Search for the Strangler

by Casey Sherman

  With the help of a private investigator friend, I also had tracked down Mary’s missing roommate, Pamela Parker. “I don’t think she wants to be found,” he told me. “She has no credit cards in her name; everything was put in the husband’s name. She may not want to speak with you, but good luck.”

  I dialed Parker’s number, hoping she wouldn’t slam the phone down the minute I told her who I was. Instead, Parker was relieved to hear my voice. “I’ve been trying to get in touch with you for the longest time,” she said. “You have to understand. It was the worst time in my life. I never believed that DeSalvo was the killer, and you finally proved it.”

  I did not want to bait her with a list of possible suspects. Rather, I wanted her honest opinion. “Who do you think really murdered Mary?” I asked.

  “Honestly, I think it was Pat’s old boyfriend, Preston Moss,” she replied. “I had a strange feeling that he hated your aunt, that he was jealous of her for some reason. Pat had been hanging out with Mary, and not spending much time with Preston. A group of us would all be sitting around that small apartment, singing songs, everyone in a happy and mellow mood. I remember glancing over at Preston, who was staring at your aunt. She was on the other side of the room, singing and laughing, oblivious to his stare. It wasn’t a friendly stare. It looked like he detested her. It looked like he wanted to get up and choke her right there. It was very strange.” Parker added that she had received a threatening phone call from a man who sounded like Moss shortly after Mary’s murder. The caller warned that he would do to her what he had done to “that Mary bitch.”

  After hearing Pam Parker’s story, I wondered why the attorney general’s office had not spoken with her. Tom Reilly had also dismissed Jim Starrs’s DNA findings out of hand, without ever examining the results. If Mary’s murder case was open and active, then why wasn’t the attorney general pursuing these leads? I thought I knew the answer. Tom Reilly wanted Albert DeSalvo to be the Boston Strangler. He did not want to dig into the dark past of the attorney general’s office; his goal was to protect the institution. I believe that economics also played a role in Reilly’s decision against pursuing this case. If the state granted that Albert DeSalvo had not killed Mary Sullivan, it would be forced to reopen the other ten Boston Strangler murders. The cost of such an undertaking would be in the tens of millions.

  On December 24, 2001, Suffolk Superior Court Judge Guy Volterra dismissed our lawsuit against the state of Massachusetts, in which we had sought to obtain evidence and personal items connected to the murder of Mary Sullivan. “So long as the criminal investigation remains ongoing and the items are required as evidence, the plaintiffs have no right to possess that evidence,” Volterra ruled. Though I felt deflated by the decision, Dan Sharp reminded me, “We proved that Albert DeSalvo didn’t kill Mary. No court can take that away from us.”

  A few months later, in March 2002, the Massachusetts Board of Bar Overseers announced that F. Lee Bailey had been banned from practicing law in the state. The ruling followed similar decisions by the state of Florida and the United States Supreme Court that were based on Bailey’s mishandling of six million dollars’ worth of stock belonging to a client convicted of drug smuggling. Bailey’s disbarment was the first good news I’d heard since the DNA results. Meanwhile, I was wondering what to do next. There was little hope of holding Preston Moss accountable in a court of law. I did not believe authorities were serious about solving Mary’s murder. I had promised my mother when this strange journey began that I would find Mary’s killer, and Mom could not wait another thirty years for the truth.

  I believed that the truth was waiting for me in New Hampshire. Before departing on my ride north, I wrote letters to my wife and young daughter, telling them that no matter what happened, I wanted them to know that I had tried to do the right thing. I also told my baby girl that one day she might be called on to stand up for what she believed in, and I explained to Laura and Isabella that their love had made my life complete. I put the letters away in a drawer and hoped they would never have to read them.

  I did not know what to expect from a confrontation with Preston Moss. But I knew that if he felt threatened, there was a chance he would attack me. In the summer, Moss worked as a golf instructor at a resort in the White Mountains. I called the resort and spoke directly to him. Disguising my voice, I scheduled a golf lesson under the name Wayne Rose. Fortunately, there had been a cancellation, and Moss penciled me in for an afternoon lesson.

  The drive would take about three hours. I gassed up the Blazer and leafed through my collection of CDs. Santana was too mellow, Springsteen’s latest offering too somber. I opened the cover to the Eminem Show and slid the disk into the CD player. Later, I pulled over to the side of the road, placed my daughter’s car seat in the trunk, and peeled off the Elmo reflectors from the back windows. I also took off my wedding ring and put it in the glove compartment. I knew much about Preston Moss, but I did not want him to know a thing about me. I especially did not want him to know I had a family.

  I cut a path through Boston and followed Interstate 93 north. It was late September, and the leaves had just begun to turn color. The farther north I drove, the more spectacular the scenery. As my Chevy chewed up the miles, I thought about what my mother and I had been through. I knew the final answer lay ahead of me.

  The golf resort was right off the highway. I had never played golf in my life, but I sure did look the part of a golfer in my khaki shorts, golf shirt, baseball cap, and dark sunglasses. My man in New Hampshire had told me that Moss was paying very close attention to the Boston Strangler case and had seen me numerous times on television. I hoped my little disguise would work.

  Pulling off at the exit, I took a quick drive around the town where the resort was located, a quaint little village sprinkled with roadside shops. Norman Rockwell could have set his easel up here and painted a fine picture of Americana. It was beautiful, but it eerily reminded me of Orson Welles’s film The Stranger, in which Welles played a Nazi war criminal who tried to hide from his past by working as a teacher in a small New England town. Was Preston Moss also trying to hide from his past?

  It was almost one o’clock when I pulled into the resort parking lot. The golf course was busy. The temperature was nearly eighty degrees and the sun shone brilliantly in the sky. I took a deep breath and made my way to the pro shop. On my way, I spotted a golf cart pulling up ahead of me, driven by a man who looked like Moss. I needed more time to prepare myself. I ducked into the pro shop and stayed behind a rack of clothes, pretending to compare prices on golf shirts, when suddenly I heard a voice behind me. “Are you Wayne Rose?” the man asked. Preston Moss was standing there. “Uh, yes, I am,” I replied.

  Until now, I had seen only pictures of the prime suspect in my aunt’s murder. He appeared to be in his late fifties. His once bright red hair was now almost completely gray. Moss stood about five foot, eight inches. He did not look like a killer, but then, most Nazi war criminals looked like accountants.

  To my relief, Moss did not recognize me. “Do you want to work on your short game or your long game?” he asked. I had no idea what he was talking about. “I’d like to work on my short game,” I replied, hoping he wouldn’t ask me any more questions. “Great, I’ll get the cart and take you to your clubs,” Moss said cheerfully. I followed him outside and watched him put a bag of balls in the golf cart. Then he drove the cart back in my direction and pulled up alongside me. “Hop in, Wayne!” he said with a smile. I took off my hat and dark sunglasses. “My name isn’t Wayne Rose. It’s Casey Sherman,” I announced. Moss’s smile turned to a look of fear. His eyes grew wide, and his hands began to tremble.

  “I . . . I have nothing to say to you. You can talk to my lawyer,” he shouted.

  “Well, your lawyer’s not here, and I need to ask you a few questions about Mary Sullivan,” I replied, all traces of nervousness now gone. Preston Moss wasn’t the bogeyman I had envisioned for so long. He was just a pathetic creature runn
ing away from his past.

  “I said, talk to my lawyer!” he barked once again.

  “I don’t want to create a scene, Preston,” I said calmly. “But if that’s what you want, I’d be more than happy to.”

  Moss must have seen my point. He collected himself and began speaking in hushed tones. “I didn’t do it,” he insisted. “I remember going to your aunt’s apartment the night before the murder and hearing a strange voice coming from inside. I never saw him.”

  “Yet you were able to describe him to police,” I pointed out. The police had found Moss’s statement untruthful, and it was one of the reasons they had begun to investigate him as a suspect.

  “I . . . I don’t remember. That was a long time ago.”

  “Tell me, what were you doing the day of the murder?” I asked.

  “That I vividly remember. I slept in late, like most college kids do. Then I watched football on TV all day with my grandfather.”

  “Do you remember who was playing?”

  “No, as I said, it was a long time ago.”

  “Yes, I guess you’re right. Is there anyone who can vouch for your whereabouts that day?”

  “My mother and grandfather, but they’re both dead.”

  “So no one can corroborate your alibi?”

  Moss shifted uneasily on the seat of the golf cart. “I didn’t kill her! My mind was on my schoolwork. I had finals coming up. I studied all night and watched football the next day.”

  “Wait a minute. First you tell me that you visited Mary’s apartment the night before the murder; now you say you were studying all night. Which is it, Preston?”

  “Ah . . . talk . . . talk to my lawyer!” Moss responded, his stutter surfacing for the first time in our conversation.

  “Listen,” I told him, “we may have your DNA at the crime scene. We have witnesses; we have the lie detector tests. Here’s what I think happened, Preston. You broke into the apartment to find evidence that your girlfriend was cheating on you, but instead, you found Mary moving her belongings in. She caught you rifling through Pat’s letters and demanded answers. An argument ensued, and you turned violent and strangled her. What you did to her body afterwards, I cannot understand. You are an evil man. I promised to find Mary’s killer, and I may have, regardless of the fact that you’ll probably never be prosecuted. I know you did it.”

  Moss pleaded his innocence once again, and in a strange move, he extended his hand to me. I slapped it away, then turned and walked back to my car.

  While I drove home, I concluded iron bars were not needed to jail Mary’s killer. If Moss did it, then he was already in a psychological prison. He was being guarded twenty-four hours a day by a conscience that would not let him forget what he had done.

  It was now late afternoon, and the hazy orange skyline of Boston was just ahead of me. Normally, I would drive right through the city to the Southeast Expressway and home. But on this day, I made my way back to Charles Street, back to where it had all begun. Double-parking my Blazer on the one-way street, I stopped briefly at a flower shop. Then, walking the two blocks to 44A, I glanced up at my aunt’s apartment building and whispered a prayer.

  “You can rest now,” I said softly. I leaned down and placed a single rose on the front step. It was a rose for Mary.

  A few days later, still bothered by Moss’s alibi, I asked a colleague at WBZ to assist me in some research. Moss claimed he had been watching football on television the day of Mary’s murder. Could this be true? After leafing through a couple of thick sports encyclopedias, we found our answer. No college or professional football games were played or televised on January 4, 1964.

  Epilogue

  In October 2002, I called the attorney general’s office to offer investigators the evidence I had gathered against the prime suspect in my aunt’s murder. Gerry Leone having left the attorney general’s office to spearhead the state’s counterterrorism task force, I scheduled a meeting with his replacement, Kurt Schwartz. “I’m writing a book on the case,” I told him on the telephone. “If you’re serious about finding Mary’s killer, you’ll want to hear what we’ve uncovered.”

  On the day of the meeting, I waited in the reception area for more than an hour. Schwartz never showed up; his secretary said he had had to attend a meeting in western Massachusetts. I received a phone call from him later that day. At first, I thought he was calling to apologize for missing our meeting, but I was wrong.

  “I’m canceling the meeting,” he said.

  “Kurt, I have found the prime suspect. If you still consider her murder an open and active investigation, you have to meet with me.”

  “There will be no meeting, and that is final,” he stated.

  The Massachusetts attorney general’s office is trying to keep the Mary Sullivan case dead and buried. However, I will continue to compile evidence against the killer, for my mother and for Mary. When I began my investigation, I hoped to find the real Boston Strangler, but the Boston Strangler was a myth. Jack the Ripper had not been resurrected to stalk the women of Boston. In my search for one killer, I instead discovered there were many. George Nassar should be questioned in the killings of Nina Nichols, Ida Irga, and Jane Sullivan. Nassar may have also been the brown-haired man witnesses described in connection with the Evelyn Corbin murder. Other victims may have had other killers. Jim Mellon believes that one victim was murdered by her own son, and there is enough evidence to suspect Patricia Bissette’s lover and boss in her death. Sophie Clark’s killer was most likely a black man seen leaving her building the day of the murder, a man who later failed two lie detector tests in connection with the crime. Anna Slesers and Helen Blake may have been strangled by a housepainter. The fact that the painter was working outside the buildings of both women on the day they were killed is certainly suspicious. Finally, Beverly Samans’s killer may have been one of her mentally challenged students from the Fernald School. Daniel Pennachio’s confession to that crime was more accurate than was Albert DeSalvo’s. Until these murders are truly solved, the Boston Strangler case will haunt New England.

  Mary and Diane on the day of Diane’s First Communion. The two sisters grew to the best friends. (Courtesy of Diane F. Dodd)

  Mary and her boyfriend Nathan Ward attending her senior prom at Barnstable High School in 1962. (Courtesy of Diane F. Dodd)

  The portrait on the mantel. This photo both haunted and intrigued me when I was a child. (Courtesy of Diane F. Dodd)

  A crowd gathers in front of Mary’s apartment building on January4, 1964, after word spreads that the Boston Strangler has struck again. (Courtesy of the Boston Herald)

  Boston police carry Mary Sullivan’s body out of 44A Charles Street. (Courtesy of the Boston Herald)

  Charles Street as it looks today. The four-story building at left center is 44A (Photo by Casey Sherman)

  Albert DeSalvo, the selfconfessed Boston Strangler, posing with the necklaces he sold in the gift shop at Walpole State Prison. (Courtesy of the Boston Herald)

  George Nassar, the man many believe was on of the real Boston Stranglers. (UPI photo, courtesy of the Boston Herald)

  F. Lee Bailey, the charismatic young lawyer who was first brought into the Boston Strangler case to help broker a book deal for his client Albert DeSalvo. (Courtesy of Boston Herald)

  Massachusetts Attorney General Edward Brooke briefs reporters on the Boston Strangler Task Force in August 1964. (UPI photo, courtesy of the Boston Herald)

  John Bottomly, the former real estate lawyer brought in to lead the Boston Strangler Task Force. (Courtesy of the Boston Herald)

  James Mellon, an original member of the Boston Strangler Task Force, who has never believed Albert DeSalvo was the real killer. (Photo by Casey Sherman)

  Michael DeSalvo, the only son of Albert and a living victim of the Boston Strangler Case. (Courtesy of WBZ-TV)

  Elaine Whitfield Sharp speaking at the first news conference (left to right: Diane Sullivan Dodd, James Starrs, Casey Sherman, Dr. David Benja
min, Elaine Sharp, Dan Sharp, Richard DeSalvo, Tim DeSalvo). (Photo by Gaeton Cotton, Cottonphoto.com)

  Professor James Starrs (center) oversees the exhumation of Mary Sullivan’s remains. (Photo by Gaeton Cotton, Cottonphoto.com)

  The author confers with Jim Starrs at St. Francis Xavier Cemetery in Centerville, Massachusetts. (Photo by Elaine Whitfield Sharp)

  Diane Sullivan Dodd thanks Jim Starrs for volunteering on the case. (Photo by Gaeton Cotton, Cottonphoto.com)

  Massachusetts Attorney General Tom Reilly. (Courtesy of the Boston Herald)

  Bartering for blood: Richard DeSalvo answers the challenge by taking a DNA test. (Courtesy of the Boston Herald)

  Author’s Note

  All the characters in this book are real, but I have used pseudonyms for a few of them to protect their privacy. However, be assured that the Massachusetts attorney general’s office does know the real name of the prime suspect in my aunt’s murder. In recreating dialogue from the original strangler investigation, I have relied on the most credible witnesses to the events and the documents that I believe contain the most accurate accounts. Always my intention has been to remain faithful to the people written about in this book, and to the events as they really happened.