Between June 14, 1962 and January 4, 1964, 13 single women between the ages of 19 to 85 were

murdered in the Boston area. Most were sexually assaulted and strangled in their apartments by what
was assumed to be one man. With no sign of forced entry into their homes, the women were assumed
to have let their assailant in, either because they knew him or because they believed him to be an
apartment maintenance man, delivery man, or other service man. The attacks continued despite the
enormous media publicity after the first few murders that presumably discouraged women from
admitting strangers into their homes. Many residents purchased tear gas and new locks and deadbolts
for their doors.[2] Some women left the area altogether.[citation needed]

The murders occurred in several cities, making it unclear who held overall jurisdiction over the crimes.
Massachusetts Attorney General Edward W. Brooke helped to coordinate the various police
forces.[2][11] He controversially permitted psychometrist Peter Hurkos to use his alleged extrasensory
perception to analyze the cases, for which Hurkos claimed that a single person was responsible.[2]
Hurkos provided a "minutely detailed description of the wrong person," and the press ridiculed
Brooke.[11] The police were not convinced that all the murders were the actions of one person,
although much of the public believed so; the connection was widely discussed between a majority of the
victims and hospitals.[2]

On October 27, 1964, a stranger entered a young woman's home posing as a detective. He tied the
victim to her bed, sexually assaulted her, and then suddenly left, saying "I'm sorry" as he went. The
woman's description of her attacker led police to identify the assailant as Albert DeSalvo. When his
photo was published, many women identified him as the man who had assaulted them. Earlier on
October 27, DeSalvo had posed as a motorist with car trouble and attempted to enter a home in
Bridgewater, Massachusetts. The homeowner, future Brockton police chief Richard Sproules, became
suspicious and eventually fired a shotgun at DeSalvo.

DeSalvo was not initially suspected of being involved with the stranglings. It was only after he was
charged with rape that he gave a detailed confession of his activities as the Boston Strangler. He initially
confessed to fellow inmate George Nassar. Nassar reported the confession to his attorney F. Lee Bailey,
who also took on DeSalvo's case. The police were impressed at the accuracy of DeSalvo's descriptions of
the crime scenes. There were some inconsistencies, but DeSalvo was able to cite details which had not
been made public. However, there was no physical evidence to substantiate his confession. As such, he
stood trial for earlier, unrelated crimes of robbery and sexual offenses in which he was known as The
Green Man and The Measuring Man respectively. Bailey brought up the confession to the stranglings as
part of his client's history at the trial in order to assist in gaining a "not guilty by reason of insanity"
verdict to the sexual offenses, but it was ruled as inadmissible by the judge.

DeSalvo was sentenced to life in prison in 1967. In February of that year, he escaped with two fellow
inmates from Bridgewater State Hospital, triggering a full-scale manhunt. A note was found on his bunk
addressed to the superintendent. In it, DeSalvo stated that he had escaped to focus attention on the
conditions in the hospital and his own situation. The next day he gave himself up. Following the escape,
he was transferred to the maximum security Walpole State Prison where he was found stabbed to death
in the infirmary six years later. His killer or killers were never identified.

Prior to DNA confirmation in 2013, doubts existed as to whether DeSalvo was the Boston Strangler. At
the time when he confessed, people who knew him personally did not believe him capable of the vicious
crimes. It was also noted that the women killed by "The Strangler" came from different age and ethnic
groups, and that there were different modi operandi.

In 1968, medical director of Bridgewater State Hospital Dr. Ames Robey insisted that DeSalvo was not
the Boston Strangler, calling him "a very clever, very smooth compulsive confessor who desperately
needs to be recognized." Robey's opinion was shared by Middlesex District Attorney John J. Droney,
Bridgewater Superintendent Charles Gaughan, and George W. Harrison, a former fellow inmate of
DeSalvo's. Harrison claimed to have overheard another convict coaching DeSalvo about the
stranglings.[12]

DeSalvo's attorney Bailey believed that his client was the killer, describing the case in The Defense Never
Rests (1995).[2] Susan Kelly, author of the 1996 book The Boston Stranglers, accessed the files of the
Commonwealth of Massachusetts "Strangler Bureau". She argues that the stranglings were the work of
several killers rather than a single individual. Former FBI profiler Robert Ressler said, "You're putting
together so many different patterns [regarding the Boston Strangler murders] that it's inconceivable
behaviorally that all these could fit one individual."[13]

John E. Douglas, the former FBI special agent who was one of the first criminal profilers, doubted that
DeSalvo was the Boston Strangler. In his book The Cases That Haunt Us, he identified DeSalvo as a
"power-assurance" motivated rapist. Such a rapist is unlikely to kill in the manner of crimes attributed to
the Boston Strangler; a power-assurance motivated rapist would, however, be prone to taking credit for
the crimes.

In 2000, attorney and former print journalist Elaine Sharp took up the cause of the DeSalvo family and
that of the family of Mary Sullivan. Sullivan was publicized as being the final victim in 1964, although
other stranglings occurred after that date. Sharp assisted the families in their media campaign to clear
DeSalvo's name, to assist in organizing and arranging the exhumations of Mary Sullivan and Albert H.
DeSalvo, in filing various lawsuits in attempts to obtain information and trace evidence (e.g., DNA) from
the government and to work with various producers to create documentaries to explain the facts to the
public. Sharp pointed out various inconsistencies between DeSalvo's confessions and the crime scene
information (which she obtained). For example, she observed that, contrary to DeSalvo's confession to
Sullivan's murder, there was no semen in her vagina and that she was not strangled manually, but by
ligature. Forensic pathologist Michael Baden observed that DeSalvo also got the time of death wrong – a
common inconsistency pointed out by Susan Kelly with several of the murders. She continues to work on
the case for the DeSalvo family.[14]

In the case of Mary Sullivan, murdered January 4, 1964 at age 19, DNA and other forensic evidence were
used by Casey Sherman to try to track down her presumed real killer. Sherman wrote about this in his
book A Rose for Mary (2003), stating that DeSalvo was not responsible for her death. For example,
DeSalvo confessed to sexually penetrating Sullivan, yet the original forensic investigation revealed no
evidence of sexual activity.[15]

On July 11, 2013, the Boston Police Department released information stating that they had discovered
DNA evidence linking DeSalvo to the murder of Mary Sullivan.[16] DNA found at the scene was a "near
certain match" to DNA taken from a nephew of DeSalvo. To determine conclusively that it was
DeSalvo's, a court ordered the exhumation of his body in order to test his DNA directly.[17]

On July 19, 2013 Suffolk County DA Daniel F. Conley, Mass. Attorney General Martha Coakley, and
Boston Police Commissioner Edward F. Davis announced the DNA test results proving that Albert Henry
DeSalvo was the source of seminal fluid recovered at the scene of Sullivan's 1964 murder.