Search for the Strangler

by Casey Sherman

  None of us believed that the five parties involved in the original investigation would hand over the evidence without a drawn-out fight. In the meantime, I needed something to demonstrate publicly that our cause was just. It had to be big, and it had to be irrefutable. The biggest piece of evidence in the case I could think of was Albert DeSalvo’s confession, the only thing that connected him to the crimes. John Bottomly had taped his lengthy interviews with DeSalvo and then reportedly hidden the original tapes in a bank vault. There were also rumors that copies of those tapes existed.

  The answer lay not far away from Mary’s grave. My mother reminded me that she had once heard about a Cape Cod police officer involved in my aunt’s murder case. The Barnstable County sheriff, Nick Eldredge, had been asked to question witnesses in the Hyannis area following Mary’s murder. He and his deputy, Tom O’Malley, jumped at the chance to work on such a high-profile case. But that raised a question. There was not much in the way of crime on Cape Cod back in the 1960s. Nick Eldredge was the man you wanted to see when a lobster trap went missing, but could he investigate a murder?

  Tom O’Malley’s wife said her husband and Eldredge had once been invited to Boston to discuss the DeSalvo confession with their big city colleagues. The meeting broke up early because of some emergency, and the cops from Cape Cod found themselves alone in the conference room. One of the Boston officers had forgotten to take back some of the tapes of DeSalvo’s confession, and when Nick Eldredge realized no one was coming back for the tapes, he stuffed them in his jacket and headed home to the Cape. Surprisingly, no one ever came looking for the tapes, and Eldredge held on to them for the next thirty years. Nearing death in the mid-1990s, Tom O’Malley had told my mother the story. “Everybody thinks I have the tapes, but I don’t. Nick Eldredge has the tapes,” O’Malley claimed.

  Eldredge was still living on Cape Cod. After retiring from the sheriff’s department, he had run a successful private detective agency for several years. I telephoned him, explained who I was, and asked if he still had this piece of strangler history. Though very guarded on the phone, he finally admitted that he still had the tapes. When I asked how he had gotten them, he claimed copies were handed out to many police officials who worked the case.

  Before I stood a chance of hearing the confession for myself, I needed to gain Eldredge’s confidence. On the phone I praised his long and distinguished career and asked him to meet with me. Eldredge agreed to the get-together, but he would make no guarantee about the tapes. He would not even meet me at his home; instead, he chose a parking lot in Hyannis.

  Despite his advanced age, Nick Eldredge was still an imposing figure. He was tall with large, powerful hands; I winced as he took my hand and squeezed it. The day of our meeting in the parking lot, Eldredge was wearing a gray windbreaker with a pin prominently displayed on the lapel.

  “What is the pin for?” I asked.

  “I’m still a deputy sheriff, and I could get called back to duty at any time, so let’s make this quick,” he replied proudly.

  “So, Nick,” I said, “where do you want to talk? We could grab a cup of coffee somewhere.”

  “Oh, no,” he said, looking around the parking lot. “I’ve got just the place. Follow me.”

  Hopping in my Blazer, I pulled behind Eldredge’s sedan. I sat behind him for a full five minutes until the road was clear enough for him to venture out. We drove around Hyannis for almost half an hour, Eldredge keeping a steady pace of about twenty miles an hour. Where the hell was he taking me? I couldn’t tell if he was trying to throw someone off his trail, of if he simply had forgotten where he was going. Finally, though, we pulled into the “Bat Cave,” the Senior Citizens Center of Hyannis. Eldredge took another five minutes to park, throwing his car into reverse, then forward, until it was just right—right in the middle of two spaces, that is. As he got out of the car, I noticed that he had a thick folder tucked under his arm. Inside, he asked the woman at the front desk if we could have a private room. She nodded, but warned us that the bridge club had reserved the room in forty minutes, so we’d have to hurry. We started with some small talk. Eldredge told me that he wanted to sell the DeSalvo tapes and cash in on his work on the case. He also asked me if I wanted to write a book with him. I shrugged and said anything was possible. My eyes were focused on the folder. “Nick, can I take a look at that?” I asked.

  “Not yet,” he replied, putting one large hand on top of the manila file.

  “Look, Nick, I’m not here to pass judgment on your work in this case. I simply want to find out if DeSalvo is guilty or innocent. I just want to make sure justice was done for Mary.”

  Eldredge’s grip on the folder loosened; then he took out a couple of documents for me to see. One was particularly interesting. Dated January 22, 1964, it was a five-page list of evidence taken from my aunt’s apartment by the Boston Police homicide unit. The list contained 245 items. Had the police department lost 245 pieces of evidence? The list included a charm bracelet my mother had given Mary when the two were kids; she had never gotten it back. Eldredge also had Mary’s prom picture in his folder. My family had only a handful of pictures of Mary, and here was this stranger with her only prom picture! I swallowed my anger and asked him to let me hear Albert DeSalvo in his own words.

  16 : The Confession

  Okay, I’ll let you listen to them,” Eldredge said. “But if you ever believed that DeSalvo was not the Boston Strangler, these tapes are gonna change your mind.”

  Eldredge’s words disturbed me. Could all my work have been for nothing? Had Albert DeSalvo really murdered my aunt, after all?

  We set up another meeting, this time at Eldredge’s lawyer’s office. I wanted to go alone, but my attorney Elaine Whitfield Sharp insisted on going with me. “If I’m going to represent the families in this case, I must be privy to everything,” she said. How could I argue? Eldredge was less than pleased by her presence and said he wouldn’t play the tapes unless she waited in the car. After a good deal of pleading by Eldredge’s lawyer, Elaine obliged, rolling her eyes at me as she went out.

  “You can’t be too careful!” Eldredge explained.

  When Eldredge pressed “play” on the recorder, I took a deep breath and listened intently to DeSalvo’s nasal voice as he described how he had murdered Mary Sullivan. There were two other men in the room with DeSalvo during the taping: John Bottomly and DeSalvo’s legal guardian, George McGrath.

  BOTTOMLY: The scarf . . . how did you use it?

  DESALVO: I tied her up with it.

  BOTTOMLY: In what fashion did you tie her? Did you tie her legs too?

  DESALVO: This thing has a lot of colors in it, very dark colors.

  BOTTOMLY: What did you use it for?

  DESALVO: Ah . . . tying of her hands.

  BOTTOMLY: The tying of her hands. You had her hands tied in front of her? She still had her clothes on?

  DESALVO: Yes.

  MCGRATH: She sitting on her bed or lying on it?

  DESALVO: She’s lying on the bed.

  MCGRATH: On her back?

  DESALVO: I also tied her feet.

  BOTTOMLY: Okay, I want to review this now. First you put a gag in her mouth, you tied her hands and feet. You put a mustard-colored sweater over her head.

  DESALVO: The first thing was to tie her hands. Then I put something in her mouth to stop her from screaming. This is very confusing. She did talk to me and I’m trying to get straight what she said . . . I gotta tell ’em [whispering to himself]. The reason why I did what I did . . . the thing was on her face. She did talk to me. I know she don’t have no gag in her mouth. I just tied her hands. She was tied, right, and I got on top of her so she couldn’t be in any position to reach up and scratch me. Then . . . I strangled her.

  MCGRATH: While she was lying on her back? You got the gag in her mouth now?

  DESALVO: No . . .

  BOTTOMLY: Did she have her clothes off?

  DESALVO: Yup.

  BOTTOMLY: Is this bef
ore or after you had sex?

  DESALVO: After . . . her feet was tied there. And her hands were right here. Her hands, I was sitting on them because she was really fighting viciously. . . . So this [sweater] here I put over her head, it was mustard color.

  MCGRATH: Where did you get it?

  DESALVO: I got the sweater out of her drawer.

  MCGRATH: You get the sweater out of her lower drawer?

  DESALVO: It should still be there in the room. There’s a reason why the sweater was out there in the open.

  MCGRATH: You pulled it out from the bottom drawer, then?

  DESALVO: Exactly!

  MCGRATH: When did you get her clothes off, Albert? You strangled her with her clothes on and you hadn’t penetrated her?

  DESALVO: No.

  BOTTOMLY: And then you cut her hands loose?

  DESALVO: This is what I hate to even talk about. This kills me.

  MCGRATH: I know.

  DESALVO: I’d just as soon forget this whole thing.

  MCGRATH: There are other ways this can be verified.

  DESALVO: This is very serious stuff. I did penetrate her. She turned sideways. She was still alive when I had intercourse with her. I had intercourse with her. She’s alive, she allowed me to do it to her. And then . . . I came inside her. And then I had taken her blue jeans off and her white panties. And after, I said now I’m gonna tie you up and leave. She was naked then . . . I’m trying to think why . . . It don’t make sense now. She had her legs up after I took the panties off her. She didn’t want me to do it, but I still did it. She argued. I took ’em off her, and her feet went back . . . like this here. [Rustling sounds in the audiotape suggest DeSalvo is physically imitating Mary’s position.] I’m trying to think . . . at what time . . . at what time . . . I remember ripping the clothes open. I know this here.

  BOTTOMLY: Is this with the knife?

  DESALVO: I started ripping the bra off her. This is very confusing to me. I don’t know if I did it after or before or how I tied her up. I do remember putting this thing over her face. I’m almost positive I put a gag in her mouth, but why? It don’t make sense. I did have intercourse with her right there. And I did, after I tied her hands . . . I did struggle on top of her.

  MCGRATH: This is after you had intercourse with her?

  DESALVO: This one . . . this one here . . . on, um . . . Mary Sullivan, was it?

  BOTTOMLY: Mary Sullivan. You took her pants off before you tied her feet. Is that correct?

  DESALVO: Ah . . . no. That’s the gimmick right there. The clothes were cut.

  BOTTOMLY: She’s got this thing over her head, and she’s complaining about the heat. Maybe you get sick of her complaining and decide that she’s too much of a problem. You certainly strangled her while this [sweater] was over her head, right? You weren’t looking right at her face, were you?

  DESALVO: No . . . then I got her in this position here, right? But it could not be so that I strangled her in this position because I know differently. Because she was over here . . . she was in this position here.

  MCGRATH: By the headboard?

  DESALVO: Her knees were crossed, and then I got on top of her . . . and that . . . that’s about it.

  BOTTOMLY: This is after you had intercourse?

  DESALVO: This is what’s messin’ me up.

  BOTTOMLY: Did you have intercourse with her?

  DESALVO: Yes, I did . . . but I’ll be honest with ya . . .

  MCGRATH: Did you come inside her?

  DESALVO: Yes, I did. I was so mixed up at the time, but I do remember that I strangled her with my two hands.

  MCGRATH: Face to face.

  DESALVO: Well, when you say face to face . . .

  MCGRATH: She was facing you, you had a sweater over her head.

  DESALVO: Yes, I couldn’t see her.

  MCGRATH: And you strangled her by using your thumbs against her Adam’s apple, right? With your thumb?

  DESALVO: Yes.

  Nick Eldredge stopped the tape and smiled at me. “See, what did I tell you? DeSalvo did it!” Eldredge jumped out of his chair, squeezing his large hands around an invisible victim. “You see how he described killing her?”

  I had other thoughts about the tape. Albert DeSalvo claimed he had strangled Mary with his bare hands. But, in fact, she was strangled with two scarves and a nylon stocking. Her autopsy report showed no sign of manual strangulation. DeSalvo also claimed to have had intercourse with my aunt and ejaculated inside her. He says this not just once but twice. But the autopsy report showed no trace of seminal evidence inside the vagina. DeSalvo’s using language such as “this one . . . this one here” suggests that he was pointing to or referring to crime scene pictures as he described how Mary’s body had been left. To me the conclusion was clear. DeSalvo had gotten the details of Mary’s murder completely wrong. This tape was key evidence in our case. I was more certain than ever that DeSalvo had not killed my aunt.

  17 : Turning Up the Heat

  A fter hearing the confession tape, I was more determined than ever to push ahead. In May 2000, we held a news conference to lay out our goals and introduce Professor James Starrs to the public. For the event, I chose an oak-paneled room at the elegant Omni Parker House in downtown Boston. It was the same room where John F. Kennedy had announced his first run for Congress. On this day, for the first time, the public would see relatives of the alleged killer and relatives of his alleged victim standing side by side in a common cause.

  Elaine Whitfield Sharp began the event by welcoming my mother to the podium. I was nervous for her—Mom had never spoken in front of a large crowd before—but her words were effective. They came from the heart. “This started as a simple request,” she said. “Instead, it keeps getting bigger, with denials and cover-ups of a thirty-six-year-old case. Why . . . why don’t they want to reopen this case?” Mom asked.

  Richard DeSalvo and his son, Tim, were both clearly nervous about going public for the first time, but Tim, who did the talking for both of them, did not disappoint us. “No one knows the facts,” Tim said. “We’re hopeful that science will reveal those facts. Let science proceed and let the chips fall where they may.”

  I went next. I was even more confident than Tim that his uncle was innocent of these crimes. I told reporters that Albert DeSalvo’s confession tape, the very thing that connected him to the murders, could also exonerate him. I also used the occasion to put more heat on the attorney general and the Boston Police Department. “It’s time for the blue wall of silence to finally be broken in this case,” I said from the podium.

  The last to speak was Jim Starrs, who had flown up that morning from Washington. He wore a tweed coat with a small pin bearing the emblem of George Washington University. Starrs told the journalists that he had no preconceptions about Albert DeSalvo’s guilt or innocence. Science was an impartial judge, he said. Then both Starrs and Elaine Whitfield Sharp asked for more cooperation from Attorney General Tom Reilly and Police Commissioner Paul Evans. None of us wished to exhume the bodies of my aunt or Albert DeSalvo if the evidence was already in possession of the authorities.

  Following our news conference, the press immediately went to the attorney general and Boston Police Department for comment. On the steps of the Massachusetts statehouse, Tom Reilly said he was inclined to provide the families access to the case files. If Reilly decided to follow through, he would not be setting a precedent because his predecessor, Scott Harshbarger, had let journalists comb through the strangler files while he was attorney general.

  Reaction from the Boston Police Department was much different. In a press release, the BPD said that because of “the deterioration of evidence,” the department would not take part in any further investigation into the Boston Strangler case.

  Then, a few weeks after Reilly told reporters that he was inclined to cooperate with the families, our lawyers received a letter stating that our request for access to the evidence had been denied. But it was too late to stop us. Through
my lobbying efforts, the Boston City Council adopted a resolution calling for a reinvestigation of my aunt’s murder. I was also busy getting information about Mary’s grave to Jim Starrs. Through the funeral parlor, I learned that Mary had been embalmed and buried in a wooden coffin inside a vault. Starrs was pleased with the news of the embalming because it increased the likelihood that her tissues would be preserved.

  While I was hounding the people at the Doane, Beal, and Ames funeral home, I was also keeping close tabs on Nick Eldredge. The public had heard enough from the families; it was time for people to hear from Albert DeSalvo himself. I wanted to release the confession tape to the media. Eldredge had other plans, however. He still hoped to sell the tape. But Eldredge helped me in another way, by telling me about another investigator who had evidence about my aunt’s murder. This was Andy Tuney, the Boston Strangler Task Force member who had quit the state police to work for F. Lee Bailey. I called Tuney and asked if he had any information or evidence that could lead me to my aunt’s killer.

  “You’re aunt’s killer is dead. He was stabbed to death in prison. He’s Albert DeSalvo!” Tuney shouted angrily into the phone.

  When I asked him about the mistakes DeSalvo had made in his confession, Tuney had no answer. Then I asked him if working for DeSalvo’s defense attorney after having worked for the Boston Strangler Task Force represented a conflict of interest for him. “Lee Bailey and I never talked about the case,” he replied. Changing the subject, I asked Tuney whether he had ever searched for other possible suspects, such as Mary’s boyfriend Nathan Ward, or Preston Moss, or even DeSalvo’s former confidant, George Nassar. “Aw, we checked Nassar’s employment records. He was working at the time of the murders. He had a sales job at Filene’s,” Tuney replied gruffly.