Boston Strangler
The Boston Strangler refers to a series of heinous murders that took place in eastern Massachusetts between June 1962 and January 1964, during which eleven women were killed, leading to widespread fear and media frenzy. While not all the victims were strangled or killed in Boston, the media sensationalized the events, coining terms like "Phantom Fiend" and "Boston Strangler" to describe the presumed single perpetrator. The intense public pressure prompted the formation of a special task force by the Massachusetts attorney general to investigate these crimes, ultimately leading to the arrest of Albert DeSalvo in 1965 for unrelated charges. DeSalvo confessed to being the Boston Strangler, but he was never formally charged with the murders, and his confession remains questionable due to allegations of rushed judgments by law enforcement and the media. He was sentenced to life imprisonment for other crimes and was killed in prison in 1973, with his death remaining unsolved. The Boston Strangler case is notable for its impact on public perception of serial killers, media involvement, and the complexities of criminal justice. Subsequent analyses have debated DeSalvo’s true role in the murders, reflecting the ongoing intrigue and controversy surrounding this historical crime narrative.
Boston Strangler
Mass media epithet given to Albert DeSalvo following his dubious confession to the gruesome murders of eleven Massachusetts women that made him one of the United States’ most feared killers in the mid-1960’s.
Origins and History
From June, 1962, through January, 1964, eleven women were murdered in eastern Massachusetts. Although not all the victims were strangled or killed in Boston, local and national media assumed a single perpetrator for these heinous crimes and invented the epithets the “Phantom Fiend” and the “Boston Strangler,” which they used in their sensational and emotionally charged stories. Fed by a constant barrage of increasingly graphic and sensationalist newspaper and television stories, women in the greater Boston area lived in virtual terror of the killer, and the Massachusetts public demanded an intensified investigation by national, state, and local law enforcement agencies.
In 1964, in the face of the mounting pressure, Massachusetts attorney general Edward Brooke formed a strangler task force to coordinate the investigation of these murders that had occurred in five separate cities and three counties. The Commonwealth of Massachusetts offered a ten-thousand-dollar reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the murderer and, over a period of several months, received thousands of letters and telephone calls from all over the world.
In 1965, Albert DeSalvo, a married thirty-three-year-old laborer arrested for armed robbery and rape, confessed to being the Boston Strangler through his attorney, the flamboyant F. Lee Bailey, in an apparent legal strategy to avoid a life sentence in a maximum security prison. Bailey’s strategy backfired, and after a ten-day trial in January, 1967, DeSalvo was convicted of the armed robbery and rape charges and sentenced to life imprisonment in a state penitentiary at Walpole, Massachusetts. He was never charged with the Boston Strangler murders. In February, 1967, DeSalvo sent one last wave of panic through Massachusetts when he escaped from prison, but he was recaptured within forty-eight hours. His repeated appeals for a new trial were denied by the Massachusetts appellate and supreme courts.
Subsequent Events
DeSalvo had served six years of his life sentence when he was stabbed to death in prison in 1973. His murder remains unsolved, and no one has ever been charged with the murders attributed to the Boston Strangler.
Impact
From 1964 through 1967, the case of the Boston Strangler was the predominant crime story across the nation. It marked the first case involving a serial killer in which the mass media, state and national law enforcement officials, media-savvy and flamboyant attorneys, a terrified community, and a captivated national audience had all played a part. Subsequent research indicates that DeSalvo probably was not the murderer but rather the unknowing victim of a rush to judgment that served the interests of Massachusetts politicians, law enforcement officials, attorneys, and the mass media.
Additional Information
Susan Kelly’s provocative The Boston Stranglers (1995) makes a strong case against DeSalvo’s murdering all eleven women, while Gerold Frank’s The Boston Strangler (1966) contends that, though never convicted, DeSalvo was the serial killer.