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the Boston Strangler

VICTIMS

Deaths:   13       Attempts:   1
 
1) Anna Slesers / 55 / June 14,1962 / strangled by own belt
2) Mary Mullen / 85 / June 28,1962 / heart failure
3) Nina Nichols / 68 / June 30,1962 / strangled with stocking
4) Helen Blake / 65 / June 30,1962 / strangled by stocking & bra
5) Ida Irga / 75 / August 19,1962 / strangled
6) Jane Sullivan / 67 / August 20,1962 / strangled with stocking
7) Sophie Clark / 20 / December 31,1962 / ?
8) Patricia Bissette / 23 / December 31,1962 / strangled
9) Mary Brown / 69 / March 9,1963 / stabbed numerous times & beaten
10) Beverley Smans / 58 / September 8,1963 / strangled with stocking
11) Evelyn Corbin / 58 / September 8,1963 / strangled
12) Joann Graff / 23 / November 23,1963 / ?
13) Mary Sullivan / 19 / January 4,1964 / strangled with scarf

MOTIVES

A) suffered delusions of persecution and a hatred of his mother
B) a paranoid schizophrenic

QUOTES

(when asked by police,why he chose older women over younger women)
"Attractiveness had nothing to do with is...when this certain time comes on me,it's a very immediate thing.When I get this feeling,instead of going to work I make an excuse to my boss.I start driving and I start building this image up,and that's why I find myself not knowing where I'm going."
 
(an excerpt from his confession)
"I would go home and watch what I had done on TV.Then I would cry like a baby."

BOOKS & FILMS

The Boston Strangler starring Tony Curtis & Henry Fonda (1968)
The Boston Strangler by Gerald Frank (1983)
Murder Casebook:Investigations Into The Ultimate Crime # 5 (1990)
The Boston Stranglers by Susan Kelly (1995)

Full Name: Albert Henry DeSalvo
Alias(s): the Boston Strangler ; the Mad Strangler ; the Phantom Strangler ; the Measuring Man ; the Green Man
Birthdate/Birthplace: 1931 (Chelsea,Massachusetts)
Died:November 26,1973 - was found dead in his cell,stabbed in the heart

 
Spotlighted : June 2004
 
 
 
Capture:
On October 27,1964-DeSalvo had started to sexually assault a victim,but stopped and left after appologizing.The female victim gave the police a description;it was than printed in the newspapers where women who had been raped came forward identifying the picture of being of a man named Albert DeSalvo.It took two years for DeSalvo to become a suspect of the Boston Strangler murders-at this time,he was only being held on rape charges,but not too soon afterwards,he confessed to the murders.
Aftershock:
There was no evidence that linked DeSalvo to the Boston Strangler murders,but he stood trial for the rape charges and he was sentenced to life without parole in 1967.In 1973,DeSalvo was found murdered in his cell.