Boston Strangler – The Green Man

Behold, the Boston Strangler — one of America’s most notorious serial killers, but first …

Wow! It has been a year since the last posting of Alex Taylor Tuesday. I kept a few tucked away for a special occasion during the Grand Distraction™, er, I mean pandemic. I don’t mean to play it down. Serious business. The effect, however … well, let’s leave that wormy can closed and focus on this thing depicted above. I say “thing” because “person” or even “human” isn’t accurate.

DeSalvo kept an entire city on edge for years. My father spent three columns on this beast. You’ll read why. Oh, and there’s something a little more recent about this case further below.

Part I of the Strangler series appeared in the Gainesville Times, August 9, 1988.

TRANSCRIPT, PART I

Strangler held tight grip on Boston in ‘60s

Anna Slesers, a 55-year-old divorcee from the Soviet Union, was filling the tub for a bath when a knock on the door came. Pulling on a blue housecoat, she turned off the water and walked softly to the front of her third floor apartment. As she twisted the knob and slowly opened the door, Anna came face to face with a man known around Boston, Mass., as Albert H. DeSalvo. History will remember him as “The Boston Strangler.” Just before 6 p.m. on June 14, 1962, Anna was to be the first of his 13 victims.

Around 8 p.m. Anna was found sprawled on the floor between the kitchen and bathroom by her son, Juris Slesers, a research engineer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. When detectives and medical examiners arrived, they immediately determined Anna had been sexually assaulted, then strangled with the cord from her housecoat.

Veteran detectives quickly noted the crude attempt at arranging the crime scene as if a robbery had been committed.

No other good leads in the case were forthcoming and Anna’s death was listed as just another unsolved murder.

Then on June 30, Nina Nichols, a 68-year-old widow, returned to her apartment on Boston’s Commonwealth Avenue after a three-day visit out of town. She telephoned her sister, Marguerite Steadman, and was invited over for dinner. Mrs. Nichols said, “Excuse me, Marguerite, there’s my door buzzer. I’ll call you right back.”

The call never came, and at 7:30 p.m., Marguerite, unable to raise Nina on the telephone, asked the building janitor to go up and check on her sister. The janitor let himself in with a passkey and immediately noticed Nina’s nude body lying near her bed. Tied very tightly around her neck were two nylon stockings, which were also tied in a large bow. It was this homicidal “trademark” which detectives linked to Anna Slesers’ murder and which alarmed the officers. They now knew their murderer was a sexual psychopath who would continue to kill!

The pattern of killing would arrive even more swiftly than detectives thought. Two days later, on Monday, July 2, 65-year-old Helen Blake was murdered in the exact pattern as Anna and Nina, with the killer again strangling her with nylon stockings, then arranging them in a large bow.

As the crisis mounted, hysteria developed among Boston women and many would not venture beyond their front door. All police leaves were canceled and massive dragnets were ordered throughout the city. Radio and television reports warned women to lock their doors and admit no strangers. Known sex offenders were brought in for questioning and inquiries were made about patients who had recently been discharged from mental institutions.

With the police crackdown, the killings suddenly halted and an uneasy calm descended around Boston. Women began to venture outdoors and the police relaxed their furious assault on known criminals in the area.

But the horror was just beginning, for on Aug. 21, Ida Irga, a widow of 75, was found strangled with a pillow case, and her legs tied grotesquely to several chairs. The hysteria began all over, and the man whom attorney F. Lee Bailey would later call “a vegetable walking around in a human body” began killing with a sickening regularity.

Next week: The Boston Strangler and the courageous victim.

-Alex Taylor’s column on history and criminology appears in The Times on Tuesdays.

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Part II made its debut August 16, 1988.

TRANSCRIPT, PART II

Strangler’s last victim provided a needed clue

The uneasy calm around Boston, Mass., was shattered on Aug. 21, 1962, with the strangling death of 75-year-old Ira Inga, the fourth victim in two months. As the hysteria again mounted, newspapers referred to the killer as “The Boston Strangler” and a horrible criminal legend began.

More women were to die between August 1962 and January 1964 until the final total was 13 victims.

On Dec. 5, the strangler struck again, this time killing 20-year-old Sophie Clark, an attractive black student who lived in a small apartment. But Sophie did not die as easily as the previous elderly victims, and fought the strangler throughout the apartment. Alternately fainting then reviving and fighting, Sophie finally died as the strangler entered into a frenzy of violence.

On Dec. 31, 1962, the strangler murdered 23-year-old Patricia Bissette, who died among her scattered Christmas presents. Strangely, the killer was moved by Patricia’s kindness, for she had made coffee and chatted as if they were old friends . . . just before he viciously raped then strangled her.

For a brief period after the killing of Patricia, the killer showed a small measure of compassion toward his victims. Perhaps Ms. Bissette had aroused lost “human” feelings in the animal.

The killings continued, and on Nov. 23, 1963, the strangler murdered Joan Graff, 23, after sitting down and discussing the previous day’s assassination of President Kennedy.

But the killer again turned more vicious in his attacks, until Jan. 4, 1964, when he savagely murdered Mary Sullivan, 19, while mutilating her with a broomstick.

The police became increasingly alarmed, for they knew the killer was rapidly deteriorating as a functional human being.

Then, on Oct. 27, 1964, a young housewife saw her teacher/husband off to school, then returned to bed. As she lay dozing at 9:30 a.m., a man appeared at her door dressed in green slacks and large green sunglasses. Startled, the young lady began to back up, yelling, “You leave this house at once!”

The strangler said, “Don’t worry. I’m a detective,” then leaped forward, dragging her back into the apartment toward the bedroom. Producing a knife, he said, “Not a sound or I will kill you.” He then tied the terrified lady to the four corners of the bed. She began to struggle violently, causing the strangler to suddenly stop and stare at her in a strange manner. Almost as if he was embarrassed, the man said, “I’m sorry . . . you be quiet for 10 minutes.” With that, he got up from the bed and quietly left the apartment.

But the victim did not wait and quickly called police. In minutes, detectives were on the scene and had a good description and artist sketch of the suspect. One veteran detective immediately recognized the sketch as a person he knew as “The Measuring Man.”

Police records had a full account of the man, who began assaulting women in 1960, posing as an artist’s agent who measured women for “modeling” jobs.

With that information, a massive dragnet went out for Albert H. DeSalvo, now known as The Boston Strangler.

NEXT WEEK: The capture and interrogation of the Boston Strangler.

-Alex Taylor’s column on history and criminology appears in The Times on Tuesdays.

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Part III concluded the series on Tuesday, August 23, 1988.

TRANSCRIPT, PART III

Courageous victim identifies the ‘Strangler’

When a terrified young housewife fought off the Boston Strangler on Oct. 27, 1964, the beginning of the end for this madman was near.

Known to police as the “Measuring Man,” because he had posed as an agent for a modeling firm, Albert H. DeSalvo suddenly was wanted by every police officer in and around Boston, Mass.

But it was seven days before authorities would look upon the face of this animal, and on Nov. 3, 1964, DeSalvo walked into police headquarters in Cambridge and said he wanted to talk.

At first, DeSalvo vehemently denied attacking the young housewife, but she was there, watching from a two-way mirror in the interrogation room.

Trembling from both fear and anxiety, the courageous lady immediately identified DeSalvo as the source of her nightmare.Meanwhile, the police had sent out DeSalvo’s picture to other agencies and an avalanche of information began to pour into central files. Numerous other victims of sexual assault identified DeSalvo as their assailant, and some police agencies had even been looking for him as “The Green Man” because of his usual attire in green slacks and glasses.

The Cambridge authorities then brought in DeSalvo’s 30-year-old wife who said, “Al, tell them everything. Don’t hold anything back.” With that simple suggestion, the Boston Strangler sat back and began to relate an unbelievable story.

“I have committed over 400 breaks, all in this area, and there’s a couple of rapes you don’t even know about,” he said. The strangler then related how he had approached each victim, and how each had died. One victim, 23-year-old Patricia Bissette, evoked a kind of post-mortem sympathy from DeSalvo. “She treated me like a man. I don’t know why I killed her,” he said. Making one special concession to his victim, the strangler had covered her body with a bathrobe.

As police completed the enormous task of sorting out DeSalvo’s story, one important element began to emerge . . . there was insufficient evidence to charge him with the rape and murder of any of the 13 victims, other than his statement. He eventually was tried and convicted for armed robbery, assault and sex offenses against four women who were fortunate enough to have lived to identify him.

In 1967, DeSalvo was sentenced to life imprisonment at Walpole State Prison in Massachusetts. There, he often bragged of his “exploits” and signed autographs with statements such as, “I can’t wait to get my hands around your neck!”

Perhaps he bragged once too often and the special code of hardened prisoners was offended . . . for on Nov. 26, 1973, the 42-year-old strangler was found in his cell, dead from 16 stab wounds around the heart.

The self-styled “Beast of Boston” died face up on his bed, just as did most of his victims, staring into the eyes of his killer.

There are those around Boston who say the strangler is still alive, and that DeSalvo was simply a braggart who wanted fame as a criminal. Others say the animal died on his bunk, a victim of bad drug deals inside a notorious prison.

One thing is certain; there are other stranglers out on the streets, waiting for trusting and unsuspecting females who . . . well, you know the rest of the story.

-Alex Taylor’s column on history and criminology appears in The Times on Tuesdays.

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