Introduction
You live in a city paralyzed by fear when a series of brutal murders targets elderly women in their apartments. You read about a lone monster named the Boston Strangler, yet you face an investigation built on coercion, flawed psychological profiles, and a lack of physical evidence.
Susan Kelly challenges the official narrative in The Boston Strangler by examining twenty-five cartons of previously unreleased police files, court transcripts, and psychiatric reports. She demonstrates how intense political pressure and media sensationalism forced a multi-murder case onto one man, Albert DeSalvo, despite evidence pointing to multiple independent perpetrators.
You will discover how the investigation unfolded, how confessions were manufactured, and why the real killers remained free.
- Who committed the murders if Albert DeSalvo was innocent?
- How did a petty criminal become the most notorious suspect in American history?
- What secrets do the primary police files conceal?
1. A Time of Terror and Police Under Fire
The wave of murders began with Anna Slesers in June 1962 and created intense political pressure and public hysteria.
The string of killings started with the death of 56-year-old Latvian immigrant Anna Slesers. Her son Juris discovered her body in her Boston apartment after she failed to attend a memorial service. Her housecoat was ripped open, she was strangled with a cord, and she suffered severe head trauma and sexual assault.
Juris Slesers went to Apartment 3-F at 77 Gainsborough Street in Boston after his mother did not answer her door or appear in the foyer.
The murders exhibited disturbing rituals, such as ligatures made of stockings or clothing, sexual assaults, and bizarre positioning of bodies. Victims were typically found in their apartments, often strangled with nylon stockings or housecoat cords, with their clothing disarranged or torn. Some victims suffered blunt force trauma or had objects forced into their bodies.
Ida Irga, aged 75, was found with a pillowcase around her neck, a pillow under her buttocks, and her legs propped up on individual chairs facing the front door.
The failure of the police department to solve the high-profile murders triggered fierce political attacks on newly appointed Police Commissioner Edmund McNamara. Politicians and city councilors denounced McNamara, demanded investigations into the police force, and criticized plans to downsize the department while hysteria mounted across the city.
City Councilor William J. Foley threatened that Mayor John Collins would fire McNamara, and State Legislator Perlie Dyar Chase demanded an investigation of the Boston Police Department.
The string of murders created widespread terror, leading women to take extreme self-defense measures and buy up door locks and guard dogs. Newspapers published explicit safety advice from police and city officials, while elderly widows arranged for relatives to call them multiple times a day.
The Animal Rescue League pound was completely cleaned out of guard dogs minutes after opening each morning as frightened citizens sought protection.
You faced strict guidance from authorities as fear gripped the city:
- Make sure all doors are locked and if possible have a safety lock put on doors. Also check all windows to ascertain they are safely locked.
- Have superintendent or janitor in building make sure entrance door is securely locked.
- Let no one into an apartment until positive identification is established.
- Notify Police Department immediately if you see anyone in the neighborhood acting suspiciously.
- Remember the Police Department wants all information which may have a connection to any of those crimes.
2. The State Takes Over and Psychiatric Profiles
Investigators struggled to solve the premeditated murders because the perpetrators left virtually no forensic evidence behind. Police departments across Boston, Cambridge, Lynn, Lawrence, and Salem operated on the theory that they were hunting multiple killers rather than a single individual, but were thwarted by a lack of physical links to suspects.
Attorney General Edward Brooke centralized the investigation under the Strangler Bureau while a psychiatric committee formulated a profile of the suspect.
Former Boston Detective Sergeant James McDonald and former Commissioner McNamara noted that premeditated murderers intentionally avoid leaving evidence, making such crimes extremely rare to solve. During the 18 total number of bloody months between the first and last murders covered, 9 total homicides were committed within the Boston jurisdiction by the Phantom Fiend.
Massachusetts Attorney General Edward Brooke preempted municipal police authority to consolidate the Strangler investigation and stop jurisdictional infighting. Brooke centralized the murder investigation to prevent duplication of effort, pool investigative resources, and pacify the aggressive press, appointing Assistant Attorney General John S. Bottomly to run the newly formed Strangler Bureau.
On January 17, 1964, Brooke held a meeting in his office with the commissioner of public safety, state police captains, district attorneys, and local police chiefs to announce his unprecedented takeover. This gathering reviewed 14 strangling homicides taken over by the attorney general, involving 5 city police forces and 3 district attorneys' offices in the original jurisdiction, spanning 18 months of evolution.
The Strangler Task Force digitized and organized massive case files into dedicated casebooks while soliciting public and private assistance. Over thirty-seven thousand pages of material reproduced by Xerox were collated with the help of a local computer firm and divided into casebooks distributed across multiple agencies, while a dedicated post office box and phone line gathered thousands of tips from the public.
By mid-August 1964, the Strangler Bureau received one thousand letters and phone calls from around the world, including bizarre theories from various eccentric correspondents. Governor Endicott Peabody offered a 10000 dollars reward on March 23, 1964, while the bureau utilized designated post office box 1193 for public tips and designated telephone number 227-4600, Ext. 271 for the coordinator's office.
A medical-psychiatric committee concluded that multiple killers were responsible for the murders and constructed a psychological profile of the suspect. The committee headed by Donald Kenefick analyzed the victimology and crime scenes, concluding that younger victims were unlikely targets for the killer of the older women, and formulated a profile of a single, neat, orderly man with a dominating mother named Mr. S.
Margaret Davis and Modeste Freeman were deemed victims of separate fights or ordinary robberies rather than part of the signature strangling series, leaving 11 homicides retained for intensive study after eliminating outliers with an imitation factor affecting the 19 to 26 age range for the later group of victims.
The task force brought in a Dutch psychic, Peter Hurkos, whose involvement ultimately damaged the bureau's public credibility. Prompted by John Bottomly's associations and family pressures, the task force flew in Peter Hurkos under an assumed name to locate the killer, but his erratic behavior and subsequent legal troubles caused immense embarrassment and friction with the FBI.
Hurkos demanded to leave his hotel because the ghosts in a nearby Revolutionary War cemetery were screaming at him. This occurred 48 hours after hitting town before police officers pleaded to be relieved of duty, and only 2 days after arrival when Bottomly received confidential reports about Hurkos's legal troubles regarding his status as a psychic detective and special honorary assistant attorney general.
3. The Measuring Man and the Green Man
Albert DeSalvo committed a series of assaults as the Measuring Man and the Green Man before his arrest following positive identification.
Albert Henry DeSalvo was born on September 3, 1931, as the 3rd of 6 children born to Charlotte and Frank DeSalvo. His father subjected the family to extreme physical abuse, beatings with pipes and belts, and public humiliations, driving Albert into early juvenile delinquency, reform school, and repeated arrests.
Albert's brother Richard recalled hiding under the bed for safety while their father physically battered their mother and picked Albert up by the throat.
The father allegedly sold Albert and his sisters to a Maine farmer for 9 dollars. Albert committed his first recorded robbery for 2.85 dollars. He spent time at the Lyman School and the Williams School before completing two periods of active duty spanning from September 1948 to February 1956 as a Specialist E-5 in the United States Army.
Five months after marriage to Irmgard Beck, Albert was posted to Fort Hamilton. He later welcomed the 1960 birth of his healthy son Michael.
Back in Massachusetts, DeSalvo repeatedly committed daytime and nighttime burglaries, often to fund gifts for his family, while benefiting from revolving-door justice.
DeSalvo told a judge he committed specific burglaries solely to buy Valentine's Day candy and cards for his wife and daughter.
Operating under the alias Johnson, DeSalvo became known as the Measuring Man. Using the Black and White Modeling Agency name, he tricked young women into letting him take their bodily measurements before committing assaults. Cambridge police arrested him in March 1961 after an interrupted break-in on Broadway. Judge Edward Viola reduced his sentence to a 2-year concurrent term, and doctors diagnosed him as a sociopath.
While relatives viewed him as a dedicated family man, DeSalvo suffered from extreme sexual frustration and marital strain. He wrote a bitter personal reminiscence describing how his wife made him feel like an animal and destroyed his sense of manhood.
Clad in a distinctive work uniform, DeSalvo terrorized suburban homes as the Green Man. He entered houses under the guise of fixing plumbing leaks, robbing and assaulting women while binding them with scarves and clothing.
Suzanne Macht awoke in her Cambridge apartment on October 27, 1964, to find DeSalvo standing in her bedroom claiming to be a police detective. Geraldine Surette lived about 10 miles north of Boston in Wakefield.
Macht positively identified DeSalvo from an 8-man lineup. The Third District Court set 8000 dollars bail on November 3, 1964, leading to his arrest.
4. Confessions and Legal Maneuvers
George Nassar was arrested for the murder of gas station manager Irvin Hilton and subsequently defended by F. Lee Bailey. Rita and Diane Buote witnessed Irvin Hilton being shot six times and stabbed at a Texaco station in Andover on September 29, 1964, and later positively identified Nassar. Nassar was sent to MCI-Bridgewater in 1965.
F. Lee Bailey transitioned from aviation to law, rapidly becoming a prominent and flamboyant national defense attorney. At age 31 in 1964, Bailey won his first sensational case, the Torso Murder, securing an acquittal for George Edgerly, and later successfully defended Samuel Sheppard by securing a 10000 dollars bond for his release.
Albert DeSalvo confessed to being the Boston Strangler while confined at MCI-Bridgewater and represented by attorney Jon Asgeirsson.
Albert DeSalvo was evaluated multiple times by medical director Ames Robey and found incompetent to stand trial before revealing to his lawyers that he committed the stranglings. At age 33 during evaluation, DeSalvo spent 35 days in an initial court-ordered psychiatric examination. Albert DeSalvo told his lawyer Jon Asgeirsson that he was the Boston Strangler, comparing the magnitude of his revelation to the Brink's robbery and Jack the Ripper.
F. Lee Bailey met with DeSalvo through George Nassar, negotiated interrogation terms with police, and arranged a legal guardianship. Bailey met with police lieutenants John Donovan and Edward Sherry, who provided him with secret information about the murders to test the validity of DeSalvo's claims.
Attorney General Edward Brooke clashed with F. Lee Bailey over access to DeSalvo and control of the investigation. Attorney General Edward Brooke threatened to go to the Bar Association over Bailey's ethics in visiting DeSalvo without notifying his attorney of record, Jon Asgeirsson.
John Bottomly ultimately conducted the official interrogations of Albert DeSalvo regarding the thirteen murders. John Bottomly questioned Albert DeSalvo from August to September 29, 1965, obtaining confessions to the murders of twelve specific victims.
5. Trial Conviction and Media Exploitation
F. Lee Bailey's legal strategy during the 1967 trial was to admit that Albert DeSalvo was the Boston Strangler in order to prove him legally insane on lesser charges, but this backfired when the jury convicted him on all counts.
In January 1967 at Middlesex Superior Court in Cambridge, psychiatrists like Dr. James Brussel and Dr. Robert Ross Mezer testified about Albert's psychological state and confessions, while victims such as Suzanne Macht and Virginia Thorner testified to the assaults. Bailey reasoned that anyone who committed thirteen gruesome sex murders must be hopelessly insane, hoping a not-guilty-by-reason-of-insanity verdict would spare Albert a maximum sentence for the Green Man charges. Instead, the all-male jury, unwilling to risk letting a confessed mass murderer walk the streets, found him guilty on all counts, leading Judge Cornelius Moynihan to hand down a mandatory life sentence.
Albert DeSalvo signed a contract giving author Gerold Frank worldwide publishing rights in exchange for an advance, with proceeds handled by his guardian George McGrath. Albert DeSalvo signed a release on June 17, 1966, granting Gerold Frank the exclusive right to disseminate his literary properties in return for an advance of fifteen thousand dollars.
Albert DeSalvo and two fellow inmates engineered a remarkably simple escape from Bridgewater State Hospital in February 1967 before being recaptured the following day. Using a smuggled key, Albert, George Harrison, and Frederick Erickson left their cells, climbed down an elevator shaft under construction, scaled a twenty-foot inner wall and a thirty-foot outer wall into the snow, and fled. They relied on family members for money and shelter before Albert was captured in Lynn after hiding in a cellar.
Albert called his brother Joseph, who drove him to Richard DeSalvo's house in Chelsea for money and fresh clothes. Albert hid out near the Lynn General Electric plant before trying to use a phone at the Simon Uniform Store, where he was arrested.
In early 1967, the Boston Bar Association initiated a covert investigation into F. Lee Bailey's professional conduct regarding his representation of DeSalvo and his media activities. Special counsel Hiller Zobel investigated Bailey for potential disbarment proceedings, examining his handling of the DeSalvo case and his employment of former Strangler Bureau members Sandra Irizarry and Lt. Andrew Tuney. Assistant Attorney General Donald Conn successfully requested that the Bar Association hold its proceedings in abeyance so as not to interfere with delicate negotiations regarding potential Strangler indictments.
State prosecutors ultimately abandoned plans to indict Albert DeSalvo for the Strangler murders due to jurisdictional disputes, distrust of F. Lee Bailey, and complex legal hurdles. District Attorneys John Droney, Garrett Byrne, and John Burke each rejected the consolidated prosecution plan during meetings in May and June 1967, with Burke arguing that George Nassar was the real killer.
Following his conviction, Albert DeSalvo ventured into the music business with a spoken-word and poetry recording produced while he was imprisoned. C-C-M Productions released a recording based on a poem Albert wrote at Bridgewater titled 'Strangler in the Night.'
The 1968 Hollywood film adaptation of The Boston Strangler took extreme liberties with facts and police investigations, creating widespread friction with law enforcement. Actor Tony Curtis portrayed Albert DeSalvo and Henry Fonda played John Bottomly, leading real-world detectives to mock the cinematic depiction as a distortion of reality.
6. Legal Battles and Psychiatric Competence
Tom Troy built a dramatic public persona and a reputation as a fierce defender of outcasts. He earned the moniker helicopter lawyer when he arrived at Walpole prison by helicopter.
Tom Troy represented Albert DeSalvo in a federal lawsuit against movie studios and F. Lee Bailey over life story contracts and psychiatric competence.
Albert filed a federal lawsuit against Twentieth Century-Fox and the Walter Reade Organization to invalidate his previous contracts and account for funds from his life story. You can see the stakes in the amount of 2 million dollars for which the plaintiff was suing the defendants.
Tom Troy landed a helicopter on the lawn of the District Court in Dorchester upon passing the bar, and later used a helicopter to breach Walpole prison security to meet Albert DeSalvo. Albert testified before Judge W. Arthur Garrity on October 10, 1968, in U.S. District Court in Boston regarding the documents he signed in 1966.
Albert claimed F. Lee Bailey pressured him into signing documents without reading them under the guise that it would secure him a civil commitment to a mental institution. F. Lee Bailey utilized a fictitious name and account to handle funds generated from the sale of Albert's story. Under cross-examination, Bailey admitted that Robert McKay was a fictitious name used for a straw account where funds from Gerold Frank's book release were deposited and managed.
Forensic psychiatrist Ames Robey testified that Albert's mental illness and low education level made him completely incapable of understanding legal contracts or business transactions. Dr. Ames Robey, director of the Center for Forensic Psychiatry in Ann Arbor, testified on December 20, 1968, that Albert possessed a one hundred percent total photographic recall but lacked the capacity to execute financial documents.
Psychiatric consultant Robert Ross Mezer testified that Albert was entirely competent to understand and handle his own business affairs if explained simply by an attorney. Dr. Robert Ross Mezer testified about his interviews with Albert at Bridgewater State Hospital, noting Albert's ability to manage small transactions like cashing Veterans Administration checks.
Judge W. Arthur Garrity ultimately ruled in favor of the defendants Twentieth Century-Fox and the Walter Reade Organization, denying the plaintiff's request for an injunction and appeal. Judge Garrity held a private screening of The Boston Strangler for attorneys and the court before issuing his final judgment in January 1969.
7. Alternative Suspects and Grave Doubts
The complete absence of physical evidence and the presence of alternative suspects indicate that DeSalvo's confessions were a hoax.
Police captains, detectives, and investigators confirmed that not a single fingerprint, eyewitness, or piece of physical evidence placed Albert at any of the crime scenes. Descriptions of suspects, cigarette brands left behind, and composite sketches directly contradicted Albert's appearance and habits.
Marcella Lulka and William Ronalder described a light-skinned black man or a young man calling himself Thompson who looked nothing like Albert DeSalvo on the day Sophie Clark was murdered.
Albert possessed an extraordinary memory, which allowed him to absorb and retain minute details about the murders from various sources. Ames Robey and various detectives noted that Albert had 100 percent total photographic recall, enabling him to describe crime scene layouts and details effortlessly after visiting them or reading about them.
Ames Robey tested Albert by bringing him into a staff meeting with eight people, changing their clothes and positions the next day, and having Albert describe the previous day's meeting perfectly.
Albert had access to 6 excellent sources for the necessary data that allowed him to construct a plausible-sounding confession:
- highly explicit newspaper accounts;
- leaked police files and medical examiner press conferences;
- Albert's own visits to the crime scenes;
- suggestive hypnoanalysis sessions;
- leading questions asked by interrogators;
- the Strangler Worksheet.
Reporters Jean Cole and Loretta McLaughlin published exhaustive step-by-step breakdowns of crime scenes and a comprehensive facts chart in the Record American.
George Nassar exerted total dominance over Albert, acting as his adviser, literary agent, and ghostwriter for legal and media correspondence. Lawyers like Tom Troy and Francis Newton observed that Nassar completely controlled conversations with Albert, answered questions for him, and drafted sophisticated letters and complaints that were far beyond Albert's own literacy level.
Nassar wrote letters to lawyer P.J. Piscitelli informing him that Nassar would handle all book offers and manage the arrangement with reporter Steve Dunleavy.
Albert formally filed detailed grievances with the State Bar Association against F. Lee Bailey, alleging he was manipulated into signing away his movie rights. Albert claimed Bailey unethically served his own interests, misled him regarding the duration and contents of the release given to Gerold Frank, and failed to establish a legal guardianship despite knowing Albert was mentally incompetent to handle complex legal affairs.
On Christmas Eve 1969, Albert sent a letter to the Grievance Committee of the State Bar Association detailing how Bailey rushed him into signing a release while parked outside in a car, involving 15 percent of the profits promised to Albert by Gerold Frank, $15,000 option money paid by Fox, and the $185,000 purchase price paid by Fox for The Boston Strangler property.
F. Lee Bailey faced severe professional discipline and temporary disbarment after writing a complaint letter regarding judicial corruption that reached the press. Bailey defended publishing executive Harold Matzner and accused the prosecution of bribing witnesses. After sending a complaint letter to New Jersey authorities and legislators, it leaked to the newspapers, leading the New Jersey Supreme Court to suspend Bailey for 1 year from the practice of law in New Jersey.
On April 28, 1968, Bailey wrote a letter to New Jersey Governor Richard Hughes complaining about the railroading of Harold Matzner, which was subsequently printed in newspapers under shocking contempt.
Albert was brutally murdered inside his prison cell at Walpole State Prison in Block Ten after falling out with George Nassar and planning to reveal his life story. In November 1973, after cutting ties with George Nassar and expressing deep unease, Albert was found dead in his bed, stabbed multiple times in the heart and left lung in what authorities described as a professional execution.
On Sunday evening, November 25, Albert telephoned his brother Richard and sister-in-law Rosalie, and was found dead the next morning at 42 years old at the time of his death.
10 Key Ideas
- Susan Kelly demonstrates how intense political pressure and media sensationalism forced a multi-murder case onto one man, Albert DeSalvo, despite evidence pointing to multiple independent perpetrators.
- The failure of the Boston Police Department to solve the high-profile murders triggered fierce political attacks on newly appointed Police Commissioner Edmund McNamara while mounting hysteria gripped the city.
- Massachusetts Attorney General Edward Brooke preempted municipal police authority to consolidate the Strangler investigation under the Strangler Bureau and stop jurisdictional infighting.
- A medical-psychiatric committee concluded that multiple killers were responsible for the murders and constructed a psychological profile of a single, neat, orderly man with a dominating mother named Mr. S.
- Operating under the alias Johnson, DeSalvo became known as the Measuring Man and later terrorized suburban homes as the Green Man before his arrest following positive identification by Suzanne Macht.
- Albert DeSalvo was evaluated multiple times by medical director Ames Robey and found incompetent to stand trial before revealing to his lawyers that he committed the stranglings.
- F. Lee Bailey's legal strategy during the 1967 trial was to admit that Albert DeSalvo was the Boston Strangler in order to prove him legally insane on lesser charges, but this backfired when the jury convicted him on all counts.
- Tom Troy represented Albert DeSalvo in a federal lawsuit against movie studios and F. Lee Bailey over life story contracts and psychiatric competence.
- Police captains, detectives, and investigators confirmed that not a single fingerprint, eyewitness, or piece of physical evidence placed Albert at any of the crime scenes, indicating his confessions relied on sources like the Strangler Worksheet and leaked files.
- In November 1973, after cutting ties with George Nassar and expressing deep unease, Albert DeSalvo was found dead in his bed at Walpole State Prison, stabbed multiple times in what authorities described as a professional execution.