HE WAS THE FIRST MAN LABELLED A ‘SERIAL KILLER’ BUT WAS NEVER CONVICTED OF THE CRIMES. DID THE AUTHORITIES GET THE RIGHT MAN?
BACKGROUND
Albert DeSalvo was a deeply troubled man so, in truth, it’s really no surprise to learn he’d had a terrible childhood. His drunken father had regularly beaten him as a small boy and later, attempted to sell him to a farmer for a few dollars. He was also forced to watch while his father had violent sex with local prostitutes. Love never came into the equation and DeSalvo grew up with warped sexual fetishes and violent fantasies.
Following his discharge from the army, DeSalvo was arrested for abusing a young girl, but her mother dropped the charges. He then moved to Boston with his wife and children, setting himself up as a handyman. DeSalvo had an insatiable sexual appetite and when his wife failed to meet his demands, he had to think up novel ways to satisfy himself.
He pretended to be a model agent scouting for new talent in order to get desperate young women to strip and show off their vital statistics, but things often became violent – girls were warned of the ‘Measuring Man’ and told to not open their doors to him. Police recognised DeSalvo from the victims’ descriptions, and he was tried and served a short term in jail. Soon after his release, the ‘Green Man’, a handyman in green trousers, started stalking single women, gaining entry to their homes and sexually molesting them.
In June 1962, a 55-year-old woman was found dead in her home. She had been strangled with a dressing gown cord that had been knotted in a bow around her neck. Her body had been posed in a grotesque position. Twelve more women were subsequently raped, murdered and arranged in obscene poses. As most of the women had died of strangulation, the media changed the moniker once again, referring to the sexual predator as the Boston Strangler, whose modus operandi appeared to be changing. Towards the end of his reign of terror, the violence increased exponentially, culminating in the final attack, that of 19-year-old Mary Sullivan, on 4 January 1964.
During the autumn, a surviving victim of a sexual assault described a man fitting DeSalvo’s description and he was brought in for questioning. The police quickly realised that he was the ‘Green Man’ and charged him with multiple counts of breaking and entering, attempted robberies and a series of sexual molestations. However, nobody considered him to be the infamous Boston Strangler.
BREAKTHROUGH
Whilst being assessed at Bridgewater State Mental Hospital, DeSalvo confessed to the serial murders but doctors had already concluded th
