of her life—and if I ever hurt her again she would leave me and take the children far away. She told me I would have to learn to control myself and when she wanted it she would let me know—many nights I was so hot I wanted to be loved. She would say maybe tomorrow night—and I would wait in till she was a sleep. And then I would take her legs and open her legs and make love to her. And some nights she would make believe she was asleep. Then she would say I’m dirty and sickening doing tha
t to her. She called me an animal ... I loved her so much. She made me scared to make love to her. I felt unclean and less than a man in bed with her. She herself will tell you. She made me feel low and unlike a man. I stoped in the middle of trying to make love to her. I told her I could jerk off and get better thrill. Many many nights I layed in bed next to her. And bad as I wanted to make love. I was so hot. I didn’t dare ask her because I knew what her answer would be. I hated her so bad but I loved her so. I was burning up ... New Year Eve we went out and I felt different with her. She danced with me and put her hand in back of my head and put her fingers thru my hair and kissed me and held me close. And she said she was happy things are getting better. We had a nice XMASS. This is when I felt a big change in her to me. She started treating me better. That night we made real love together. It wasn’t till about the last two months before Nov. 64 that she made me feel like a man. She gave me love that I never dreamed she could give me ... I felt like a real man for the first time. She to me was always pure and could do no wrong. There wasn’t a thing in this world I wouldn’t try doing for her. No matter how bad she hurt me I could never stay mad at her and yet at times I hated her so bad I held it in. I felt all fluid and like I was going to burst. Not knowing what to do. That feeling would only come so often. Feeling less than a man. Being hurt so deep by her.

  Irmgard, of course, saw their relationship differently. She was fully aware and appreciative of Albert’s best qualities: his tenderness toward her and the children and his concern for their well-being, his desire to give them the best life possible. But his incessant sexual demands wore her down; he wanted, she claimed, to make love six times a day. Even if she had been similarly inclined, Irmgard had a household to run and two children to tend, one of whom was chronically ill and needed special care. How could she do all that and still meet Albert’s demands? There weren’t enough hours in the day.

  Albert and Irmgard: a doomed and tragic folie à deux.

  If Albert’s most compelling physical feature was his delightful smile, his least attractive personality trait was his compulsion toward braggadocio. “He always had to be the biggest and the best,” says a Cambridge detective who came to know him well and who grew fond of him despite all the trouble Albert was to cause the CPD. “He was the kind of guy who, if you said to him, ‘Hey, I did twenty burglaries,’ he’d say, ‘That’s nothing, I did two hundred.’ ” James Ward, an orderly at Bridgewater while Albert was incarcerated there, says of Albert that “he loved to toot his own horn.” He even annoyed the other inmates with his incessant boasting.

  “A blowhard,” Edmund McNamara says.

  Albert had another notable personal characteristic. According to one of his attorneys, Francis C. Newton, Jr., “Albert was the type of guy who didn’t seem to be a leader, but more the type who was easily led.”

  Albert’s willingness to submit himself to a stronger personality, coupled with his irresistible urge toward self-aggrandizement, would seal his fate.

  At approximately 9:15 on the morning of May 29, 1964, Geraldine Surette was asleep in the bedroom of her apartment in Wakefield, a town about ten miles north of Boston. She may have been awakened by some noise or movement. At any rate, when she opened her eyes, she found herself looking at a man, a total stranger, sitting on the bed. He pulled back the covers, lifted Mrs. Surette’s nightgown, and began fondling her body. He told her that he had just gotten out of the service and that he knew her husband.

  In the same room the Surettes’ baby slept in a crib. The man ceased fondling Mrs. Surette, rose, and walked over to where the child lay. He reached into the crib and picked up the baby. Mrs. Surette got out of bed and retrieved her child from the intruder. The three of them moved to the kitchen. There the man reached under Mrs. Surette’s nightgown and again caressed her breasts; she was still cradling the baby in her arms. She glanced at the clock and said, ‘Jeez, I didn’t realize it was so late.” She added that her friend Jean was coming to take photographs. The man replied, ”Oh, you wear glasses; we couldn’t use you. I have the wrong Surette.” He ran out the door.

  This surreal and frightening incident had lasted perhaps ten to fifteen minutes. Mrs. Surette later discovered twenty-five dollars missing from the budget book in which she kept the apartment rent money.

  Virginia Thorner lived alone in Melrose, a town bordering Wakefield. Shortly before 8:00 A.M. on June 8, 1964, she heard a knock on her front door. She admitted the caller when he told her there was a leak in her apartment.

  As he was walking toward the bathroom, ostensibly to check the plumbing there, the man said, “Are you tired, Virginia?” She confessed that she was, and asked the time. “Quarter of eight,” the man informed her.

  The man found no leak in the bathroom. “I think it must be the bedroom,” he said.

  Mrs. Thorner was examining the windows for a possible leak there when the man came up behind her, encircling her body with one arm and crooking the other over her face.

  He ordered her onto the bed and then blindfolded her with her shortie pajama bottoms. Then he gagged her and blindfolded her again with a kerchief. He began kissing her breasts and pubic area.

  “Give me twenty dollars and I’ll leave,” he said.

  “I don’t have twenty dollars,” Mrs. Thorner said. “I only have one.”

  They got up, and the man forced her to lead him to the living room, where the money lay on the coffee table. The kerchief over Mrs. Thorner’s eyes had dropped to her chin, enabling her to glimpse the knife her attacker was holding to her side.

  “Turn around, go back to the bedroom,” the man said. He told her he’d kill her if she screamed. Mrs. Thorner would in 1967 testify that he added, “Do what I say or I will kill you. I have killed before and I will do it again. I have even got an old lady but they don’t know it. I don’t want to hurt you.”

  He pushed her down on the bed and had her fellate him.

  He tied her up and then departed, saying, “Don’t scream. You remember what I said. Give me five minutes.”

  Despite the fact that her hands were tied behind her back, Mrs. Thorner was able to telephone the Melrose police. They had to cut her free, so secure were the knots binding her.

  Around her neck were draped four scarves. They would be entered as evidence at her assailant’s trial.

  At 9:00 A.M. on September 29, 1964, Muriel LeBlanc heard a knock on the front door of her apartment in Arlington, a suburb of Boston. Dressed in underwear, a housecoat, and slippers, Mrs. LeBlanc went to the door but didn’t open it right away. She asked who was there. A voice on the other side of the door replied, “There’s a leak in the basement. The basement is half full of water and I have to get in and shut off all the pipes, the water pipes.” Mrs. LeBlanc answered that her apartment had no leaks.

  The person on the other side of the door kept rapping at it, and finally identified himself as Dave—the name of the person who was indeed the building superintendent. Mrs. LeBlanc opened the door. A man unknown to her stepped over the threshold.

  In his hand was a gun. He raised it and pressed the barrel to Mrs. LeBlanc’s forehead. “This is a holdup, lady,” he said. “I want your money.”

  “Take it,” replied Mrs. LeBlanc.

  The man entered the apartment, shutting the door behind him. He asked her where the money was; she indicated her handbag on a chair. The man ordered her to go sit on the couch. She didn’t move. Then she heard a click and felt something sharp pressing against her neck. “That’s a knife at your throat, lady,” the man said. She turned and he put the gun to the back of her head.

  “Don’t make a sound or yell,” the intruder warned. “Because if you do, I’ll cut your throat from ear to ear.” He added that he wasn’t kidding.

  Mrs. LeBlanc would tell a judge and jury that the man had asserted that he had no fear of police or prison. The cops were looking for him anyway, he said, and had been for years. “You won’t get a second chance, lady, I’ll just cut your throat. So don’t you
yell or make a sound.”

  “Don’t worry,” said Mrs. LeBlanc. “I won’t yell.”

  She sat on the couch as ordered. The man then tied her ankles together with a pair of pajama pants belonging to Mr. LeBlanc. Then he bound her hands behind her back with one of her husband’s scarves.

  “Why are you doing these terrible things?” Mrs. LeBlanc asked.

  “What terrible—?” The man faltered. “What things, what things?”

  “Coming in here like this and tying me up,” Mrs. LeBlanc, a woman of uncommon courage, replied. “Why are you doing these terrible things, coming in here like this?” she repeated. “What would your mother say if she could see you now?”

  “She wouldn’t like it,” the man admitted. Nonetheless, he began to unbutton Mrs. LeBlanc’s robe and to kiss her. Mrs. LeBlanc jerked her head aside and his mouth grazed her neck. He told her he wanted to feel her breasts.

  “I’m an old woman and I don’t want you bothering me,” Mrs. LeBlanc snapped.

  The man crossed the room and masturbated. Then he went into the bathroom. When he returned, he and Mrs. LeBlanc argued about whether there was any rent money in the apartment, she insisting there wasn’t and he insisting that there had to be because it was the end of the month. All this time he held a gun to her ear, Mrs. LeBlanc recollected.

  She won the argument about the rent money. The man took a diamond ring from her jewelry box and eleven dollars from her wallet. Then he said, “I’m going, lady,” and left the apartment.