Susan Kelly, the author of The Boston Stranglers: The Public Conviction of Albert DeSalvo and the True Story of Eleven Shocking Murders explains in her book why she believes he was innocent of the crimes. Kelly’s strongest case is that there was not a shred of physical evidence tying DeSalvo to the murders. He was deemed the Strangler purely based on his own confession. Another point is that eyewitnesses of the alleged murderer did not select him out of a lineup. In fact, in two cases, the women who had claimed that the Strangler had visited their apartments before moving on to the homes of his victims in the same building, chose DeSalvo’s cell mate out of the line up rather then him. It would be understandable if his features were plain and unmemorable, but DeSalvo was far from ordinary with his prominent, beak-like nose and brawny frame.
Kelly goes on to point out that even though eleven murders were attributed to the Boston Strangler, they could easily have been committed by several different copycat killers. Six of the victims were between the ages of 55 and 85, while the others were much younger women. Several of the women were strangled with scarves or stockings, some with the murderer’s bare hands, and not all of the victims were sexually assaulted. The sizeable variation in the methods by which these women’s lives were taken is not often typical of a serial killer.
Kelly may have some good points, but if the man wasn’t guilty, why in the world would he confess to being a vicious serial killer? Some feel that he was pressured to confess by his defense attorney, F. Lee Bailey, as a means to gain a “not guilty by reason of insanity” verdict. Even though the Boston Stranger was never mentioned during the trial, Bailey referred to the eleven victims, plus two others DeSalvo said he killed, numerous times, describing his client as having “a diseased mind,” and “one of the most crushing sexual drives.” Bailey goes on to explain that he planned to use the murders to his client’s benefit by showing “the extent of his insanity. To do this,” he said, “I would try to get both his confession and its corroboration by police into evidence. Certainly, the problem was unusual. I wanted the right to defend a man for robbery and assault by proving that he had committed thirteen murders.” His plan was unsuccessful, for DeSalvo was determined to be entirely sane and was sentenced to life in prison thanks to his defense attorney’s scheme.
