Episode 17 - The Boston Strangler

0:14 Welcome back to Crime Besties for episode #17 this week.

0:18 Hello, Emma. Hey, Meg, how's it going?

0:20 Good. How are you doing 'cause you've

0:22 been crook as crook as crook? Yeah, we've had to skip a

0:25 recording last week. Not that you guys will know

0:27 anything about that 'cause it will just flow into one another.

0:29 But yeah, yeah, I've been really, really unwell.

0:32 There's so much going around, but, and I, I kind of, I was a

0:34 little bit smug because we've kind of gotten through winter

0:38 without having any serious, like I've had a mild cold and I think

0:41 that was about the worst of it. Yeah.

0:44 But no, I I really got struck down.

0:46 For Oh, you were the weak count, yeah.

0:49 Yeah, belly surfaced for five days.

0:51 So anyway, I'm feeling a lot better now.

0:54 Still trying to get some of my energy back but.

0:57 We'll forgive you. We'll we'll Yeah.

0:58 Thanks. We'll take.

0:58 We'll take. You how?

1:01 How have you been? How the last couple of weeks

1:03 been for you? Missing my bestie, but you know,

1:06 we have survived. No, it's been good now.

1:08 I've been not too bad a week. Been busy of course with all the

1:11 usual stuff, but yeah, pretty good.

1:14 That's good. During my downtime, I had a bit

1:17 of time to, you know, listen to a few different podcasts and and

1:22 you know, I was just lying there on my deathbed and I came across

1:27 this really cool podcast called hysterical.

1:30 It's a wondery podcast and I find they produce really good

1:33 podcast. Like if I'm looking for

1:35 something off an old search for wondery podcast.

1:37 And that's actually how I came found this one.

1:40 It's really interesting. It's about, well, a, a very

1:46 small cohort of, of kids come down with a tick and a bit like

1:51 a sort of a Tourette syndrome type illness and they don't know

1:55 how it happened or, you know, and, and the podcast kind of

1:59 goes into the investigation of it and what.

2:02 Is it true? It's true.

2:03 It's true. Like, it's absolutely.

2:04 True in it's based in Leroy in New York.

2:08 OK, Really fascinating, really good listen, very well produced,

2:12 great podcast. Yeah.

2:13 Oh, I'm gonna check it out. Yeah, really, Where to go?

2:16 Interesting. Yeah, and while we're on shout

2:18 outs for things, I just wanted to give a shout out today to.

2:23 SO this lady is a school mum and we don't see that much of each

2:28 other. Our kids are in the same year

2:29 level, but you know, I'm down the other end of the school and

2:32 I don't come across her very often.

2:33 We are on the school council together.

2:36 But a massive shout out to Kim. She's been really lovely in

2:40 supporting us. And you had an interaction with

2:43 Kim the other day too. Yeah.

2:45 'Cause I don't, our kids aren't in the same year levels and

2:46 things like, so I don't know that.

2:47 Well, I just know that you've, you've pointed her out before

2:50 sort of thing to me. And yeah, coming out of the

2:52 basketball the other day and she, she bowled me up going, you

2:54 don't know me, but I know you, you do the podcast.

2:56 And that's like, oh, that's so gorgeous.

2:58 Yeah, she's so lovely. I love that sort of like women

3:01 supporting women's stuff. So thanks so much, Kim.

3:03 We really appreciate the support and the lovely feedback.

3:06 Yes, thank you. I just love that people are

3:08 actually enjoying it and, you know, like as much as we are.

3:11 Yeah. And like.

3:12 All like Kim, she has no obligation to listen.

3:14 So no, you know, unlike unlike our husbands and families.

3:19 So thanks, Kim, it means a lot. It really does.

3:22 Absolutely does. Yeah.

3:24 I just had one thing to add to. I came across something just

3:26 actually last night. It's a actually a petition that

3:29 I'm going to ask people to sign if you so are so inclined.

3:32 But also you do need to be a Victorian resident of Australia

3:35 to sign this petition. But a real call to arms, I guess

3:39 in this one, it's a very an interesting law that's only

3:42 exists still in a in Victoria and across the rest of the

3:45 country. This law doesn't exist the so

3:48 the petitioning for this law to be removed in Victoria as well.

3:51 It's very old to outdated. Law, I think.

3:55 So basically what the petition is, is around is this Emergency

3:59 Management days that prisoners can claim in Vic.

4:03 And what this has resulted in actually at the moment is during

4:06 the COVID lockdowns in Melbourne, which we were

4:08 extensively locked down. We were the most locked down in

4:10 all the country, I think. In the world, we were the most

4:13 locked down in the world. Give me a twitch, yeah.

4:18 Big time, which, you know, we were all impacted outside of

4:21 prisons in the free moving world.

4:25 We we were impacted by that. And you know, yes, there were

4:27 certain compensations in place, but prisoners apparently can

4:32 claim Emergency Management days and COVID lockdowns with one of

4:34 them. And they can they can claim as

4:37 much as four days per one day of inconvenience off their

4:41 sentence. That blows my mind.

4:43 So basically with just this is just in reference to COVID-19

4:47 that I'm speaking about here specifically, but this can be

4:49 relating to they can have in if there's industrial action, if

4:54 there's some sort of disruption or deprivation that they are

4:58 impacted by or an emergency, they can claim days off of their

5:01 sentence. But with the COVID lockdowns

5:04 that resulted in prisoners being able to claim in Victoria alone

5:09 360,000 days collectively off their sentences.

5:13 And that is equivalent to over 1000 years of jail time being

5:18 lessened for the for prisoners in Victoria.

5:20 Wow. So basically we, we can't do

5:22 anything about that. That's in the past.

5:24 But if we can remove this law, people who should be serving

5:27 their sentences will need to serve their full sentences based

5:32 on legal stuff rather than emergency lockdowns and things

5:35 like that be convenienced. For a prisoner.

5:38 Interesting. Yeah.

5:39 So if you I will put the link to the petition in our show notes

5:44 and on our our socials as well. But if you are so inclined

5:48 please. And a Victorian resident, it has

5:50 to be a Victorian resident. This petition's been done before

5:52 and Australia wide people have got together and signed this

5:55 petition, but the government will not look at it unless you

5:58 are a Victorian resident. OK, so they've had to redo the

6:01 petition for that reason and just ask Victorian residents to

6:05 sign. So yeah, I'll pop it in the

6:06 socials and and our show notes and please jump on and sign it

6:10 if you're so inclined. That would be great.

6:12 Yeah, I mean, sounds like an incredibly worthy cause.

6:15 I mean, what's the point in having a sentence if they can

6:17 just then be reduced and reduced for things?

6:20 I mean, if you're thinking about lockdown, I mean, hello.

6:22 We were imprisoned in our own homes.

6:24 Yeah. Yeah.

6:24 And. We didn't commit murders.

6:26 Yeah. And that's the other thing.

6:27 It doesn't matter what your you could the only prisoner that it

6:31 doesn't impact is terrorists, OK murderers, rapists, robbers,

6:39 anything anything else it impacts.

6:41 So, OK, unless you're a terrorist, you get the the

6:45 advantage of that, that being being able to be reduced on your

6:48 sentence. We'll.

6:49 Keep an eye out in the show notes and for sure yeah if you

6:52 feel like giving it a go. Yeah, jump on.

6:55 Thank you everyone. So what are we talking about

6:58 today? Yeah, let's move into our case

7:00 for today. So today we're gonna talk about

7:01 the Boston Strangler. Yeah, it's very interesting case

7:05 and good to find out at the end who who thinks they caught the

7:08 guy. Well, yeah, caught the guy.

7:10 And you didn't they? Didn't.

7:11 Yeah, I I mean, this one was a really new one for me.

7:14 So I'd have heard of the Boston Strangler.

7:17 Yeah. And I thought I knew a little

7:19 bit about the case, but it turns out I don't really think I knew

7:22 that much now that I've looked, now that we've looked into it a

7:24 little bit longer. It is one of those cases where

7:26 it's become so almost like pop culturalized that you know the

7:30 term the Boston Strangler but maybe don't know the insurance

7:34 and outs of. Absolutely.

7:35 That was my. Yeah, that's my.

7:36 Experience even I thought you'd love.

7:38 I found there was a little quote of the Boston Strangler being

7:41 used in The Sopranos. Oh, do you remember it?

7:44 No, I don't. So it was, I loved, it was

7:46 gorgeous. It was Camilla and her

7:47 mother-in-law. Yeah.

7:48 You know, I just love that relationship between the two

7:50 were there. I mean, that show and it was the

7:52 mother-in-law was like, you know, oh, who's that at the

7:54 door? And Camilla goes, oh, ma, it's

7:57 the Boston Strangler. Stop panicking.

8:01 I don't remember that reference. My favorite show of all time

8:06 Yeah. I mean, there's there's a lot of

8:08 references to pop in pop culture.

8:10 I know if you just have a look on the Wikipedia page for the

8:13 Boston Strangler, there's like a whole page worth of references

8:16 where it's been. Yeah, you know, referenced in

8:18 movies and, yeah, TV shows and stuff.

8:20 So for sure, yeah, there's a lot about it in the in the

8:24 vernacular, but I didn't know the insurance and outs of this

8:26 at all and I didn't even know sort of the the question marks

8:30 around the case. Yeah, yeah, for sure.

8:32 No, I didn't realize all of that side of it either until I

8:34 started looking into it more. So I mean, I watched a little

8:37 mini movie on it just to get my because I had, I just wanted

8:41 some reference points, you know, like, and that was the easiest

8:43 way to kind of do that and to get sort of knowing that that

8:45 potentially wasn't all fact, but as it went on, it was actually

8:48 quite factual, that one. Yeah, I know you watched the

8:50 more recent movie The Boston Strangler with.

8:52 Keira Knightley Yeah, it's a really good movie.

8:54 Yeah, if you're interested, yeah.

8:57 It's, you know, it's very well made.

8:59 And there was a companion podcast that went with it, which

9:01 was also called The Boston Strangler.

9:03 Yeah. And that was a really

9:05 interesting podcast that I listened to because the first

9:08 few episodes are more about the actual crime and what happened.

9:12 And then the last few episodes of the series was about how they

9:14 made the movie. Yeah.

9:16 So it was a bit of, you know, a bit of both.

9:18 So there's some facts in there, but the movie seems to be quite

9:21 true, true to real life events. So yeah, yeah.

9:24 Worth a watch if it's something that you're interested in for

9:27 sure. And it was only made last year

9:29 in 2023. So it's a a recent adaptation.

9:32 Yeah. And to be honest, when I've got

9:33 into it, like the story of it is so interesting that you can very

9:37 easily make a very easily watchable movie.

9:40 You know, that's entertaining because there's so many twists

9:42 and turns to this. Yeah, to this case, because it

9:46 was set back in the 60s. Well, I shouldn't say set back

9:48 in the 60s. This is reality, people.

9:49 It happened. It was.

9:51 So the first case that we're looking at was in 1962 when this

9:55 started. And I mean, so we didn't have

9:58 the technologies back then of what we do now to solve cases.

10:01 So it was, you know, on the ground, the cops doing the cop

10:04 work in terms of knocking on doors, finding witnesses.

10:08 You know, there wasn't DNA testing, there wasn't even

10:10 fingerprinting in, in those days.

10:13 So it was very difficult to find someone.

10:17 I believe too, from what I was reading that this is considered

10:19 the 1st of modern time serial killer case.

10:26 Yep. Yeah, So this is that's in

10:28 America. Sorry, Jack.

10:29 The ripple is probably the most worldly known one.

10:33 But yeah, the spots and stranglers, the first considered

10:36 in America. Yeah, to be the first serial

10:38 killer. And that's why I think there was

10:40 a lot of maybe conjecture around it or, you know, people were

10:46 were not quite sure because it was not like they'd seen

10:48 anything like this before. Or to have so many women

10:51 murdered in very similar ways with very similar MOS.

10:55 Yeah. So they certainly weren't in

10:57 criminal profilers, but in this state either.

11:00 I mean, although to be honest, looking back through what the

11:02 police, police did, they were profiling with, you know,

11:06 without knowing that's what it wasn't called that yet.

11:08 Absolutely. The FBI actually got it pretty

11:10 right. Yeah, we'll get into that a

11:12 little bit later. Yeah, for sure.

11:13 So the Boston Strangler murders, yeah, were attributed to a man

11:18 named Albert de Salvo. He was born on the 3rd of

11:21 September in 1931 and he came from a very interesting

11:26 upbringing. And I think this is something

11:28 that we talk about. We've talked about this.

11:30 I mean, we're episode 17. I reckon more than half of our

11:33 episodes we've talked about the early life of these criminals

11:38 and what they've gone through. And Albert de Salvo is

11:41 absolutely not that, that he's not an exception to the to the

11:47 rule that he's had such a traumatic upbringing.

11:50 No, I mean, I'm sure with what you looked at, you would have

11:52 seen some of the things that, you know, everywhere I went sort

11:55 of mentioned a little bit more about what he was exposed to as

11:58 a child. Yeah.

11:59 And each bit I was, like, mortified more and more.

12:01 Yeah. I mean as I read, I read

12:03 somewhere that he was made to watch his mum have her teeth

12:07 knocked out and then watch as his dad broke every single one

12:12 of her fingers. Apparently she was knocked out

12:14 at the time, like he'd punched her so hard that her teeth were

12:18 knocked out of her jaw. Yeah, and then he bent her

12:21 fingers back and broke every single one of her fingers.

12:26 His dad. He forced the children to watch

12:27 that too. Yep, like which is just.

12:29 So his dad's name was Frank. He also brought prostitutes into

12:34 the house and would perform absolutely revolting sexual acts

12:39 and also make his wife and his children.

12:43 Watch. Oh my God.

12:46 So when you look at who he became, like, it makes sense.

12:51 Unfortunately, like, doesn't it really?

12:52 It's just. Albert also had a history as a

12:56 youngster of torturing animals. And his crime sprees kind of

13:01 started with fairly low level robberies.

13:04 But, you know, it obviously escalated very, very quickly.

13:07 Yeah, as he as he grew up. But having said all of that,

13:12 when he was arrested, they did speak to his, well, obviously

13:16 his wife and family, friends, all those sorts of things about

13:19 who he was and they all said he was a really lovely man.

13:23 They did not actually suspect this of him and that they were

13:27 they knew of his past and things like that, but they were he was

13:31 very much in his home life depicted a man of I'm never

13:35 gonna let my family see what I saw.

13:37 I'm gonna make I'm gonna break the cycle kind of attitude.

13:41 And so instead of doing it in the home, he did it elsewhere.

13:44 His wife was said that he had the most loving relationship

13:46 with his children. He was really beautiful with

13:48 them and didn't want them experiencing anything of what he

13:51 experienced because it's real and his entire personality is a

13:55 contradiction in so many ways when we get into it.

13:57 We will get into that. But yeah, he very much in his

14:00 home life, he set up a very loving family life and had

14:04 friends and family who, you know, respected him.

14:07 The only thing that stood out from his wife of what she

14:10 commented on about him was that he had a very high sex drive.

14:13 Yep. That she struggled with a lot,

14:15 particularly after having children and things, and that he

14:18 didn't want to wait until she recovered and things like that

14:21 that she struggled with. Yeah, and that caused issues.

14:25 But but beyond that, which I'm not dismissing as being horrific

14:29 and awful to probably live with, really, he was generally a good

14:33 bike. Yeah, absolutely.

14:35 In life, even his brother. So his brother's obviously grown

14:38 up in the same environment as he has.

14:41 Yeah. And.

14:41 And isn't a perpetrator of crime.

14:43 It's. It should be well known.

14:44 Yeah. Out of, I think he had five,

14:46 there were five children in the family.

14:49 And he's the only one that we know of that's, you know,

14:50 committed these heinous crimes. Yeah.

14:52 But his brother even says that, that he would never have picked

15:00 it. He, he, you know, the police

15:01 came to interview his brother. And he's like, well, no, my

15:04 brother would never do that. He doesn't have that

15:05 personality. So even those, as you say, those

15:08 closest to him, his wife, you would think behind closed doors,

15:10 in the privacy of their own home, if something was going to

15:12 happen, it would happen. Typically that's where they do

15:15 it do their perpetrating. I mean, we always talk about,

15:17 you know, even on this podcast about the whole fact that the

15:19 first person you think of who's perpetrated a crime against a

15:22 woman is typically in the household with.

15:24 Their intimate. Partner, there's someone that

15:25 they know well, yeah. You know, so this this is a

15:28 little bit out-of-the-box on that, that he took it outside

15:31 the family home. But obviously it was that whole,

15:33 you know, oh, no, you can't do that in your family life.

15:35 You can't do that at home. I don't want my kids seeing what

15:37 I saw. But it's like if I still had it

15:39 in me, I have to do it somewhere else.

15:40 I have to get it out. Yeah.

15:42 And so he's taking it out elsewhere, which I have no

15:44 empathy for him in that. Oh, absolutely not.

15:47 Absolutely not. Just to give a little bit of

15:49 context as well to Boston at the time, this was around the time

15:53 that JFK was murdered and he was a Bostonian.

15:56 Yes, By the way, I love the Boston Oh my God sent.

15:59 But I literally have had it in my brain like I'm bad at this.

16:02 So my brain has literally had a Boston accent the entire last

16:04 two weeks do. You do you then try and speak it

16:07 and you can't do it. Yeah, I'm just, I suck at it

16:10 like, you know. In my head I can hear it, but

16:13 then I try and say it and I'm like, oh, it does not come out

16:16 like that. At all.

16:18 Oh no. Because every, every podcast,

16:20 everything I've listened to, every documentary I've watched,

16:22 everything I've read. Boston accent.

16:25 I know, right? But then so yeah, this is

16:28 completely an aside, total tangent here, but there's a

16:33 movie that Ben Affleck was in and he had to have a Boston

16:37 accent. Wasn't it goodwill hunting?

16:39 Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.

16:40 And apparently he worked with a dialect coach for, like, 12

16:43 months to try and get this Boston accent.

16:46 And then he had to. He was like, I couldn't break it

16:48 because as soon as I broke it, yeah, I couldn't then get it

16:52 back. Yeah.

16:52 So he lived for, I mean, you know, a bit of method acting, I

16:56 guess. But I'm like, well, if it's good

16:58 enough for Ben Affleck, maybe maybe we should give some

17:02 dialect coaching a go, Meg. Oh.

17:04 Man, all I can do at a Boston accent it's had.

17:07 Yeah. It's had.

17:08 It's all really had Don't come at me.

17:15 Oh no, we're gonna get some haters.

17:17 Totally. Ohh man, no.

17:18 Honestly though, like I know people always say I think the

17:20 Australian accent so like a sexy or whatever and I'm like ohh,

17:23 you do that, but I find a Boston.

17:26 Accent. Yeah, it's nice.

17:27 I don't hate it, no. I do not hate it.

17:31 Yeah, so JFK was murdered around this time and it had a massive

17:33 impact on Boston, Boston people. Really took it.

17:36 They really took it really, really hard.

17:38 Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

17:39 So that just gives it a little bit of, you know, where, where

17:42 the city was at in the era. Yeah, that this was sort of set

17:46 in. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

17:47 So I guess we should flag there a little bit like we're saying,

17:49 you know, Albert de Silva is like known as to being the

17:52 Boston Strangler. However, there are question

17:54 marks, so we will get to that. Yeah, that's it.

17:59 There's, there's question marks around it.

18:00 And I think you've already alluded to the fact that there

18:03 was not a lot of forensic evidence collected and there was

18:07 not a lot of things that these days we can then use to prove

18:10 that he committed these murders. Yeah.

18:13 So he was actually, well, I guess do you want to start off

18:18 with why he was originally imprisoned?

18:21 Yeah, yeah. So basically he was actually

18:24 imprisoned for a completely separate, a separate reason.

18:27 So a little bit of I guess we'll go, I'll go back a little bit.

18:30 There's a particular police officer named Phil Donnell.

18:33 Oh, God, I'm going to ruin his name.

18:35 Dinnetelle. Dinnetelle.

18:37 Yeah, Dinnetelle. And this he he was an incredible

18:40 detective. He was family was all police

18:43 officers. But yeah, he, he sounds like he

18:46 was a real determined detective to the point where he when he

18:51 started his career, he was he was so determined to make it

18:55 through and make it to detective as a young cop that he was told

18:59 he had to go down on the street and they need to to arrest a

19:04 purse snatcher. That was, you know, really

19:06 terrorizing the community. And so he went down and cross

19:09 dressed with another cop and they ended up arresting these

19:14 purse snatches by doing this cross dressing and standing

19:16 there with their purses. And then, you know, and then the

19:18 purse snatcher would come and take the that and grab their

19:20 purse and he'd bolt run off them and tackle them to the ground

19:23 and and get them. So he was incredible at his job.

19:26 He was really, really, he was out there to get the baddies,

19:29 you know. Yeah, I think one another one

19:31 was he him and one other cops. So just the two of them.

19:34 There was a group gang of about 5:00 or so young sort of

19:38 teenager, like older teenager kind of kids that were really

19:41 terrorizing community and they so these two cops went and, and

19:44 they actually tackled and beat up these 5 gang members and

19:49 arrested them and got them off the streets like.

19:51 So heard that. One, yeah, he was.

19:52 He was a pretty incredible cop. Like really wanted to the right.

19:55 He wanted the baddies off the street.

19:57 Yeah, so he got old fashioned. Good old fashioned police work

20:00 sort of stuff. Yeah.

20:01 And so he obviously built his way up to detective.

20:04 But this is the case the Boston Strangler that he was handed

20:07 that really got him in his career.

20:09 Like he this really annoyed him that he couldn't find who it was

20:12 that was that that was perpetrating these horrific

20:14 crimes. I mean, no women was were scared

20:16 in Boston. So there was. 13 women over

20:19 about 20 months, yeah, attributed to the Boston known

20:23 as the Boston Strangler now. Yeah, so he, you know, and women

20:26 were getting angry with the police for not having taken

20:29 someone off the street. So it actually got to a point

20:32 where the the murders had occurred and he was still trying

20:35 to find out who this who it was after they'd already ranked up

20:38 11 or so at this point. And he actually had a heart

20:41 attack. He was that stressed in his job

20:43 and everything. He had a heart attack and was

20:44 put in hospital. And whilst he was in hospital,

20:46 he happened to be put into the hospital where one of the, the,

20:50 the victims, Sophie Clark used to work.

20:54 And whilst he was in hospital, he was, he's thought, I'm going

20:56 to keep working on this case. And so didn't let him, didn't

20:59 slow him down at all. But he was, as he was working on

21:02 the case, the nurses were coming in and, you know, checking on

21:04 him and everything. And he would ask the nurses,

21:06 hey, did you know Sophie Clark? You know, because she worked

21:08 here and they would freak out, they would absolutely freak out

21:11 at this idea of Sophie Clark and what happened to her.

21:14 And after a number of times, he ended up getting a phone call in

21:17 the hospital from someone who let him know, stop asking the

21:21 nurses about Sophie because Albert de Silvo raped one of the

21:26 nurses. And they're terrified that he's

21:28 going to come and get them, that you've got to stop talking about

21:30 Sylvie Clark. They relate that to her to him,

21:32 and you've got to stop. And he was like, whoa, who's

21:35 that name I haven't heard of? And they had looked at thousands

21:38 of people in, you know, for this case.

21:41 So that was that was a new name to him.

21:43 He was like, well, I'll love a new name and need someone chase

21:45 him down and see who he is. And it turned out at this point

21:47 in time, he was already arrested and in prison for other rapes.

21:54 So that kind of lined up that this could potentially be him.

21:57 But his boss said drop it. It's not Elbert de Silva because

22:00 he was in prison for the two years of the Boston Strangler

22:04 murders. That's why we haven't looked at

22:05 him. He was, he was in jail.

22:07 So, so Phil D'antele went and did the the legwork, though.

22:12 He was like, I'm not dropping this.

22:13 I'm not listening to just being told that he was in jail because

22:16 this is not a computer system where you can just type in

22:18 someone's name and go, oh, that's where he was.

22:20 He was in prison at the time. It was all rooms filled with

22:23 files. You know, he had to go along and

22:26 find the file of Albert de Silva and pull it all out.

22:28 Went through it, going through who this guy was.

22:31 You know, the fact that he'd been arrested for, for these

22:33 other rapes was all in there. That's all great.

22:35 And then he found, finally, that he was not in jail in 1962

22:40 through to 1964. He was, in fact, released early.

22:44 Yeah, so I think he originally had, was it like an 18 month

22:47 sentence and he was out in five months or something?

22:50 It was something ridiculous. So good behaviour.

22:53 Yes, because he was, because he was so well behaved, because he

22:56 only perpetrated when he was raping these women.

22:59 Yeah, at this point was just rape.

23:01 Yeah. So what he would do is he would

23:04 pose as a like a repair man. Yep.

23:07 So a lot of the women attested to the fact that he was wearing

23:11 these like green work pants overall.

23:13 Sort. Of outfits, Yeah.

23:15 And he'd knock on the door and say, oh, the Superintendent of

23:17 the building asked me to come and paint your wall or asked me

23:20 to fix your tap or whatever. And he'd come in and he would,

23:25 you know, obviously then perpetrate crimes against these

23:27 women. Another thing that he would do

23:29 is he would knock. He would follow women.

23:32 So follows what he would, I guess, assume to be single

23:35 women. He'd follow them to their house,

23:38 knock on their door, and he'd be like, oh, I'm a model scout,

23:42 model agent scout. I need to measure you up and see

23:46 whether you're appropriate for, like, one of our campaigns, and

23:48 I can get you a modelling gig. And he would literally, like,

23:52 touch them up while he was measuring their thighs, and he'd

23:55 make them put leotards or swimsuits on so that he could

23:59 really get up there. And they said he touched

24:01 everything. Yeah.

24:03 So that's kind of how the crimes started.

24:05 He when he was doing that, he was known as the measuring man.

24:08 Yep. And then the.

24:10 Repairman was the green the. Green Man, all these names.

24:12 I know. But so it was for those crimes.

24:15 I mean, I say they're lesser. I mean, they're lesser crimes in

24:18 that. OK, yes, he didn't murder them,

24:20 but he's certainly sexually assaulted all of these women.

24:24 Yeah. And he ended up going to prison

24:26 for that. And there were witnesses to

24:27 those crimes too. So that was there was he was

24:30 able to be identified because obviously these women survived

24:32 those things. So he was able to be identified.

24:34 He definitely did those crimes. There is no.

24:36 And he thoughts about that, he confessed to that as well.

24:39 I mean, not that we'll get to the fact whether his confessions

24:41 mean anything or not, but he confessed to them.

24:45 There was one incident I heard of a woman who she really quick

24:49 thinker. He'd knocked on her door and

24:51 this was one of the repair the Green Man sort of incidents.

24:54 And he came inside and she said she just got like this really

24:57 weird feeling. And so she was like, oh, I'm

25:00 just going to go and get my husband.

25:01 He's sleeping in the room next door.

25:03 And with that, Albert left the building but went across the

25:06 hall and then perpetrated a sexual assault on the neighbour.

25:09 When he was ready and raring to go.

25:11 There was nothing going to stop him.

25:13 No, you know, obviously he's trying to lessen the impact if

25:15 there was a male in the house. But you know, even even still,

25:19 he was just relentless. Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

25:22 Yeah, yeah. So, so he was imprisoned for

25:25 these Green Man and measuring, measuring man crimes.

25:30 And so. Yeah.

25:31 Phil Denatale pinned him and kind of went right.

25:34 It's possible he is the culprit of the Boston Strangler murders,

25:37 too. I mean it sort of fitted as well

25:39 in that. Respect.

25:40 So I think he got out of prison less than a month before the 1st

25:45 Boston Strangler murder. That's right.

25:47 Yeah. Yeah.

25:48 So the timing really did match up.

25:51 And yeah, it was just kind of all the planets kind of aligned.

25:57 And thank God Phil Di Natale did what he did and was as dogged as

26:02 he was because it meant the end of what was an absolutely horror

26:07 20 odd months in Boston Women were scared thing.

26:10 You know, there was so much going on that you know, they

26:14 were scared to be alone and walking home.

26:17 And all of the crimes of the Boston Strangler were committed

26:20 on single women. The thing that I find

26:24 interesting about it is there was no, no particular look to

26:28 the women. There's no particular age to the

26:31 women. Yeah, You know, they were black

26:32 women. The youngest was 19.

26:36 The eldest was 85. Yeah, that's.

26:40 Where? It's a question mark begin

26:42 though, isn't it? Well, it it does.

26:43 Yeah, it does. So he wasn't in prison in 1962?

26:49 Yes, for those Green Man crimes, that was what he was in prison

26:54 for when Phil Donatelli put it all together and went I think

26:57 he's. The Oh, you're absolutely.

26:58 Right. So he was in prison originally

27:00 when, when they went, Oh no, he was in jail, It couldn't have

27:02 been him, but he got out early. He was in in prison for, again,

27:06 further other crim crimes that he had perpetrated.

27:10 So when Phil Donatelli had gone, I think he's our bloke.

27:13 By that point he was already in prison.

27:15 No, he wasn't actually in prison.

27:16 He was in Bridgewater State Hospital.

27:20 So he they basically had determined that he was insane

27:24 already and that when they were assessing him for that and so

27:27 that he could maybe not be put on trial for his case, his his

27:31 crimes, he would basically claim insanity.

27:35 Yeah. So the diagnosis, so he was 33

27:38 years old at this time, and his diagnosis was sociopathic

27:42 personality disorder marked by sexual deviation.

27:45 Yeah, yeah. And so that's what he was in.

27:50 Like this was the diagnosis in Bridgewater at the time, which

27:54 was a basically a prison hospital.

27:57 So his cellmate at Bridgewater was a guy by the name of George

28:03 NASA. Now he's an interesting

28:05 character. Isn't he?

28:07 So George, NASA was also a criminal, criminally insane,

28:14 criminally insane. So he was linked to the mob.

28:18 He was actually kind of their their go to man for all violence

28:23 and murder that they needed. He, when he was arrested himself

28:27 in his house, they found police uniforms, doctor's uniforms,

28:32 repairman uniforms, things that maybe if he wore a woman, might

28:36 allow that person into their home without too much question.

28:40 So that's interesting. He also lived at the time in the

28:43 South end of Boston, which is exactly in the middle of where

28:47 all of the Boston Strangler women were.

28:49 Yeah. Killed.

28:50 Yeah. So quite in the zone that of all

28:53 those sorts of things going on. So this man in some ways had

28:57 some characteristics, etcetera, that could also put him on the

29:01 radar for being the Boston Strangler.

29:03 And so these two men end up in a cell together.

29:06 And George had a very interesting lawyer named F Lee

29:10 Bailey, which we may remember that he was one of the many

29:14 lawyers that OJ Simpson also used.

29:16 He was a very famous lawyer in the States.

29:19 He's written a really great book called The Defense Never Rests.

29:22 Worth a read. Yeah.

29:24 So he he was his lawyer and he was like, there seems to have

29:28 been a bit of a push from George to to Albert de Salvo to confess

29:33 to the Boston's triangular murders to, to basically the

29:38 idea was that they could then make some money out of.

29:40 This. Yeah, Because there was a reward

29:41 out. Yeah, because the because the

29:43 public was so concerned about this.

29:45 As we were saying, it's the first serial killer case known

29:48 really within the United States. Families, women were terrified.

29:53 So the state decided to or the city, sorry, decided to put up a

29:57 reward for any information that would lead to the capture of the

30:01 Boston Strangler or the confession or whatever the

30:03 conviction of the Boston Strangler.

30:05 Yeah. So George decided he might like

30:07 to tuck into that little nest egg.

30:09 Yeah. And you know, I think he was

30:11 fairly reward motivated in. That and it wasn't.

30:15 It was very much noted in many places where I was looking that

30:19 he was an incredibly intelligent man.

30:21 Yes, very intelligent man and he knew that Albert de Silva was a

30:26 family man and very strongly a family man.

30:29 So he was able to manipulate a little bit of on that.

30:31 And he encouraged Albert at the point, saying that you're going

30:34 to jail for the rest of your life no matter what, but based

30:37 on these rapes that you've committed, you're in jail for

30:39 the rest of your life. Which ended up being true.

30:41 So you fought your poor family are going to be left high and

30:44 dry without you. Now, if we claim this money like

30:48 and split it sort of thing like by you confessing, that'll set

30:51 you, your family up and make sure that they're all taken care

30:54 of. So there's I'm just planting a

30:56 seed that maybe, maybe George NASA was the Boston Strangler.

31:02 So I think the whole thing is that perhaps he's given Albert

31:10 enough information that Albert's able to then use in a confession

31:13 and and things that only the murderer would know.

31:16 When, when, when Albert's confessed to these murders.

31:19 Yeah. But then, you know, more things

31:23 come to light a little bit later on that makes us know that, you

31:26 know, Albert actually was involved.

31:28 He was. Involved.

31:29 We don't know to what extent and whether every single one of

31:33 these 13 motors was actually attributable to Albert, but you

31:38 know, that remains to be seen. I, I definitely think that

31:43 George, there's too much coincidence for me to think that

31:47 George wasn't involved in some way in, in some of these

31:51 murders. And he knew things as well.

31:55 And I know they they would talk back and forth, but he knew

31:58 things that Albert didn't necessarily know about certain

32:02 murders and, you know, putting it all together crazy.

32:06 Crazy. It would already been out in the

32:08 media and by the police connecting kind of going now.

32:13 Is there one person perpetrating these crimes?

32:15 Because there was certainly there was absolute copycats as

32:19 well that the cops had found that there were murders where

32:22 like they'd arrive at the scene and it would have that would

32:25 have that signature of which was a piece of the woman's clothing

32:29 tied around their neck, usually a nylon stocking or a scarf or

32:32 something and tied in a particular bow which was

32:34 released in the media. So people knew that that was a

32:36 signature of this, these crimes. But there was certainly murders

32:39 where, oh, there was woman's been shot and then a a bow's

32:42 been tied around her neck to try and, you know, cover it up to be

32:45 like, oh, it must be another one of these Boston Strangler

32:47 murders. Oh, no, it was her husband.

32:48 Yeah. You know, there was certainly

32:50 murders around the city that there was, you know, no, that's

32:53 not the Boston Strangler of that.

32:54 So they're certainly not on the this list that we talk of like

32:58 11 to 13 absolutely murders that attributed to the Boston

33:01 Strangler. They were able to eliminate

33:03 those as being attributed to that though those crimes very

33:06 easily. Yeah.

33:07 But then are there certain, are there certain ones on this list

33:10 that we have of attributing to the Boston Strangler that maybe

33:14 also could be more than one person committing these crimes?

33:17 Yeah, I think there's enough difference in MO to to make that

33:23 really likely. Yeah.

33:26 So an FBI profiler much, much later.

33:30 So this is I think in the might have even been in the early

33:33 2000s, this FBI profiler looked at all of the crimes in the case

33:38 notes and they came out and basically said you're putting

33:41 together so many different patterns that it's inconceivable

33:44 behaviourally that all of these actions could fit one

33:48 individual. Yeah.

33:49 And so, you know, if you're looking at one person committing

33:55 all these crimes, like there were, there were certain murders

33:58 where a broom handle had been used to sexually assault the

34:02 victim and then in other cases that wasn't.

34:05 Yeah, what happened? It was actually the first five

34:07 murders who were all older women.

34:10 So the first, Anna Slesser, was 55, and then Mary Mullen was 85.

34:19 Nina Nichols was 68, followed by Helen Blake, who was 65.

34:26 Ida Erga was 75, and then Jane Sullivan was 67.

34:31 So all seven of those murders were older women, white, and

34:36 they had been sexually assaulted with objects.

34:40 That's right. They were not raped and

34:43 penetrated with a penis. There was no semen left in the

34:46 scene. So it's not until you get to

34:49 Sophie Clark, yes, who was 20 years of age, a black woman, and

34:56 she was raped, not assaulted with a foreign object.

35:01 So it there's a real change in MO in that one.

35:04 Or is that an escalation? Yes.

35:07 And that's so and that's that's where I think you know, they

35:09 don't, they don't know. No, it's, but there is a

35:13 definite change in shifting absolutely.

35:16 And so from then on it kind of jumps around a little bit with

35:18 each case. And that there are then multiple

35:20 ages and different ethnicities in terms of the victims for the

35:24 remaining, however, many 567 victims, 6 victims, culminating

35:32 in his youngest victim of 19 years of age, Mary Ann Sullivan.

35:37 This one's a really interesting one because Mary Anne's family,

35:41 so the podcast that I listened to, the one that was sort of

35:45 aligning with the movie, they actually interviewed Mary's,

35:52 Mary Anne's family, yes. Yep.

35:54 In it actually, maybe that was The Stranglers podcast, was it?

35:58 There's a spot of there's a Her nephew has written a book who

36:02 about it all, and he's been quite an activist in trying to

36:04 solve it. Yeah, he's the one I heard

36:06 interviewed. Yeah.

36:07 And yeah, he, he wanted this crime solved.

36:10 So they were working with the Bostonian police and they ended

36:15 up getting familial DNA, so from de Salvo's nephew and.

36:22 Ask how they got that because I think they just followed him and

36:26 pinched his drink water bottle or something.

36:27 Did they? I believe so why wouldn't they

36:29 just ask him for? It, I don't know, maybe they

36:31 were too worried that he'd say no, I think.

36:34 You could still follow him and pinch something.

36:36 Yeah, I think you should ask first.

36:37 Yeah, probably. I don't know whether they did or

36:39 not, actually. Maybe they did.

36:41 Who knows? It just got me.

36:42 I was like, why wouldn't you just approach him?

36:44 Yeah. But they didn't anyway.

36:46 So they they've then basically with the familial DNA and Mary

36:52 Sullivan's DNA and they had semen that was able to be

36:56 collected from Mary Sullivan's body at the.

36:59 Time on a blanket, I think from it, from the same, yeah, Yep.

37:02 Yep. And they put it together and it

37:05 was like 99.99%. But what they decided to then do

37:08 was exhume de Salvo's body. Yeah, because by this stage he

37:11 was dead. We'll get to that in a second.

37:15 And to confirm like literally without one shadow of a doubt, I

37:19 mean, it wasn't one, It can never be 100%, but it was like

37:22 99 point. No, no, no, no, no, no.

37:23 No, no, no, no. I think it was one to something

37:25 1 to 200 and million, 50 million or something.

37:28 Yeah, It was like, yeah, well, this is the guy.

37:30 There's no. Yeah, There's no chance that it

37:32 wasn't. Yeah.

37:32 So we know for sure, yes, that he definitely killed and raped

37:38 Mary Sullivan. Yes.

37:39 Mary Ann Sullivan. Yeah.

37:41 What? We don't know.

37:42 Is whether he perpetrated the other 12 odd?

37:45 Yeah, 12 or 10 depending. On yeah, depending on what you.

37:49 What you believe and what, Yeah, the crimes.

37:52 So it's, it's still up there. It's still open as to whether

37:57 he's, you know, committed the the other crimes.

38:00 Yeah, so because there was some, there's some interesting ones on

38:04 the the list of the the victims. Even like Sophie Clark, there's

38:08 a question over whether or not she was one of the Boston

38:11 Strangler victims because she was seeing a guy by the name of

38:15 Bob Payton at the time of her murder, who was a very odd guy.

38:19 He had taken her out. I don't think she was that keen

38:21 on him. And he had take he had she

38:23 sorry, she was had a she was had a fiance.

38:26 So this guy had taken her out just, you know, and she'd gone

38:29 as a friend kind of thing this, but this guy was very keen on

38:32 her, this Bob Payton and everyone was like, he's such a

38:35 creep. He's real weird.

38:36 And the police did question him, and he ended up failing 2

38:40 polygraphs. Now, not that you can submit

38:43 that as evidence. So obviously he wasn't arrested,

38:46 but there's definitely question marks over whether or not he

38:48 committed that crime. Yeah.

38:50 Another one that is quite questionable is Patricia

38:53 Bassett. Yeah.

38:55 So she was 23 and her her murder took place on December 31, 1962.

39:02 Now she was a young secretary working in a company and a guy

39:06 name of the name of Jules Rothman was the vice president

39:09 of the company and she was working as his sort of secretary

39:12 at the time. He was meant to pick her up that

39:15 morning and he went by and knocked on the door and she

39:17 didn't answer. And so he went on to work.

39:21 He got to work and felt a little bit guilty and was kind of like,

39:23 she hasn't rocked up, where is she?

39:24 I'll go check on her. So he rocked up, got the janitor

39:29 and asked him to help him get into the apartment.

39:32 And from what the janitor said, he walked into the apartment,

39:36 walked straight back out again and said quote, she's dead,

39:41 she's sorry. I'll get it right.

39:42 I'll find the exact quote so that I can say it correctly.

39:46 Where are we? Yes, she's dead and there's

39:48 stockings around her neck. OK, so that's what the janitor

39:52 said. He said by just walking in and

39:54 walking out again. And the janitor saw him do that,

39:58 turns out. Jules Ruffman was having an

40:01 affair with Patricia Bessette and he had a wife and kids and

40:07 it turned out that she had also was also one month pregnant.

40:11 Oh, I didn't know that. Yes, and he knew that she was

40:14 pregnant too, because he had been asking around some friends

40:18 and colleagues around how he could get a legal abortion.

40:21 Wow. So it was known that he knew.

40:24 OK, so, but not only that, this, the difference of this death was

40:31 that the way the body was placed.

40:32 Yeah. So she was played at the other.

40:35 Many of the women were placed very not, not nicely at all,

40:38 like quite exposed, all those sorts of things.

40:40 Whereas this body was sort of tucked up into her bed almost.

40:44 She had like pulled right up to the point where when that man

40:48 walked in and walked out again, he would not have known that

40:51 there were stockings around her neck.

40:52 That's it. You couldn't see it, so it was

40:54 the. 1:40 That I thought he didn't even walk in far enough

40:57 that he would have been like, you couldn't have just walked a

40:59 few steps into her, into her apartment and seen her.

41:03 So the, I guess the inference is that he already knew she was.

41:06 He already knew that. She was dead and already knew

41:08 that there were stockings around her.

41:10 Neck. Exactly.

41:10 So as and the. Fact that she was so covered yes

41:14 I mean we've spoken about this on previous podcasts as well it

41:17 suggests that somebody cared enough to do that and cover her

41:21 up whereas. The other victims were not

41:23 placed like that, opposite of that.

41:24 Absolutely some. I mean, you can go.

41:26 And have a look at crime scene photos they're in really, some

41:30 of them are in really explicit positions.

41:33 And there is, there's no, there's nothing covering them.

41:35 Like it's, it's absolutely horrific, awful, awful.

41:40 So yeah, there's some question marks those. 2 stand out for me

41:42 out of that list of the victims as to being whether or not

41:45 they're probably the least that I would attribute to the Boston

41:49 Strangler. Agreed.

41:50 Agreed. But there's also then that

41:52 shift. Of younger when women coming

41:55 into it later, when originally it was all older women.

41:57 Yeah. And that's where I kind of go I,

41:58 I feel like maybe there was two people.

42:00 I mean, if we eliminate those two entirely out of the list

42:03 like that, they were so go back potentially.

42:05 Yep. And then the other, the rest of

42:07 them, I sort of go. I think the older women may have

42:09 been, say, George NASA. Yeah.

42:12 And then the younger ones might have been Albert de Selvo.

42:15 Yeah. Like 'cause we know we know he

42:16 differently. At least killed, At least killed

42:19 the 19 year old Marianne. Yeah.

42:20 So, yeah, it's it's it's an interesting one.

42:24 Yeah. Both had opportunity, both were

42:29 in the right place at the right time.

42:31 Both have pasts that would be suggestive of something like

42:34 this and escalations that would potentially be leading to this.

42:37 I mean, George, NASA had committed murders, rapes, he

42:41 burglaries, he'd assaulted people like he had a rap sheet,

42:45 you know, that would absolutely potentially point to this as

42:48 well. Yeah.

42:50 So what what actually happened was so when Albert and George

42:55 were in the prison hospital together, they've decided then

43:00 that Albert's going to confess. I mean, let's let's go down.

43:04 That's that pathway. Albert has then confessed to to

43:08 these Boston Strangler murders and the police are asking him

43:13 questions. So they've obviously released a

43:14 lot of information to the the public and to the media.

43:18 We'll get to that in a minute because that's a really

43:20 fascinating sign and story what you've got on that.

43:22 Yeah. But.

43:25 So that, yeah, they've released certain information, but they

43:28 haven't released everything. So they're wanting information

43:31 that only the killer would know. Yeah.

43:33 And Albert fits the bill in some ways, like he's got some

43:39 information certainly about types of objects that we use to

43:43 penetrate the last few victims positioning of like the bed, for

43:48 example, in a room, like you're like, all right, describe the

43:51 room. You walk into it, what's where,

43:52 what's sitting where, where is the furniture?

43:54 There's suggestion that the police fed him some of that

43:57 information. Have you you listened to some of

43:59 the? Tapes yeah, I I agree with that

44:01 take on it I mean there's they say this sort of broke protocol

44:04 in how you interview somebody they they would definitely

44:06 suggest if. They were like, so the couch,

44:08 this one over here, was that the couch?

44:10 Yeah. And he's like, oh, yeah, yeah,

44:11 that was the couch. Oh, yeah.

44:12 No, it was on that wall, apparently.

44:13 I think there was the one particular.

44:15 Police officer, they wanted to interrogate him, who was so damn

44:18 good at this. And he would have been far

44:20 better. But they ended up with some guy

44:22 who was a bit bit shit and he balls it up.

44:26 Really. I mean, they wanted they wanted

44:28 him to. They wanted to believe that this

44:29 guy was the guy. I do.

44:30 I really think that in some ways, for sure.

44:32 Yeah. They, the questions really led

44:35 him. Yeah, he was definitely LED down

44:37 the path. Yeah, although he did also have

44:40 and volunteer information that only the killer would know or

44:44 the killer had fed to him in their prison cell or you have a

44:48 photographic memory and. You've seen a photo in the news,

44:51 but it's not been shown to you in that that room?

44:54 No, no. So.

44:56 Marianne Sullivan's nephew, Yep, in in investigating this and now

45:01 Phil Di Natale's sons, who have kind of taken this on for

45:04 themselves as well. Yes, they both say that there

45:07 were things that were they know categorically were never

45:10 released to the media. Yes.

45:11 That he knew. Oh yeah, yeah.

45:13 No, I agree that there was the. Photos and like like.

45:15 And then that which what they were then able, the police were

45:18 then able to back up with the crime scene.

45:19 One particular one was that under.

45:21 Like under a a chair was a packet of Marlboro cigarette

45:25 cigarettes. And they did ask him in the

45:28 interview, was there something under the chair?

45:30 Like. So that's leading as it.

45:31 There's something there. Yeah.

45:32 But what, what is it? And he said, and he said, oh,

45:34 there was a packet of Marlboro cigarettes, but I don't drink.

45:36 I don't smoke that brand. So I pushed him under the chair.

45:39 And there was another one in that same scene where he had, he

45:42 knew that she was on her period. Yeah.

45:44 And he had said, and they'd said there was something else next to

45:47 the body. And he goes, oh, yeah, tampon.

45:48 I'd pull that out first. So, yeah, just awful.

45:53 But he so he knew though there was particularly those two bits

45:55 of evidence they said only the killer would know.

45:59 Yeah. So there was another thing that

46:00 I thought was. Really interesting.

46:02 So the photos were in black and white in like the crime scene

46:05 photos. And in one of his accounts, I

46:09 can't remember which murder it was, but he was like, oh, the

46:11 couch was brown. Yeah, I think blue.

46:15 Oh, blue, blue, blue. Yeah, the couch was blue.

46:16 The couch was blue, but. The victim in her statement had

46:19 said that her couch was brown, brown.

46:22 And when they actually, so they couldn't tell by the photos,

46:25 they actually went back and had a look at the couch and turns

46:27 out he was right. She she'd gotten the couch the

46:29 colour of her couch, right. Yeah.

46:32 So. You know, there were things like

46:33 that that kind of really did add up to him going, oh, OK, well,

46:37 all these things kind of check out, but there were certain

46:39 things he got really wrong. Too.

46:41 This is the thing, Yeah. So there were certain.

46:43 Crime scenes where he nailed every aspect of it.

46:46 There were other crime scenes where he didn't.

46:49 Yeah, he had the positioning of furniture in the wrong space.

46:52 Well, he actually said that the first.

46:53 Those first. Victims where we said that they

46:56 were weren't raped, they were sexually assaulted with objects,

47:01 he said. He had raped them and that's not

47:03 what. That.

47:04 So the cops knew that that's not what had happened in those

47:07 scenes. So that was a real to me.

47:09 That's where there's that. I think he can be linked to

47:13 certain ones, but there's certain ones he can't be and

47:15 there. So are you basing that?

47:17 On the fact that there was no semen found, there was, yeah, no

47:21 semen found. And they were then they could

47:23 tell by what was. Yeah, how they've been.

47:27 How did they tell they not? Well, I don't.

47:28 Know like I'm just thinking if he hadn't, like what if he'd

47:31 raped them but not actually to the point where but he never

47:35 mentioned that he used objects. With them at all right, like he

47:38 never he that was never brought up in his statements like

47:41 although in the statement. About Mary Ann Sullivan.

47:44 He did confess to using a broom. That's right.

47:46 So yeah. Yeah.

47:47 Absolutely, yeah. That makes sense.

47:49 Those first ones he never he. Did not know that there were.

47:52 He was never mentioned that there were objects used in those

47:54 ones. Yeah, OK.

47:55 He only ever said that they were, that he raped them.

47:57 Yeah. Yeah.

47:58 So that. That's where I kind of go.

48:00 Yeah. Fair enough.

48:01 Yeah, there's a suggestion that perhaps he had multiple

48:05 personalities and like one personality committed the rapes

48:09 for the older women, another personality committed the rapes

48:12 for the younger women. Some one of them did the sexual

48:15 assaulting with an object. The other one, that whole thing

48:18 with the parents freaks me out like of like because.

48:20 The one personality doesn't know what the other personality did.

48:22 Is that, is that. Well, that's, that's the.

48:24 Yeah, that's the. Influence, yeah, like that, that

48:26 whole like. But then obviously.

48:28 If that was the case, he's had something in him because there

48:31 was enough similarity between all of these Yeah, crimes.

48:36 To link them in. Some way?

48:39 That's just, you know, one. Reason one thing that I've

48:42 heard, yeah, whether it's true or not, I'm getting back to the

48:45 reporting of this, though. So if you watch them, the latest

48:48 movie that we were talking about with Keira Knightley, it's

48:50 centered around The Record American newspaper, which was

48:56 the first newspaper to kind of put all of these crimes together

49:00 and come up with a name. Yeah.

49:02 And two female journalists were at the absolute cutting edge of

49:06 this. And you go girls, because in the

49:08 60s, you can imagine. So in The Newsroom, they were

49:11 doing lifestyle and reviewing toasters and, you know, products

49:17 and like, look, I look, I got my hair cut in this certain way.

49:21 And the two journalists named Loretta McLaughlin and Jean

49:27 Cole, they were dogged. They did not give up.

49:31 And they were incredible women. And they're the ones they, I

49:35 think they ended up writing, like in the hundreds of columns

49:40 about the Boston Strangler, but they're the ones who put it

49:42 together. Yeah.

49:43 And actually named the Boston Strangler.

49:46 Yeah. The Boston Strangler.

49:47 Yeah. I think there was other news.

49:49 Articles that were using the Mad Strangler yeah, lots of

49:51 different things, although the silk the.

49:53 Silk scarf strangler or something like that.

49:57 Boston Strangle's way better name, yeah.

49:59 Absolutely. But they were, you know, career

50:02 women in a time with children. Yeah.

50:04 In a time where, you know, that just didn't happen.

50:07 Yeah. It just didn't happen.

50:08 But, you know, they were incredible.

50:09 Loretta McLaughlin then went on to the Boston Globe, and she was

50:13 editor in chief of the Boston Globe by the end of her career.

50:16 Wow, she's in. I believe she's recently passed

50:19 away within the last few years. Yeah, but she lived into her

50:23 90s. Just an incredible woman.

50:27 But yes, so the movie really sort of centres around her and.

50:30 And how she sort of how the story came about.

50:32 It's a really, really cool. Yeah.

50:34 Story. Yeah.

50:36 The rest of the cases, I guess, aside from Mary Ann Sullivan,

50:40 remain open to this day. Yeah, so because.

50:43 Albert was never convicted of any of the any of the Boston

50:47 Strangler made murders, even the one that we know he committed.

50:51 Yeah, based on DNA, Mary Ann Sullivan.

50:53 But yeah, because so he was in, as we said, he was actually in

50:58 Bridgewater and he escaped. So he ended up turning himself

51:03 in. So he 24 hours later or

51:06 something? He escaped with two other

51:08 inmates. Yeah, yeah.

51:09 Yeah, and 24 hours later. Was like, oh, hi.

51:13 Yeah. So then they didn't.

51:14 Put him back into Bridgewater, then they put him into Walpole.

51:17 So instead so, but he went. So then he was in jail, not in

51:20 like in the the hospital. And I think it was six years

51:24 later he was murdered. We still don't know who murdered

51:28 him. So there's another little

51:30 question mark. He was stabbed.

51:32 To death in his cell. I mean, back, back in the what

51:37 would have been the 70s, there's no CCTV or anything like that

51:40 within the prisons. And I guess don't ask, don't

51:43 tell. Yeah.

51:44 Like no one was gonna fess up to it or say that they saw

51:47 anything. And but just to keep that

51:49 question mark. Over all of it.

51:51 So he had the day before his murder from the prison had rung

51:55 his psychologist who he had worked extensively with a

51:57 psychologist. I didn't think they were all

51:58 like, let me at this brain. I wanna find out how this thing

52:02 works. He had this really close

52:05 relationship with a psychologist and he had rung him the day

52:08 before to say, and the guy had said, look, you know, if you

52:12 want to speak to me, that's great.

52:13 I'll come down tomorrow. And his words to the

52:15 psychologist on the phone where I want to tell you the truth, he

52:18 actually even said it is. Urgent.

52:20 Yeah, he was really, really adamant.

52:22 He. Needed to speak to him.

52:23 Yeah. And so the the thought is that

52:26 he was going to confess that the confession was false and that he

52:29 wasn't the Boston Strangler of all the murders.

52:31 Potentially, yeah. And this is prior to anyone

52:34 knowing that he definitely killed Mary Ann Sullivan because

52:38 that was too early. But so at this point, he, like

52:41 we. Yeah.

52:42 The thought is that he was going to say something around whether

52:44 or not he did or didn't do certain certain crimes.

52:47 But yeah, he was murdered the very next day.

52:49 So did NASA put a hit out on him because he was going to go.

52:54 It's not me, it's George NASA. I mean what?

52:59 What? What would George NASA have to

53:00 gain? He was he was sentenced to life

53:02 in prison as well, too. Yeah, but I just.

53:04 I don't know. I think it was that he, he's an

53:06 interesting person. If you've watched any of the

53:07 interviews with him, he's an interesting bloke for sure.

53:11 Yeah. So whether or not I mean,

53:13 different criminals, you know, some people, some of them want

53:15 to own up to everything and confess to things they didn't

53:18 do. Others never want to be caught.

53:21 Maybe it's more a matter of different motivation.

53:23 Something. Absolutely.

53:24 And being known. For certain things, just really

53:26 quickly going back to. The taped recordings that you

53:29 can listen to and watch Do you find Albert de Silvo's voice

53:35 doesn't match his physical stature?

53:36 Not at. All.

53:39 I, I, I look at you a short man. I know, yeah.

53:42 Yeah, but even still, like. His voice is really a right

53:45 pitch that. It.

53:47 Yeah. It's like, really like, it's

53:49 really. Yeah, sort of juvenile, yeah.

53:51 Yeah, I. Found that really fascinating.

53:53 Oh, definitely. Yeah, yeah.

53:54 No, I. Found him really, like,

53:55 interesting. Yeah, yeah, for sure.

53:58 So I think that kind of brings us to the end.

54:01 There's not much more to say in conclusion to this.

54:04 We'll never know now. No, he's dead.

54:07 I mean. They've got his DNA in terms of,

54:09 you know, exhuming the body like, so that obviously if

54:11 anything changes in the future in terms of being able to test

54:13 anything from previous crime scenes.

54:17 But there's just nothing they collected because there wasn't,

54:19 they didn't, well, they didn't have the thought process of what

54:21 might come at that point, you know, of DNA testing and things.

54:25 It was just fortunate that they had Marianne Sullivan's DNA on

54:28 the on the blanket. It wasn't like they collected it

54:31 noticefully. No in that.

54:33 Sense to go, hey, we might be. Able to do something like this

54:34 with this in the future. So I mean really, I don't know

54:38 that we're ever there's no, there's no other physical.

54:40 Evidence that's been collected that they can test against, no.

54:44 So I think you know, other than George Nasser, who?

54:46 I well God is he, so he's he died in. 2017, right?

54:52 Yeah, right. Yeah, yeah.

54:53 So he's gone as well. So yeah, there's just.

54:55 I just don't think we're ever gonna.

54:57 Know the answer, but we're really interested to see what

55:00 other people think. So please let us know and let's

55:03 hope that we have. I mean, I know.

55:04 Definitely. I want more cops like Phil Donna

55:06 Talley, but I know he's both. I think his sons are all cops as

55:09 well and stuff. So too.

55:10 I don't know how many sons he's got, but I.

55:12 Know two yeah yeah. So I'm.

55:14 Yeah, I hope that they, well, I by all accounts they sent to you

55:17 as good as their dad and as as gung ho as him to find the

55:20 baddie so dogged like, Yeah. In order to be an investigator,

55:24 you, you just couldn't let it go.

55:26 And I don't think he ever let it go, I think, to be honest, I

55:28 think. He he died, he he got, he became

55:31 quite ill and he did pass away. Phil Dantele before it was

55:34 known, yeah. That he was right and that

55:37 Elbert Desalvo certainly was involved in the Boston

55:39 strangling murders. But.

55:42 Yeah, it's. I I know his son's all, you

55:44 know, kind of, you know, feel vindicated.

55:46 Yeah. Free for their dad.

55:47 That that that he was. He was on the right track,

55:50 that's for sure. So.

55:51 Absolutely. Yeah.

55:52 Oh, gosh. Let us know what you think.

55:54 Yes. And.

55:56 As we say every week, please like and subscribe to our to our

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56:17 every week and it it really motivates us to keep going and

56:20 keep keep the episodes coming along.

56:24 Next week, we will be releasing an episode about Karen

56:28 Ristevski. So this is a really that it's a

56:30 really, oh, it's a horrible situation.

56:33 Yeah. But stay tuned for that next

56:35 week. Thank you.

56:36 Thank you for joining us again. That is for sure.

56:40 Stay curious, crime besties. Bye.