THE HUNT FOR THE BOSTON STRANGLER
A BLOCKBUSTER ABOUT LORETTA MCLAUGHLIN, THE JOURNALIST WHO UNCOVERED THE SERIAL KILLER, IS ABOUT TO START FILMING
It was journalist Loretta Mclaughlin who gave a name to the infamous ‘Boston Strangler’ serial killer as his reign of terror swept across the Massachusetts capital.
The mother of three connected the dots between the killings, linking the murder of 13 women in the early 1960s to a single perpetrator, Albert Desalvo, and informed young women on personal safety.
Now her story is being turned into a blockbuster movie starring Keira Knightley as Loretta.
Desalvo’s horrific rampage began with 56-year-old Anna Elza Slesers. She was found, strangled to death by the belt from her own bathrobe, in her third-floor apartment near Boston’s Fenway Park on June 14, 1962. She had also been sexually assaulted.
Two weeks later, the strangler broke into another elderly woman’s home, and she died of a heart attack.
Nina Frances Nichols, 68, and Helen Elizabeth Blake, 65, were both sexually assaulted and strangled to death with nylon stockings in their respective homes days later.
It was the fourth murder that caught Loretta’s attention. She sensed that the deaths were connected and wanted to write more than just a single newspaper article.
“An editor disputed the worth of a series on the four dead women, noting that they were ‘nobodies’,” she wrote 30 years later. “That was it exactly, I felt. Why should anyone murder four obscure women? That was what made them so interesting ... sisters in anonymity, like all of us.”
Loretta’s instincts were correct and with a colleague,
Jean Cole, she co-wrote a series on the Boston Strangler murders for the Record American. Loretta would put her children to bed each evening and then sit at her typewriter late into the night, crafting the series.
As time went on the killings continued, and the two women fought industry sexism to keep the women of Boston informed and safe in the years the killer was at large.
At first, detectives believed it was a lone-wolf killer. Bizarrely in each case, there was no sign of forced entry, meaning that the killer was invited into his victims’ homes. Theories he was known to the
women in some way, or was a tradesperson, started to emerge.
To prevent becoming the next target, Boston residents bought tear gas and new locks or deadbolts for their doors in the hopes of warding off the would-be assailant. Some women even moved out of the area completely.
The strangler’s final murder was Mary Anne Sullivan, a 19-year-old who was found strangled to death and sexually assaulted in her apartment on January 4, 1964.
Desalvo was still at large – but he had stopped killing. Later that year in October, he posed as a detective to enter a young woman’s apartment. He tied her to a bed and assaulted her before suddenly leaving, saying: “I’m sorry.” Alive, the woman was able to report the crime and the description she gave police led detectives to Desalvo, a small-time criminal. When his photo ran in the local newspapers, more women came forward to share their brushes with the monster.
Desalvo went down as a serial rapist, but he still hadn’t been connected to the Boston Strangler murders until he confessed to inmate George Nassar, who told his lawyer he knew who the killer was.
When questioned, Desalvo admitted everything down to the smallest of details that had never been released to the public, but it still wasn’t enough to convict him of the murders. Instead of being convicted as the Boston Strangler, he was jailed for
‘AN EDITOR DISPUTED THE WORTH OF A SERIES ON DEAD WOMEN’
life for robbery and sex offences in 1967. Loretta, who had been following the case against Desalvo, was fascinated with the psychological aspects after he confessed to the strangler killings. Conspiracy theories began to emerge on whether Desalvo was framed or if he had an accomplice, but he was never able to answer these questions as he was stabbed to death in prison on November 25, 1973 for allegedly undercutting the price of amphetamines.
The Boston Strangler case, along with a report linking smoking to cancer, prompted
Loretta to focus her career reporting on medical matters. She was an early voice in identifying the AIDS epidemic and the calls for funding for research and treatment. She also went on to become the second woman to serve as editor of The Boston Globe.
Loretta passed away in her home in Milton, Massachusetts, in 2018 at the age of 90.
“Journalism was a natural thing for her,” her son Mark said about his mother. “She just loved getting up and going to work every day.”
The currently untitled film about Loretta and the Boston Strangler will begin filming in December in Boston and the surrounding towns. A release date is yet to be announced.