by Ray Black
Albert DeSalvo was born on September 3, 1931. His father, Frank DeSalvo, was a labourer and plumber and was married to Charlotte. The family lived in Chelsea, which was a poor, working-class area of Boston. Albert’s childhood was not a happy one due to the fact that his father was an alcoholic who physically abused his wife and six children. At the age of seven he witnessed his father knocking out his mother’s teeth and then, one by one, bending her fingers back until they snapped. As if this was not bad enough, his father sold Albert and two of his sisters as slaves to a Maine farmer for the sum of only nine dollars, but they managed to escape a few months later. The family were exceptionally poor and in order to survive Frank DeSalvo taught his children to steal, either by shoplifting. robbery or breaking and entering. Albert could remember times in his childhood when his father brought home prostitutes and had sex in front of his own children. Albert, desperate to bring some money into the home to help his family, resorted to selling his body for sex to homosexuals in the local community. His first sexual experience was when he wasabout ten and this undoubtedly played a great part in his unusual sexual appetite which eventually drove him to kill.
Albert’s father finally left the family in 1939 and his parents were eventually divorced in 1944. In November 1943 Albert was arrested on charges of assault, battery and the robbery of $2.85. In December he was sent to the Lyman Reform School for boys. On October 26, 1944, he was paroled and went to work as a delivery boy for a flower shop. However, his good behaviour did not last for long and by August 1946 he was back in the Lyman Reform School for stealing a car. During his teenage years, Albert was already showing signs of a perverse personality that is the signature of a serial killer. He liked to capture dogs and cats in milk crates and watch as the animals tried to kill each other. While the animals were fighting he liked to shoot arrows through the box and watch them die.
Charlotte remarried in August 1945 to Paul Kinosian and they had one daughter. Paul, unfortunately, was just like Albert’s real father, he had the same sadistic temper and loved to take it out on his stepchildren. So this wretched start to his life, being the product of an insanely brutal upbringing, gave the young DeSalvo an early taste for violence.
Albert left school in 1948 and enlisted in the army. He was posted to occupied Germany for five years and while he was in Frankfurt met a middle-class catholic girl called Irmgard and they were later married. Albert bought Irmgard with him back to the USA in 1954, where he was posted to Fort Dix in New Jersey. In January 1955, DeSalvo was charged with molesting a nine-year-old girl, but as the family declined to press charges, Albert was released from the army with an honourable discharge. Around the same time as the attack, Albert was experiencing sexual difficulties with his wife, forcing her to have intercourse with him at least five or six times a day. Matters went from bad to worse after the birth of their first child and, being short of cash, Albert decided to resume his life of crime. He was arrested twice of breaking and entering, but on both occasions received only a suspended sentence.
Due to his wife’s constant rejections, Albert started his career as the ‘Measuring Man’. The idea came from a television show where a photographer auditioned women who wanted to become models, by taking their measurements. Posing as a talent scout for a modelling agency, DeSalvo preyed on young female students. They would either allow him to take their measurements with their clothes on or fully naked, and he often got the opportunity to fondle her intimately in the process. Some of the students complained to the police but most, hoping to actually be signed up as models, didn’t take it any further. The police, noting that there was never any violence connected to the assaults, put the case right to the bottom of their list.
In 1960, despite their sexual problems, Albert and Irmgard had a son who they called Michael. On March 17, 1960, the Cambridge police arrested DeSalvo on suspicion of burglary and, while being questioned, he swiftly confessed to his role as the ‘Measuring Man. He was charged with assault, battery, lewd conduct and attempted breaking and entering, but was only actually convicted of the last charge. He was sentenced to two years in prison but was paroled after eleven months.
Possibly due to his period of incarceration, DeSalvo was now driven by sexual frustration to take a much more aggressive role. This time dubbed the ‘Green Man’ because of his green work clothes, DeSalvo started a two-year reign of sexual assaults that claimed victims in Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Hampshire and Rhode Island. It was later estimated that he had raped at least 300 women, but the real number claimed by Albert was probably closer to 2,000. He once bragged to having seduced six women in one day, spread over four different towns.
THE STRANGLINGS START
While the Police in New England were looking for the man responsible for the Green Man assaults, homicide detectives in Boston had a more serious case on their hands.
Fifty-five-year-old Ann Slesers lived in an apartment at 77 Gainsborough Street in Boston. On Thursday, June 14, 1962, Ann’s son Juris, was visiting his mother at her apartment. When he knocked on the door and received no answer, he automatically presumed that his mother couldn’t hear him and so he waited another thirty minutes dawdling up and down the street, and then tried again. When he still received no answer he became suspicious and decided to break down the door. At first he couldn’t find his mother but noticed that the drawers in her bedroom had been left open. As he entered the bathroom he discovered the body of his mother who was wearing a blue housecoat which had been left open at the front. She was naked from the shoulders down, and the blue cord from her housecoat had been tied round her neck in the form of a bow. Juris Slesers immediately called the police and the homicide division arrived around 8 p.m.
After inspection, the police concluded that an intruder had entered the apartment in an attempt to carry out a robbery, but upon coming across the old lady had felt a necessity to strangle her. Although there was no evidence of rape, her body had been sexually molested. Even though robbery was suspected as the main motive (due to the fact that the drawers in her bedroom had been ransacked), nothing appeared to have been taken as a valuable gold watch and other items had not been taken. There was no visible sign of a break-in, but her son told the police that there was no way his shy mother would open the door to a stranger, especially if she was only wearing a housecoat and did not have her dentures in. The police questioned over sixty people but could not produce any leads in this rather bizarre case.
Two weeks later, on June 30, 1962, the strangled body of sixty-eight-year-old Nina Nichols was discovered in her apartment. Like Mrs Slesers before her, she had been strangled with two of her nylon stockings, which again were tied in a bow around her neck. Her housecoat had been pulled up to her waist exposing her naked body, and there was evidence that she had been sexually molested. Just like the previous case, there was no visible sign of entry and, although the house had been rummaged through with items scattered all over the place, nothing of value appeared to have been removed.
With two virtually identical murders in the space of only two weeks, the Boston Police Commissioner decided to hold a conference of his department heads on Monday, July 2, 1962. Before the conference drew to a conclusion, the police received the news that there had been a third strangling.
This time the victim was sixty-five-year-old Helen Blake. It had all the markings of the other murders in that she had been strangled with a nylon stocking, but this time there was a bra looped through it. The bra straps had been tied in the form of a bow around her chin and once again there was no visible sign of a forced break in. When an autopsy was carried out on the body they discovered that Helen Blake had actually died on the same day as Nina Nichols, June 30.
The police were now aware that they had a serial killer on their hands who had an obsession with strangulation. They set up an emergency 24-hour hot-line and there was a lot of pressure put on the police to solve the case as quickly as possible.
The next murder was on August 21, 1962, se
venty-five-year-old Ida Irga, who was found strangled in her apartment in Boston’s West End. Again this had all the signature marks of the other murders with the exception of one thing – the body had been placed in a weird sexual position. This was to become the hallmark in DeSalvo’s future signature.
The women of Boston were now living in fear, scared to even be in their own homes. They put iron bars on their windows, added additional locks and put other security devices in their homes. Some women bought weapons while others resorted to getting guard dogs. With all the extra security, media hysteria and additional police patrols, it is hard to believe that the Boston Strangler was able to go about unheeded taking more and more victims.
On August 30, 1962, the strangled body of sixty-seven-year-old Jane Sullivan, was found in her apartment in Dorchester. Once again the autopsy showed that Jane had been killed just one day after Ida Irga.
The killer seemed to break his pattern when he murdered twenty-year-old black, Sophie Clark, on December 5, 1962. Another change was seen with twenty-three-year-old Patricia Bissette, who was strangled on her bed and then covered with a blanket up to her chin, instead of the usual bow around the neck. When twenty-three-year-old Beverly Samans was killed on May 6, 1963, the killer used a knife for the very first time. He stabbed his victim twenty-two times before tying the traditional nylon stocking around her neck. His normal pattern seemed to be restored in the murder of fifty-eight-year-old Evelyn Corbin, who was strangled and violated by an ‘unnatural’ assault, but the killer returned to young victims with the strangling of twenty-three-year-old Joanne Graff, on November 23. This time the assailant left teeth marks in the breast of his victim. The final victim, nineteen-year-old Mary Sullivan was discovered on January 4, 1964. She had been strangled with a scarf and there was the shaft of a broomstick protruding from her vagina.
POLICE INVESTIGATIONS
Two weeks after the murder of Mary Sullivan, Assistant Attorney General John S. Bottomley took over the Boston Strangler case. The first thing he did was to gather up all the information from the various police departments involved in the investigation and combine it all together. This resulted in a case report that consisted of 37,500 pages and the information was then filed onto a computer.
Even with all this information there was only one real witness to the Stranglers identity. On February 18, 1963, a twenty-nine-year-old German waitress opened the door to her apartment to a man who said he had come to fix a gas leak. The lady was still feeling the effects of a sleeping pill she had taken the night before, but decided she would let the man in anyway. As soon as she turned to walk away from him, the man leaped on her and attempted to strangle her. As they struggled on the floor she managed to bite into his hand, he let go and she screamed as loud as she could, alerting several people in close proximity. The man panicked and ran away. The petrified woman was unable to give a very accurate description of her attacker.
The police had now been on the case for over nineteen months and still seemed to be a long way off from solving the murders. Realising that regular methods were not giving results, they decided to enlist the help of an international psychic investigator by the name of Peter Hurkos. He had had numerous successes around the world, helping to solve as many as twenty-seven murders in seventeen different countries. Hurkos arrived in Boston in January 1964, and didn’t waste any time in helping to solve the case.
Hurkos used his psychic powers to give the police mental images of the crime scenes and a description of the possible killer. He would sometimes go into a trance-like state in which he would actually talk to the victims. The things he talked about in his trance were details that were only known to the police, so when he gave an accurate description of the attacker, the police followed it up. The man the police suspected was brought in for questioning but, although he fitted Hurkos’ description in every way, there were just too many points that could not fit the man to the crimes, and he had to be released. Unable to give the police any further help Hurkos left the country.
Now really desperate to solve the case, the police offered a reward of ten thousand dollars for information leading to an arrest. In March 1965 they did manage to catch their man.
THE ARREST
For nine months after the murder of Mary Sullivan, Albert DeSalvo carried out some three hundred sexual assaults on women, spanning from Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Rhode Island. He did not murder any of these victims, and one of them managed to identify him as the Green Man from police records. On November 6, 1964, DeSalvo was finally arrested. He was sent to Bridgewater State Hospital for observation, then on December 10 Albert was returned to jail in Cambridge. While in prison he showed disturbed behaviour and signs of suicidal tendencies. As his mental state further deteriorated he was returned to Bridgewater in February 1965, where he awaited trial for his offences under the name of the Green Man.
While at Bridgewater DeSalvo started to confess to the stranglings. His cellmate was a thirty-three-year-old violent criminal named George Nassar. They became friends and before long DeSalvo started bragging to Nassar about how he sexually dominated women, and eventually confessed to killing thirteen women as the Boston Strangler. Nassar contacted his lawyer, Lee Bailey, and told him that DeSalvo was now ready to talk to him. At first Bailey was reluctant to interview DeSalvo, but eventually agreed. Bailey first telephoned Detective Lieutenant Donovan saying that he needed to ask a man, who was claiming to be the Strangler, some questions. He needed to find out certain things in order to ascertain whether the man was actually telling the truth.
On the day of the interview, Bailey used a tape recorder as he asked DeSalvo about the murders. Albert went into great detail of how he had killed the women and even drew sketches of their apartments, and gave details of the big floppy bows he tied around their necks. In his confession Albert even told Bailey about two victims that had never linked with the Boston stranglings. One was eighty-five-year-old Mary Mullen, who had been found dead on June 28, 1962. Although the post mortem showed that Mary had died from a heart attack, DeSalvo claimed that the cause was shock when he invaded her apartment. The second victim was Mrs Brown, aged sixty-nine, who had been stabbed and beaten in her own home, but there was no sign of the stranglers ‘knot’.
Bailey was totally convinced that this man was indeed the Boston Strangler and contacted Detective Donovan handing over the tape containing details of the interview. Donovan then contacted the Attorney General’s office and the police were now convinced they had their man. Although it seemed like an open-and-shut case, there was still the problem of no solid evidence. There were no fingerprints at any of the scenes of the crimes and they had no witnesses, other than the German waitress, who was unable to positively identify her attacker.
UNSATISFACTORY CONCLUSION
The case against DeSalvo fell apart when the police could not supply any real evidence proving that he was the man that had committed all the stranglings. These could have just been the ramblings of an insane man. However, DeSalvo did still face trial for the Green Man crimes, for which they had plenty of evidence. Realising that he was never going to be released from prison, Albert wanted to be judged insane so that he could be committed to a mental institution and consequently receive psychiatric help. But DeSalvo’s new lawyer, Lee Bailey, was facing a difficult case in trying to prove that DeSalvo was insane at the time of the Green Man assaults.
At a pre-hearing on June 30, 1966, Albert DeSalvo was pronounced competent to be able to stand trial and was remanded without bail to Bridgewater Hospital.
The trial started six months later on January 9, 1967, at the Middlesex County Superior Court. There were ten counts of indecent assault and armed robbery, for which he pleaded not guilty to reasons of insanity. Despite psychiatrists testifying to DeSalvo’s mental sickness, the jury still found him guilty on all charges and he was sentenced to a life sentence to be carried out at Bridgewater Hospital. Bridgewater was far more a prison than a hospital and in an
attempt to get people to take notice of his cry for psychiatric help, DeSalvo, along with two other prisoners, escaped on February 24, 1967. Boston went into complete panic, but shortly after the escape DeSalvo calmly walked into a clothes shop and telephoned his lawyer to give himself up.
Now DeSalvo was committed to a maximum security prison in Massachusetts, still not receiving the psychiatric help he so desperately wanted. Six years later, on November 25, 1973, he was found dead in his cell. He had been stabbed in the heart as a result of, or so the authorities would have us believe, a prison fight. His killer was never brought to justice.
To this day, DeSalvo’s killer has never been found and, at the request of his family, his body was exhumed in the year 2000. It was hoped that it would give more evidence as to who actually killed him, but even more than that, that it would show some evidence that he was not in fact the Boston Strangler.
Although everything points to the fact that Albert DeSalvo was indeed the Boston Strangler, no-one can ever be really certain. There are beliefs that DeSalvo’s cellmate, George Nassar, may have been the killer and gave Albert all the details of his crimes. Others believe that DeSalvo, who was already facing many years in jail for the Green Man offences, made up his confession in the hope that it would lead to a book or a film deal which could take care of his wife and children.
As to the reason why DeSalvo supposedly committed these heinous crimes, when questioned on the subject he said . . .