Search for the Strangler

by Casey Sherman

  Despite the plea from the Sharps, the judge refused to halt the state’s DNA testing, but he did get the state to promise to leave enough DNA evidence for the families to conduct an independent test should we win our case. Judge Young, who appeared particularly concerned with the intense media coverage the case was getting, also slapped a gag order on the lawyers and Jim Starrs. Starrs and his team were in Seattle that day for a conference of forensic scientists, where Starrs had promised a progress report on the team’s work in the case. In fact, Elaine Sharp had flown to the West Coast to get Starrs’s information firsthand. Not surprisingly, the judge’s order did not sit well with the professor. “Science needs to be conducted out in the open,” Starrs argued. But there would be no progress report that night. The families, however, were not bound by the judge’s gag order. I was going to remain on top of this case, pushing and prodding Tom Reilly into doing the right thing.

  Judge Young gave one final order that day: he ordered both sides to be back in court the next week so that he could hear the state’s request to dismiss our lawsuit. Judge Young, who taught at Harvard Law School, scheduled the hearing for February 27, 2001, inside a lecture hall on the Cambridge campus.

  Word that the Boston Strangler case was to be argued on campus spread quickly among Harvard students, and the lecture hall was packed when my mother and I arrived. Richard DeSalvo and members of his family also attended the hearing. While the Sharps were preparing their oral argument, Elaine slipped me a copy of Gerry Leone’s affidavit about his work in this case. “Take a look, and tell me what you think,” she suggested. I sat down next to Mom, wiped my eyeglasses clean, and began reading.

  Leone had written: “On November 19, 1999, I was first notified by First Assistant Attorney General Dean Richlin that he had received a general inquiry regarding the Boston Strangler and whether we had any intention of opening the investigation into those crimes. As a result of that inquiry, throughout the next several months, I gathered all information and materials regarding the cases that were attributed to the Boston Strangler. . . . I became acquainted with the facts of the cases and the then present status of each case. . . . In March 2000, some four months after beginning my search for information, I was first contacted by a person who identified himself as a member of the Mary Sullivan family, Casey Sherman.”

  Contrary to Leone’s affidavit, there had been no “general inquiry” into the Boston Strangler case in November 1999. I had had a direct conversation with the attorney general himself shortly after the WBZ report on Michael DeSalvo aired on November 7, 1999. Leone also got the date of our “first contact” wrong. I had had several discussions with Leone about my aunt’s murder dating back to November 1999. The attorney general’s office was trying to convince Judge Young that it had been spearheading a probe long before I got involved and that, therefore, the families had no right to evidence or information about the case.

  During oral arguments of the motion to dismiss, the Sharps pointed out, as they had done the week before, that there was no “open or active” criminal investigation into Mary’s murder and argued that the evidence should therefore be immediately turned over to the families. Once again, the state argued that any sharing of the evidence would taint any future prosecution. Seeming annoyed, the judge ordered Leone and the Sharps to negotiate some kind of compromise. The parties went out into the hallway, where they tried to strike a deal. By then I had finished reading Leone’s affidavit, and I rushed out into the hallway. “Elaine, I need to speak with you,” I said, interrupting Leone in mid-sentence. “What’s up?” Elaine asked. “Don’t believe a word Leone is saying right now. He doesn’t want to share the evidence. Something very strange is going on here.” I pointed out the inaccuracies in Leone’s affidavit. “Let’s nail him!” I said under my breath. Elaine glanced back at Leone, who seemed to be nervous. “Hold that thought,” she replied.

  At that point, the judge came out in the hall and ordered everyone back in the courtroom, where he asked the attorneys if the negotiation had been successful. It had not. Leone still would not budge on our request to share the semen slides. The state had six in its possession; we were asking for only one sample. Back in the courtroom, the state’s lawyers once again asked the judge to dismiss our claim, but Judge Young refused to do so. That our lawsuit remained alive came as a pleasant surprise for the Sharps, who had worried about the judge’s reputation as a government ally. “Now, that’s called kickin’ their ass!” Dan Sharp whispered to me as we left the courtroom.

  On the courthouse steps, I pulled Elaine aside to discuss the Leone affidavit. “We should point out the inaccuracies in Leone’s affidavit,” I urged. Elaine clearly had other ideas. “This is much like a poker game,” she said. “With that affidavit, we now have a full house. The trick here is not to cash out too early. Let the pot build a while. Let’s use that information when we really need it.”

  It seemed to me that the time to use the information was right now, but I took Elaine’s advice, though I believed we were missing a great opportunity to show the world how duplicitous the attorney general’s office was.

  20 : A Call from New Hampshire

  Iwas always more comfortable behind the camera than in front, but this case needed a spokesman, and the Sharps had chosen me for the job. The public now knew who I was and, more important, how to reach me. Calls flooded the newsroom. I wanted to take every one, no matter how ridiculous, because I couldn’t know which one might lead me in the right direction. Most times, I’d field phone calls from drunks with outlandish stories about the “real Boston Strangler.” One caller insisted the killer was Senator Ted Kennedy. “Think about it,” he slurred. “The Kennedys are responsible for everything.”

  After calls like this one, I’d have a good laugh and return to the work of producing a TV newscast. But one phone call would change everything. “I don’t know if I should be talking to you, but I thought I’d give it a try,” the caller said. I hugged the phone receiver to my chin and braced myself for yet another pointless conversation. “I work with a guy who may be involved in your aunt’s murder.”

  “Where are you calling from?” I asked.

  “New Hampshire,” said the caller. “I work in a bar, and for New Year’s our boss took all of the employees out to dinner. The guy I work with brought his wife along. During the course of the evening, the wife started to drink, and then she started to talk. She told me that he was worried about something in his past, something that has to do with the Boston Strangler case. So that’s why I called you.”

  “What’s his name?” I asked.

  He replied, “His name is Preston Moss.”

  I told the caller that Moss once was considered the prime suspect in my aunt’s murder. “He’s always been a real weird guy,” the caller told me. “When he first came to New Hampshire, he claimed he was a fighter pilot in Vietnam, and that he rescued POWs. I’ve known him for about twenty years, but I never really hung around with him.” Having researched Moss’s background, I knew he’d never served in the military. Still, many people lie about their backgrounds. This didn’t mean Moss was a killer. I needed more.

  “I’d like to help you; just tell me how,” the caller offered.

  I told him that by forging a bond with Moss, he might help me find the truth in this case. “Be a friend to Preston,” I advised, “and maybe he’ll open up about his past.”

  The caller said he would try. “You know,” he told me, “every year, all the folks who work at the bar would head down to Boston to catch a Sox game or to see the Bruins. Every year, the only one who would never go was Preston. Now I understand why.”

  Immediately after this conversation, I phoned Elaine Sharp and told her about it. Ever the attorney, she pointed out what we had and what we didn’t have against Moss. “Right now, we have opportunity and access. He failed two polygraph exams, so let’s assume he stole the keys to get inside Mary’s apartment. This theory is also backed up by the fact that there was no forced
entry. We have Jim Mellon, who is positive Moss is the guy. Now we have Moss’s colleague, who describes a very bizarre conversation with the suspect’s wife. But what we still don’t have is a motive,” she said.

  I had been trying to piece together a motive for several months. The caller had told me that Moss had a reputation for being fiercely jealous. Moss’s girlfriend at the time, Pat Delmore, had received several letters from a young man in the army stationed in Texas. Those letters were on the list of items taken by the police from Mary’s apartment. They also found a receipt for a bus ticket to Texas dated January 1, 1964. So the soldier had possibly visited Delmore just days before the murder.

  Now, suppose the fiercely jealous Moss suspected that Delmore was having an affair with this soldier. He needs proof. He steals the apartment key, and when he enters to find those letters, Moss doesn’t know that Mary is there, moving things into the apartment. Mary sees him, and he snaps; he loses control, ripping her sweater off and strangling her. This becomes a murder of passion. He sees her naked body and becomes aroused. His sexual frustration is unleashed and he ejaculates on her body. He stands there exhausted, trying to collect his thoughts. Now he’s got a dead woman on his hands. He decorates the crime scene, grabbing the broom and the Happy New Year card. He wants the police to believe the murder was the act of the Boston Strangler.

  Over the next several weeks, the caller from New Hampshire would check in and recount his conversations with Moss. “He’s scared shitless,” he told me. “He knows what’s goin’ on down there.” At one point, the caller asked Moss point-blank whether he had killed Mary. Moss did not say yes or no; instead, he stared off into space and said, “I was nineteen. I was nineteen. Why is this all coming back to me now?” The caller then asked him, “What are you worried about? You didn’t kill her. It’s not your DNA, right?” Moss replied, “They’ll sabotage it. That’s how my DNA will show up on her body.” The caller was even more convinced now that his colleague was guilty of murder.

  When the caller broached the possibility of DNA testing, I made my move. “Can you get me Moss’s DNA? Can you send me a glass he drank from or, better yet, some strands of hair?” He wasn’t sure. “I felt it was my duty to tell you what’s going on,” he said. “I don’t know about stealing the guy’s DNA.”

  “Look, there’s strong reason to believe he killed my aunt. But we can’t bring him to justice if we don’t have solid proof. His DNA would provide that proof,” I pleaded. After more coaxing, he finally agreed. I passed on some tips Jim Starrs had given me about the handling of DNA evidence. “Place the evidence in a paper bag, not a plastic one,” I said. “Condensation that builds up in a plastic bag could contaminate the evidence.”

  “I’ll try, but the guy’s meticulous. When he has a drink, he washes the glass out, like, two seconds later. The same thing with food. He usually eats everything in front of him, but when he doesn’t, he sticks the leftovers in the bottom of the trash bag and takes the trash out.”

  I told the caller to do his best. “Wait for the opportunity; don’t try to force anything,” I advised.

  The caller’s opportunity came quickly. He found a beer glass Moss had been drinking from, wrapped it in a brown paper bag, and sent it off to Professor Starrs.

  Two weeks later, Starrs called me in the newsroom with the results. “I’m truly sorry, but there’s about twenty different DNA profiles on this beer mug. It’s got to be the dirtiest glass I’ve ever seen,” he chuckled. “Ask your man in New Hampshire to get me a hair sample. And tell him to get a new dishwasher for the bar.”

  While the caller was waiting for another opportunity to get a sample of Moss’s DNA for testing, I set out to find Mary’s roommates. Pat Delmore and Pam Parker had never shared their story with anyone. Both women were from Massachusetts, but they seemed to have vanished after Mary’s murder. I sought help from my colleagues on the WBZ I-Team, giving them the names of Mary’s roommates as well as the name of Nathan Ward, Mary’s former boyfriend. I didn’t think he had killed Mary, but it seemed worth talking with him. Their volatile relationship still disturbed me, although the evidence against Moss and his recent behavior made him a much stronger suspect in my eyes.

  The I-Team found out that Nathan Ward had died of a heart attack in the Seattle area in the early 1990s. They also tracked down a Patricia Delmore who was living in Florida. When I called the Florida number, the man who answered told me I had the right Pat Delmore but the wrong state. She now was living in California. I located a number for Delmore in Santa Barbara. When I got her on the phone, she told me she was paying close attention to our reinvestigation. She said, “For years, I thought it was Albert DeSalvo, but you’ve certainly made me rethink that. Poor Mary, it was such a horrible time. It was something I couldn’t talk about for years. She was such a sweet girl. I had met her in the Filene’s cafeteria. She had a sad look on her face. When I asked her what was wrong, Mary told me that she needed a place to stay in Boston or she’d have to move back home to Cape Cod. Of course, I told her she could stay with Pam and me. It would be crowded, but it would be fun. I now wish that Mary had said no. We never went back to that apartment. This has affected me for years. I have a daughter, and when she told me that she was moving in with two girls, I almost cried, I was so scared about what could happen to her.”

  Pat Delmore had a lot to get off her chest, so I just let her talk. But eventually I turned the conversation toward Preston Moss. “What was he like?” I asked.

  “He was a very sharp dresser and acted like a perfect gentleman with me. My sister, however, thought he was kind of strange.”

  I asked Pat if Moss could have been capable of murder. “Oh, God, I hope not,” she replied.

  Delmore also told me she had not spoken to Pam Parker in ten years, and I was having no luck finding her on my own, but around that time, I did locate a relative of another strangler victim. Major Tim Palmbach of the Connecticut State Police, a Starrs team member, gave a speech on forensic science in New Haven during which he mentioned the Mary Sullivan case. Palmbach had attended Mary’s exhumation and had worked with the famed forensic scientist Dr. Henry Lee on some of the tissue samples. Following the speech, an African American man in his mid-sixties approached Palmbach. “Is it true?” he asked. “Can you find the man who really murdered Mary Sullivan?” Palmbach said it was a distinct possibility. The man began weeping. “Sophie Clark was my cousin,” he told Palmbach. “She, too, was killed in the Boston Strangler case, and our family never believed it was Albert DeSalvo.”

  Palmbach put me in touch with the man. “I was Sophie’s only relative living in Boston,” he told me. “I promised her parents that I would look out for her. It was me who had to identify her body and bring her back to New Jersey for burial.”

  “I’ll help you find her killer if you come forward and help us,” I pledged.

  Sophie Clark’s cousin was in a difficult position, as it turned out. He knew that authorities had lied by claiming DeSalvo was the Boston Strangler, but he was now a member of the law enforcement establishment himself. “Sophie’s family to me, but so are my brother cops. I just can’t go public right now,” he said. “I will say good luck and I’ll be watching.”

  So here was another relative telling me how much he appreciated our work but that he wanted no part of it. Who could blame him? And if relatives of the victims were reluctant to join me, I doubted that family members of those who had perpetrated the great charade of a guilty DeSalvo would be willing to help, either. Still, I had to push on. Reading over John Bottomly’s obituary, I noticed he had moved his family out west after his legal career had ended in scandal in Massachusetts. I knew that DeSalvo’s original confession tapes had never been turned over to the state. Did his children have the tapes? What else might they have? If there was a deal to deliver DeSalvo to the public as the Boston Strangler, perhaps Bottomly had kept a record of it. I tracked down a Utah telephone number for his daughter, Holly Bottomly. I called her and expla
ined our battle against the Massachusetts attorney general’s office. At first, she sounded unfriendly, probably offended at the idea that her father had not caught the Boston Strangler. I could see I was using the wrong approach. Quickly switching gears, I said, “Holly, your dad may have been an honest man, but he was duped by those around him who looked to profit off the case. Do you think your father would not like to finally set things straight?” Of course, I said this believing that her father was one of the masterminds behind DeSalvo’s false confession.

  Bottomly broke down on the phone. She told me the family had kept all of her father’s documents from the Boston Strangler case. “What about the confession tapes?” I asked. “We have everything!” she replied. We continued to talk over the next several days. We were getting along so well that I figured it was only a matter of time before I booked a flight to Salt Lake City to retrieve the evidence. But then our conversations took a different turn. She began to ask for money. Money for her mother, money for her, and money for the other Bottomly children. With a new baby, I couldn’t afford to pay the Bottomly family, but Elaine and Dan Sharp offered to buy everything the family had kept from their father’s past. A deal was about to be made when suddenly Holly Bottomly no longer wanted money or anything to do with our case. “I’ve been told not to cooperate with you,” she said. She wouldn’t give us a name but said that a friend of her father’s had demanded that she stay away from us. What forces were working behind the scenes to keep us from the truth?

  In July 2001, Reilly publicly challenged our motive for getting involved in the case and our commitment to it, telling reporters that Richard DeSalvo had refused to give a sample of his DNA to be used in the attorney general’s investigation. What Reilly didn’t tell the media was that DeSalvo had offered his blood to the state many times over the preceding two years on the condition that independent scientists test the evidence. Richard did not trust the government, and after reading Gerry Leone’s affidavit, I could hardly blame him.