The true story behind Hulu's new crime drama, 'Boston Strangler,' a serial killer who likely murdered 13 women in the 1960s without leaving a sign of struggle
Ollie Noonan/The Boston Globe/Getty Images
- In the early 1960s, Boston was terrorized by a string of murders. The victims were all women and were often strangled to death.
- In 1964, while in prison on unrelated rape charges, a man named Albert DeSalvo confessed to all of the murders.
- A new Hulu film called "Boston Strangler" focuses on two reporters' efforts to catch the Boston Strangler.
For two years in the 1960s, Boston was terrorized by a series of brutal murders.
All of the 13 victims were women, they were usually strangled, there was never a sign of a struggle and it often took place during the day. Bostonians were terrified. Women bought guard dogs, moved houses, and set up telephone check-ins to ensure they were safe.
Eventually, a special police squad was launched to hunt for suspects. It was the region's most intensive investigation ever, but it wasn't just law enforcement that ended the search.
While in prison on unrelated rape charges, a man named Albert DeSalvo confessed to all of the murders. DNA evidence later tied him to at least one murder, but many people still don't believe he was responsible for all of the killings.
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This was a period when people left their front doors unlocked and the term "serial killer" was yet to be coined.
Sources: Chicago Tribune, Independent, Cape Cod Times
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Later, Albert DeSalvo would tell police that she died in his arms, and police speculated she must have died from fright.
It was still too early for people to draw any connection between the deaths.
Sources: Independent, Boston Globe, Chicago Tribune
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The other victim was a 65-year-old named Helen Blake, who lived in Lynn, Massachusetts, about 15 miles north of Boston.
Both had a stocking twisted around their neck when they were found.
Sources: Independent, Boston Globe, Chicago Tribune, Cape Cod Times
Phil Preston/The Boston Globe/Getty Images
Sources: Smithsonian Magazine, Cape Cod Times
Dick Fallon/The Boston Globe/Getty Images
They set up telephone check-ins with family members to make sure everything was okay through the night.
Criminologist and writer Erle Stanley Gardner, best known for creating the TV show "Perry Mason," described the city's panic for The Atlantic in 1964.
One woman told him: "What do you do about the door when you enter? You look in the closets, under the bed, and in the bathroom. If a man is in there, you want to be able to run out screaming for help. Therefore, you should leave the door open."
"But if you leave the door open while you are making a search what is to prevent the Strangler from following you in and standing between you and your means of escape when you first see him?" she said, according to Gardner.
Sources: The Atlantic, The Guardian, Chicago Tribune
John M. Hurley/The Boston Globe/Getty Images
There was also never a sign of struggle, and no one reported hearing any victim scream.
Sources: The Atlantic, Boston.com
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Sources: Smithsonian Magazine, Boston Globe
Sam Hammat/The Boston Globe/Getty Images
The Boston Globe described the suspect as "the phantom strangler" and noted that the killing had occurred in the same location as the first killing, indicating either a "macabre coincidence or the perverse irony of a warped mind."
On New Year's Eve, another victim, a 22-year-old woman named Patricia Bissette, was found murdered.
Sources: Smithsonian Magazine, Boston Globe
Daniel Portnoy/AP
They drew connections between the murders and published several details that until then had not been revealed to the public.
They hypothesized that the killings were done by a single man.
By February 1963, the pair had published 29 articles. They were taken off the job due to a mixture of politics from the paper's management and pressure from external forces.
Sources: Smithsonian Magazine, The Guardian
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Sherman, who was McLaughlin's nephew, told The Guardian that his aunt coined the term the "Boston Strangler" because unlike the "Silk Stocking Strangler" or the "Phantom Fiend," it fit a headline.
He said the media was responsible for promoting the idea that there was only one killer on the loose — "a Jack the Ripper-type character resurrected to stalk the women of Boston."
"But that really wasn't the case," he said.
He said several suspects were working independently, using details printed in the newspaper.
"A story about a serial killer certainly would sell more newspapers than stories about copycats who were committing murders for their own agenda," he said.
Sources: Smithsonian Magazine, The Guardian
Frank Curtin/AP
Bettmann/Getty Images
Sources: The Atlantic, Boston Globe, Cape Cod Times
Bettmann/Getty Images
Sources: The Atlantic, Boston Globe, Cape Cod Times
Samuel B. Hammat/The Boston Globe/Getty Images
Sources: Vanity Fair, Smithsonian Magazine
Joseph Runci/The Boston Globe/Getty Images
Sources: Vanity Fair, Smithsonian Magazine
Edward Jenner/The Boston Globe/Getty Images
Sources: The Atlantic, The Guardian, Vanity Fair
Ollie Noonan/The Boston Globe/Getty Images
Sources: The Atlantic, The Guardian, Boston Globe, Smithsonian Magazine
Paul J. Connell/The Boston Globe/Getty Images
Sources: The Atlantic, The Guardian, Boston Globe, Smithsonian Magazine
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Nassar was convicted of brutally murdering a gas station worker.
According to Nassar, the pair used to walk together through the prison center while DeSalvo recounted all of his crimes in gory detail.
Later, Nassar arranged a meeting between DeSalvo and his lawyer, a man named F. Lee Bailey, who would go on to become famous for defending OJ Simpson.
Sources: Chicago Tribune, Tampa Bay Times, Smithsonian Magazine
LeRoy Ryan/The Boston Globe/Getty Images
Sources: Chicago Tribune, Tampa Bay Times, Smithsonian Magazine
Paul Connell/The Boston Globe/Getty Images
But according to the Chicago Tribune, DeSalvo told the police about the victims, their belongings, their apartments, and their furniture — details that no one else could have known.
Before he confessed, he also asked the prison psychiatrist a strange question about how society might react to a person who was thought to have destroyed 11 bridges when he had actually destroyed 13.
The psychiatrist explained what he believed his question meant.
"In the human anatomy, the neck is a bridge, the connection between a center of great activity, the brain, and the outlying body," he said. "What DeSalvo was saying was that he had destroyed 13 people — the women — by destroying their necks.''
According to The Daily Beast, although many people point to the details DeSalvo got wrong, investigators were shocked by how much of it he had remembered since he was presumed to have raped hundreds of women in their homes.
Sources: Cape Cod Times, Chicago Tribune, Daily Beast
Frank H. Hill/The Boston Globe/Getty Images
Source: Smithsonian Magazine
LeRoy Ryan/The Boston Globe/Getty Images
Source: Chicago Tribune
Joe Dennehy/The Boston Globe/Getty Images
Sources: Washington Post, Chicago Tribune
Getty Images
Source: Smithsonian Magazine
Bettmann/Getty Images
Sources: Smithsonian Magazine, Boston.com, The Guardian
Bettmann/Getty Images
In the documentary "Boston Strangler Revisited," Thomas Troy, one of DeSalvo's lawyers, said F. Lee Bailey had cut a deal to publicize his confession to end the city's terror as long as it was never used in court.
"The Strangler's alive and well somewhere, and it's not Albert DeSalvo," Troy said.
But Phil DiNatale, the Strangler Bureau's lead investigator, said during the documentary it was DeSalvo.
"To this day, people say that he isn't — for what reason, I don't know," he said. "They can say that he isn't in one sentence, but I can produce document after document for days and days and show you that he is."
Sources: Smithsonian Magazine, Boston.com, The Guardian