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ZONE 7: Inside the Boston Strangler Case · Crime Stories with Nancy Grace

0:08
Speaker 1: The Boston Strangler gripped a community. From nineteen sixty two
0:13
Speaker 1: to nineteen sixty four, at least eleven women were found
0:18
Speaker 1: murdered in the Boston city limits and surrounding area. Albert
0:23
Speaker 1: DeSalvo confessed to the eleven crops. He was murdered in prison. Later,
0:30
Speaker 1: the family of Mary Sullivan got DNA from her exhumed body.
0:35
Speaker 2: Two DNA tests.
0:36
Speaker 3: One was taken from the exhumed remains of Mary Sullivan
0:40
Speaker 3: and the exhumed remains of Albert de Salvo. The DNA
0:43
Speaker 3: found inside Mary's body did not match Alpert de Salvo.
0:48
Speaker 3: A decade later, the Boston Police Department conducted DNA testing
0:53
Speaker 3: on a blanket that was found inside Mary Sullivan's apartment,
0:57
Speaker 3: and that didn't match the DNA of a bloodline relative
1:01
Speaker 3: of Albert to Selbum.
1:03
Speaker 1: When I got involved in twenty ten, that's kind of
1:07
Speaker 1: what we said, Hey, you know, you've got a family
1:12
Speaker 1: here that got DNA from their relative, Mary Sullivan. They've
1:16
Speaker 1: done half the work for you. Exhume him, cross check it,
1:20
Speaker 1: and that's it. Then in twenty thirteen, three years later,
1:24
Speaker 1: that's what they allegedly did. They got a water bottle
1:28
Speaker 1: from a nephew and then exhumed Albert DeSalvo and said
1:34
Speaker 1: there was a match. But y'all listen to me. Now.
1:37
Speaker 1: We have a guest today. And when I tell you
1:41
Speaker 1: nobody knows this case better, I don't think anybody knows
1:44
Speaker 1: this case better. I met our guests in two thousand
1:48
Speaker 1: and nine, and at that time we talked about the
1:51
Speaker 1: geographical area of the crime. We talked about DNA tapes,
1:56
Speaker 1: families working on the case. You know. I went to
2:00
Speaker 1: Boston so that I could meet with him and meet
2:04
Speaker 1: with the children of the lead detective. I've even talked
2:07
Speaker 1: to Flee Bailey about this case when he was alive.
2:11
Speaker 1: And I'm just so excited today because you are going
2:16
Speaker 1: to be able to hear this story like you've never
2:18
Speaker 1: heard it ever and again for us. In twenty ten,
2:26
Speaker 1: after I met with our guest, Kasey Sherman, and I'm
2:29
Speaker 1: going to get to his intro in a minute, I
2:32
Speaker 1: met with the kids that were the sons of the
2:34
Speaker 1: lead detective. They allowed me to see their dad's in
2:38
Speaker 1: tire case file. There was really no other option, in
2:42
Speaker 1: my opinion, than to take the DNA from Mary Sullivan
2:47
Speaker 1: and cross check it with Albert Salvo. That was it.
2:51
Speaker 1: Forget whether or not he admitted to it. Forget what
2:54
Speaker 1: each family thought. That to me was the easiest plan.
2:58
Speaker 1: I had an opportunity to go to Boston. Number one.
3:04
Speaker 1: It's a great town. It's fantastic town. And when you've
3:07
Speaker 1: got somebody like Casey Sherman, who is a New York
3:10
Speaker 1: Times best selling author, y'all, He's written over thirteen books.
3:14
Speaker 1: Two of them are my favorite books of all time,
3:18
Speaker 1: one being The Finest Hour that was made into a
3:21
Speaker 1: motion picture with Casey Afflak and Chris Pine. The second
3:25
Speaker 1: one Boston Straw, that was also made into a film,
3:30
Speaker 1: Patriot's Day with Mark Wahlberg. So when I tell you
3:34
Speaker 1: this man can tell a story, honey, he can tell
3:37
Speaker 1: a story factually but not losing the heart of it. Y'all,
3:43
Speaker 1: remember the bombing at the Boston Marathon. Casey Sherman is
3:47
Speaker 1: the one that came up with Boston Straw. He wrote
3:50
Speaker 1: about it as only a son of that town could.
3:53
Speaker 1: I'm telling you gifted, brilliant. But when I met with him,
3:59
Speaker 1: he says, Okay, you know, come here, we'll talk about it.
4:03
Speaker 1: I will meet with you. But he didn't just meet
4:06
Speaker 1: with me. He said, Yeah, let your students read the
4:09
Speaker 1: book Arose from Mary that he wrote. Now, Casey Sherman again, y'all.
4:15
Speaker 1: He's a writer. He's written for Time Magazine, Esquire, The
4:18
Speaker 1: Washington Post, the Boston Harold. He is a family first person.
4:24
Speaker 1: He is gifted, he is smart, he's a storyteller. But
4:27
Speaker 1: I'm going to tell you he's also one of the
4:30
Speaker 1: most devoted investigative reporters I've ever dealt with. So I
4:37
Speaker 1: just want to welcome him to his own seven. Casey Sherman,
4:42
Speaker 1: thank you, Thank you for spending any time at all
4:45
Speaker 1: with us, and before you even really get rolling, thank
4:49
Speaker 1: you for telling this case like nobody else can.
4:54
Speaker 2: Oh, CHERYLT.
4:54
Speaker 3: I appreciate you having me on the show today, and
4:57
Speaker 3: you know, I'm very excited to talk to you and
4:59
Speaker 3: talk your white audience about, you know, one of the
5:02
Speaker 3: biggest cases in the history of American crime.
5:04
Speaker 1: And you know, I remember our first meeting. You were like, Hey,
5:07
Speaker 1: meet me at the you know, Prudential building. We're going
5:10
Speaker 1: to have lunch at Legal Seafood. I have never had
5:14
Speaker 1: a more sophisticated lunch with any meeting person on a
5:18
Speaker 1: gold case. Best clam chowder I've ever had in my life.
5:22
Speaker 1: But you know, I found you to be so open
5:26
Speaker 1: and so willing to share and so just upfront with
5:31
Speaker 1: this is what needs to happen on this case, and
5:33
Speaker 1: you cannot look at it black and white. You told
5:36
Speaker 1: me that then, even though I was like, Casey, look
5:39
Speaker 1: sitting with you, you have convinced me it's not Albert
5:43
Speaker 1: de Salvo. But when I sit with the sons of
5:46
Speaker 1: the lead detective, I'm convinced it was Albert de Salvo.
5:50
Speaker 1: So again for me, let's cross check that DNA. But
5:55
Speaker 1: here's what happened, y'all. I'm just gonna tell y'all straight up.
5:58
Speaker 1: I followed Casey after that, became a huge fan because
6:03
Speaker 1: of the way he writes and the way he tells stories.
6:07
Speaker 1: And it's undeniable when you sit with him on any case,
6:13
Speaker 1: the bombing, no matter what he's talking about, he's gonna
6:17
Speaker 1: captivate you. But again, Boston Strangler, we did what we
6:21
Speaker 1: did the Cold Case Institute. We were satisfied. We moved
6:25
Speaker 1: on until Casey Sherman, we're speaking at a conference. You're
6:33
Speaker 1: speaking ahead of me. So I thought I'm gonna go
6:35
Speaker 1: to his talk. This will be fun. I can't wait
6:37
Speaker 1: to see, and you freaking knocked me out. I could
6:44
Speaker 1: hardly even concentrate that I had to speak next for
6:48
Speaker 1: wanting to hear every word coming out of your mouth.
6:50
Speaker 1: So again, today means a lot to me, because in
6:53
Speaker 1: any cold case, y'all, there's gonna be twist, there's gonna
6:56
Speaker 1: be turns, there's gonna be things. You don't know. What
6:59
Speaker 1: I think fault was black and white might not be so, Casey,
7:05
Speaker 1: Why don't you take us just a little bit of
7:08
Speaker 1: background of how you got involved with Mary's case and
7:10
Speaker 1: then what you did with it and kind of where
7:13
Speaker 1: we're headed today.
7:15
Speaker 2: No happy to Sherylyn.
7:16
Speaker 3: You know, as an investigative reporter, you're always learning new information,
7:21
Speaker 3: and I think that is the responsibility of an investigative journalist,
7:26
Speaker 3: of an investigator, to continue to pour over evidence because
7:30
Speaker 3: there might be something that you missed that somebody else missed,
7:34
Speaker 3: that might make that tangible connection that hadn't been made
7:37
Speaker 3: years prior. So the reason why I got involved in
7:40
Speaker 3: this case, cheryln as you know, but for your audience,
7:42
Speaker 3: my aunt, nineteen year old Mary Sullivan was you know,
7:46
Speaker 3: for much of history, was considered the youngest and final
7:49
Speaker 3: victim of the Boston Strangler case. She was nineteen years old.
7:54
Speaker 3: She was murdered Insider apartment in Beacon Hill, one of
7:57
Speaker 3: the safest places in Boston, on Janie fourth, nineteen sixty four. Now, Cheryl,
8:03
Speaker 3: I didn't even know my aunt Mary. I was born
8:05
Speaker 3: in nineteen sixty nine, five years after she was killed,
8:09
Speaker 3: but I knew know the whole that her murder had
8:13
Speaker 3: left in my Irish Catholic family. Murder is multi generational,
8:17
Speaker 3: so it has a ripple effect going down generations. And
8:21
Speaker 3: my mother was seventeen when Mary was murdered nineteen sixty four,
8:26
Speaker 3: and she kept this, these questions that she had about
8:32
Speaker 3: the guilt or innocence of Albert ta Salvo for several years.
8:36
Speaker 3: And I remember seeing the Boston Strangler movie, the first
8:40
Speaker 3: one with Tony Curtis and Henry Fonda, when I was
8:42
Speaker 3: a teenager about to go to journalism school, and I
8:45
Speaker 3: thought I knew the story. So I asked my mother
8:47
Speaker 3: to tell me about Mary the next day, and she
8:50
Speaker 3: said that she had doubts about the guilt or innocence
8:53
Speaker 3: of Albert Tsalvo because not only was Mary my mother's sister,
8:57
Speaker 3: Mary was my mother's best friend, and they had planned
9:00
Speaker 3: to live their lives together. They were going to grow
9:02
Speaker 3: old together as sisters, and all that was stolen from
9:05
Speaker 3: my mother. So at that very moment, you know, I
9:09
Speaker 3: made it my mission to dig into this case and
9:12
Speaker 3: take me where the evidence led me to be able
9:16
Speaker 3: to kind of find out what really happened during those
9:20
Speaker 3: years in the nineteen sixties. And for years, you know,
9:23
Speaker 3: as I was researching this case, in literally interviewing every
9:28
Speaker 3: key witness that was still alive, including many of the
9:32
Speaker 3: murder suspects, the one key piece of evidence that had
9:35
Speaker 3: always been missing Cheryl was Albert Tsalvo's confession. He had
9:39
Speaker 3: confessed to the murders. He was already incarcerated for unrelated
9:43
Speaker 3: crimes in nineteen sixty five, and nobody could corroborate or
9:48
Speaker 3: contradict the confessions because nobody had ever heard them publicly before.
9:52
Speaker 3: In fact, they had been stolen from the evidence flocker
9:55
Speaker 3: at the Boston Police Department, and they went missing for
9:58
Speaker 3: forty years until I tracked them down, and they're sixty
10:03
Speaker 3: hours worth. They're now the subject of a brand new
10:07
Speaker 3: documentary on Hulu Peacock called The Boston strangler unheard confession
10:13
Speaker 3: and for the first time the viewers can actually listen
10:15
Speaker 3: to Albert T. Salvo talking about these murders in detail.
10:19
Speaker 3: The question I had was was he giving correct information
10:24
Speaker 3: in his confessions? And absolutely he was not. He was
10:28
Speaker 3: confessing to events that never happened. And I'm so glad, Cheryl,
10:32
Speaker 3: that you mentioned DNA because in two thousand, not only
10:35
Speaker 3: did I have the confession tape, which to me exonerated
10:40
Speaker 3: Albert de Salvo from at least the Boston strangments. He
10:43
Speaker 3: was a bad guy. He was a sexual predator, he
10:45
Speaker 3: was a con man, he was a thief. What was
10:48
Speaker 3: he a killer? I then exhumed my aunt Mary's remains
10:52
Speaker 3: for DNA testing, and I also exhumed the remains of
10:56
Speaker 3: Albert de Salvo for DNA testing. I've actually held Albert
11:00
Speaker 3: de Salvo sculling my hand, Cheryl. That's how close you
11:03
Speaker 3: know I got to this case. And we were able
11:06
Speaker 3: to find DNA evidence of Mary's killer inside her body.
11:11
Speaker 3: And when I say we, Cheryl, I'm talking about doctor
11:15
Speaker 3: Henry Lee, I'm talking about doctor Michael Biden. I'm talking
11:18
Speaker 3: about doctor Professor James Stars. Rather, these are the top
11:22
Speaker 3: friends of investigators in the world that worked on this
11:26
Speaker 3: case and they found the killers of DNA and it
11:28
Speaker 3: did not match Albert to Salva.
11:31
Speaker 1: Let me go back with one thing, because I do
11:33
Speaker 1: want my audience to know this. It is not unusual
11:38
Speaker 1: in high profile cases and unknown cases that things go missing.
11:43
Speaker 1: A lot of times, a detective or somebody else associated
11:47
Speaker 1: with the case or that has access to an evident
11:49
Speaker 1: troom may take something. They may think they're going to
11:52
Speaker 1: write a book, they may think they're going to use
11:54
Speaker 1: it at the academy for training. They may take it
11:57
Speaker 1: because it's a part of American history and they want it.
12:00
Speaker 1: It's not uncommon for things to get misplaced, taken, or stolen.
12:05
Speaker 1: So I just want that out there. That is true.
12:07
Speaker 3: It's not uncommon, Sheryl, but it is illegal. And you
12:10
Speaker 3: know this was the evidence in the strangle. The case
12:14
Speaker 3: wasn't taken for future research.
12:16
Speaker 1: No, I understand. I understand. And the reason I laughed
12:22
Speaker 1: is because the way you said that is just so
12:24
Speaker 1: succinct and so correct. I mean, obviously, you should never
12:28
Speaker 1: take evidence, no matter what your logic may be. You
12:31
Speaker 1: may think, hey, this could help you know, show young
12:34
Speaker 1: detectives a better way, the wrong way, a right way,
12:37
Speaker 1: you know. But you can copy something, you can you know,
12:40
Speaker 1: make a prop. You don't have to take the actual
12:43
Speaker 1: evidence of things. So here's the thing casey two with me,
12:48
Speaker 1: you're putting in not just the work, but you're doing
12:51
Speaker 1: it scientifically, using no question the best in the country.
12:58
Speaker 1: I mean, doctor Boden hands down no reason to even
13:01
Speaker 1: question his credentials. So you know, you're not just going
13:06
Speaker 1: to your best friend from college, Fred, I mean, you
13:10
Speaker 1: are literally going to the best that there is to
13:13
Speaker 1: make sure that you have the most correct information.
13:16
Speaker 2: Absolutely, you know.
13:17
Speaker 3: I mean you always want to bring people in to
13:19
Speaker 3: an investigation, those people that have skill sets that you
13:23
Speaker 3: don't have. And certainly I did not have a background
13:26
Speaker 3: in forensic examination. So I reached out to the best
13:29
Speaker 3: in the business who did have that background and that expertise,
13:33
Speaker 3: and they were willing to work on the case pro
13:36
Speaker 3: bono because they didn't want to be beholden to whether
13:40
Speaker 3: it was my family or the family of Albert Salve
13:42
Speaker 3: or anybody else. They wanted to be beholden to the truth.
13:46
Speaker 2: And that's exactly what they did.
13:48
Speaker 1: Same with the Colgate Institute. We don't accept money from families.
13:52
Speaker 1: We're going to give our opinion, and that's it, based
13:54
Speaker 1: on what we find what we believe to be the
13:57
Speaker 1: most likely to move this case forward. The solvability factors
14:02
Speaker 1: are either there or they're not. When you got the
14:08
Speaker 1: DNA back and they said it does not match Albert Sullivan,
14:12
Speaker 1: was anything done with that DNA like ancestry.
14:16
Speaker 3: Well, here's the thing, So that DNA this was before
14:19
Speaker 3: ancestry dot com was even a thing at that time,
14:23
Speaker 3: or twenty three and meters. This is two thousand. We're
14:26
Speaker 3: at the cutting edge of forensic science at that time.
14:29
Speaker 3: And the DNA that was found on my aunt's remains
14:33
Speaker 3: matched the DNA of the actual prime suspect in her
14:38
Speaker 3: murder from nineteen sixty four. That man was not Albert DeSalvo,
14:42
Speaker 3: but he was a young nineteen year old Boston University
14:46
Speaker 3: student who was now living in northern New England. And
14:51
Speaker 3: I was able to get his DNA surreptitiously and provide
14:55
Speaker 3: it to the forensic experts and they ran the testing
15:00
Speaker 3: came back in match.
15:01
Speaker 1: Now you have all this information, you're getting pushed back
15:04
Speaker 1: from law enforcement, You're getting pushed back from the family
15:07
Speaker 1: of the lead detective but you stay the course. I mean,
15:11
Speaker 1: you keep coming even though they've had a press conference
15:14
Speaker 1: that they've solved it, that Albert Defalvo's the Boston strangler.
15:17
Speaker 1: But you're not done. So kind of where did you go?
15:21
Speaker 1: You've got this DNA. It's not a match. You've got
15:24
Speaker 1: now a match of one of the other suspects. What
15:28
Speaker 1: is happening? What are you doing with all this?
15:31
Speaker 2: So you know, for the prime suspect and Mary's murder,
15:34
Speaker 2: what I did is I owed him his story. I
15:37
Speaker 2: knew where he was.
15:38
Speaker 3: He was actually working at a golf pro at a
15:40
Speaker 3: golf resort in northern New England. Had I gone to
15:44
Speaker 3: his home, he could have taken a gun or a
15:47
Speaker 3: knife or something and you know, done bodily harm to
15:50
Speaker 3: me and goodbye, Casey Sherman. So I had to confront
15:53
Speaker 3: him in a public place. I learned that he was
15:56
Speaker 3: a golf pro. So I booked a golf lesson under
15:59
Speaker 3: an assumed name and I met him on the golf course.
16:02
Speaker 3: I was wearing a disguise. I took the disguise off
16:04
Speaker 3: and it was like the ghost of Christmas past had
16:07
Speaker 3: come back to haunt him. And we spoke for about
16:10
Speaker 3: an hour, he gave me his alibi that I was
16:13
Speaker 3: able to eventually disprove, and I walked away that day
16:17
Speaker 3: knowing that in my heart I had found the killer
16:20
Speaker 3: of Mary Sullivan, my aunt. Now did Boston or Massachusetts
16:24
Speaker 3: law enforcement want to hear that? Certainly they did not.
16:27
Speaker 3: What people don't realize and you do, Cheryl, is that
16:31
Speaker 3: Albert Disavo was never even charged with any of the
16:34
Speaker 3: Boston strangler murders. They're still considered open but not active today.
16:39
Speaker 3: What I've learned subsequent to that time, Cheryl, and this
16:43
Speaker 3: is the most frightening discovery of all, is that you
16:46
Speaker 3: mentioned eleven strangling victims at the beginning of the show. Well,
16:51
Speaker 3: I now can point to at least forty seven women
16:56
Speaker 3: strangled with Boston strangler stuff, murder techniques and tools now
17:03
Speaker 3: across a span of years from nineteen sixty two to
17:07
Speaker 3: nineteen sixty nine, across the United States. Now, people compare
17:11
Speaker 3: the Boston strangler case to Jack the Ripper, but I
17:15
Speaker 3: think it's more comparable to the Salem witch trials. And
17:18
Speaker 3: what I mean by that, Cheryl, is these murders created
17:21
Speaker 3: a hysteria amongst men in the United States who wanted
17:27
Speaker 3: to commit Boston strangler style murders. The most terrifying thing
17:31
Speaker 3: of all, Cheryl, is that these murders weren't committed by
17:33
Speaker 3: one man. They were committed by over a dozen men
17:37
Speaker 3: across eleven states.
17:39
Speaker 1: All Right, I told y'all he was going to knock
17:41
Speaker 1: you out. So let me ask you. Of the forty seven,
17:46
Speaker 1: do you believe five twenty might be copycats? Do you
17:51
Speaker 1: think it might be Hey, somebody realized I want to
17:55
Speaker 1: start killing women. There's no better place than Boston right now.
17:58
Speaker 1: If I use Stockings, just strangler, they'll blame it on
18:01
Speaker 1: that guy.
18:02
Speaker 3: So Boston was the epicenter for sure, Cheryl. And there
18:04
Speaker 3: were actually more victims in Boston than just eleven. I
18:08
Speaker 3: always thought my aunt, nineteen year old Mary Sullivan, was
18:11
Speaker 3: the youngest victim, when in fact, the youngest victim was
18:14
Speaker 3: only five years old, a young girl named Ellen Gamage,
18:19
Speaker 3: who was abducted from a playground, strangled, assault, and then
18:23
Speaker 3: left in a blueberry patch forty miles south of Boston.
18:27
Speaker 3: And while that murder was happening, Albert Salva was already
18:30
Speaker 3: incarcerated on unrelated crimes, confessing to the Boston strangler case.
18:35
Speaker 3: You had a number of teenagers younger than my aunt
18:38
Speaker 3: Mary murdered all over New England, and the newspapers and
18:42
Speaker 3: the police departments at the time were investigating these homicides.
18:47
Speaker 3: Then these homicides start to happen outside of New England, Oakland, California,
18:53
Speaker 3: Upstate Michigan, Austin, Texas, Hollywood, California, Cincinnati, Ohio, were five
19:00
Speaker 3: women were strangled in nineteen sixty six. There is actually
19:04
Speaker 3: a Cincinnati strangler. If you do your Google research, you
19:08
Speaker 3: can come up with all the newspaper reports at the time, Pensacola, Florida,
19:13
Speaker 3: even Paris, France. It was an hysteria, a strangle mania
19:18
Speaker 3: if you will, that took hold of men, you know,
19:23
Speaker 3: who wanted to do harm against women. So, yes, most
19:25
Speaker 3: of these stranglings were copycats.
19:29
Speaker 1: Okay, so we're looking at multiple people, multiple states, even
19:33
Speaker 1: countries that knew enough of the Boston strangler's mo because
19:39
Speaker 1: it was in the newspaper, it was celebrated, and.
19:41
Speaker 3: Youreraise a good point. Now, today's news media does not
19:45
Speaker 3: get that explicit in their reporting of homicides because they can't.
19:50
Speaker 3: But back in the nineteen sixties, every detail of a
19:53
Speaker 3: murder was basically reprinted in the newspapers, and oftentimes journalists,
19:58
Speaker 3: looking to get a hea line or to have more
20:01
Speaker 3: people read their newspapers, would invent information and put it
20:05
Speaker 3: in the newspapers. And why I mentioned that is because
20:08
Speaker 3: when Albert Tsalvo began to confessing to these murders, he
20:12
Speaker 3: was regurgitating misinformation that had been printed in the newspapers
20:17
Speaker 3: at the time. Now, you mentioned the family of the
20:20
Speaker 3: lead detective and John Denatally or fildan Itally, who was
20:24
Speaker 3: one of the detectives in the strangler case.
20:26
Speaker 2: He wasn't the lead detective. He was just one of
20:28
Speaker 2: the detectives.
20:29
Speaker 3: You look at families like that, and I think that
20:31
Speaker 3: they don't want to necessarily, you know, revisit the past
20:36
Speaker 3: because their entire you know, family history has been based
20:41
Speaker 3: on their loved one catching the Boston Strangler. But that's
20:46
Speaker 3: a myth. Nobody caught Albert de Salvo. He was already
20:49
Speaker 3: in jail and he was confessing two crimes that didn't happen.
20:54
Speaker 3: The person that actually took the interrogation wasn't a seasoned
20:58
Speaker 3: investigator at all. His name was John Bottomley, and he
21:02
Speaker 3: was the assistant Attorney General of Massachusetts John Bottomley's history.
21:07
Speaker 3: He'd been an eminent domain lawyer from Massachusetts, a real
21:11
Speaker 3: estate lawyer, who had no experience ever investigator or investigating
21:17
Speaker 3: or interrogating a suspect in any criminal matter. And here
21:21
Speaker 3: he is confronting what, you know, some believed at the
21:24
Speaker 3: time was the most dangerous serial killer in American history.
21:28
Speaker 1: So how did Albert DeSalvo get all this information? I've
21:32
Speaker 1: heard it from you, but I want the audience to
21:35
Speaker 1: hear how he started confessing and how he got any
21:39
Speaker 1: of the facts.
21:40
Speaker 3: Well, you mentioned definitely Bailey, who you know had been
21:43
Speaker 3: one of my arch nemesis, you know, during the course
21:46
Speaker 3: of my investigative career. But we actually later became dear friends,
21:50
Speaker 3: and I wrote the prologue to Lee's last book before
21:54
Speaker 3: he passed away.
21:55
Speaker 2: Well f Lee.
21:56
Speaker 3: Bailey was representing a young, cold hearted killer named George
22:01
Speaker 3: Nasser in nineteen sixty four. Nassar was one of the
22:05
Speaker 3: real Boston stranglers who had in fact murdered maybe four
22:10
Speaker 3: to five of the murder victims in the general Boston area,
22:15
Speaker 3: and George Nasser was cellmates with Albert Tasalvo and Naser
22:20
Speaker 3: needed money to support his defense because he thought he
22:25
Speaker 3: was going to be getting out of prison for murdering
22:27
Speaker 3: a gas station attendant, so he needed to pay flee Bailey,
22:31
Speaker 3: and the only way he could do that was getting
22:33
Speaker 3: a guy like Albert Tasalvo to confess to the crimes
22:37
Speaker 3: because there was what they believed one hundred thousand dollars
22:41
Speaker 3: reward for information leading to the Boston strangler arrest, and
22:46
Speaker 3: so DeSalvo and Nassar had kind of dollar signs in
22:49
Speaker 3: their eyes. DeSalvo confessed with information handed to him by Naser.
22:55
Speaker 3: He confessed to the crimes and oftentimes went off script
22:58
Speaker 3: giving false information in his interrogation, which is one of
23:02
Speaker 3: the reasons why he was never charged with any of
23:04
Speaker 3: the murders, because they would never have been able to
23:08
Speaker 3: convict him in a court of in a criminal court
23:10
Speaker 3: because all the information, or most of it, was inaccurate.
23:14
Speaker 1: Okay, well, you have done the line's share of the
23:18
Speaker 1: work gathering, collecting, and reporting on this case. What do
23:25
Speaker 1: you think is the most critical piece of evidence to
23:29
Speaker 1: show there was more than one killer? Just one thing?
23:33
Speaker 3: There are several things, you know, not only the DNA
23:36
Speaker 3: test of my aunt's remains, but going back to the
23:39
Speaker 3: original case files, looking at these cases, going back to
23:43
Speaker 3: the original reporting and the public statements made by police
23:47
Speaker 3: at the time.
23:48
Speaker 2: I worked with.
23:48
Speaker 3: One of the Boston Strangler homicide detectives, Jim Mellon, who
23:54
Speaker 3: was adamant that Albert Salvo was not the killer. In fact,
23:57
Speaker 3: a Salvo told him he was not the killer, and
23:59
Speaker 3: he had serious suspects in at least six of these
24:03
Speaker 3: Boston homicides. Now, as I mentioned, there are dozens of
24:06
Speaker 3: unsolved homicides across the United States, Boston Strangler type murders
24:12
Speaker 3: that still need to be judicated and solved. There's no
24:16
Speaker 3: statute limitation on murder Cheryl, so these cases are still
24:21
Speaker 3: open and should be looked at with a clear eye.
24:24
Speaker 3: I would press your audience to just go on to
24:28
Speaker 3: NBC Peacock or the USA Network and watch Boston Strangler
24:34
Speaker 3: Unheard confession and here DeSalvo in his own words, and
24:38
Speaker 3: make your own judgment on whether or not he was
24:42
Speaker 3: confessing to events that never happened, or whether he was
24:44
Speaker 3: the killer.
24:46
Speaker 1: Do you have a prosecutor open to listening to you.
24:49
Speaker 3: No, I mean, it's ancient history. As far as the
24:53
Speaker 3: prosecutors in Massachusetts are you know how they believe things
24:59
Speaker 3: are happening. So and what they're I think afraid of
25:03
Speaker 3: is lawsuits. Lawsuits not by my family but other families
25:07
Speaker 3: that will come up and say, you knew you got
25:10
Speaker 3: the wrong guy in the nineteen sixties and you let
25:13
Speaker 3: my you know, loved ones murderer go free. So I
25:17
Speaker 3: think there's a lot of political pressure to keep this
25:19
Speaker 3: case kind of under wraps a little bit. But as
25:23
Speaker 3: I say, you know, we're all students of this case.
25:25
Speaker 3: Even I'm a student of this case. Yes I'm an expert,
25:28
Speaker 3: but I'm learning new things every day, and I would
25:30
Speaker 3: just ask your audience and ask any investigator be open
25:34
Speaker 3: to new material that may change your mind on you know,
25:38
Speaker 3: how you think these cases were not only investigated at
25:42
Speaker 3: the time, but how they may have also been covered
25:45
Speaker 3: up over the last fifty years.
25:50
Speaker 1: So I know you've lost your mama now, but I
25:53
Speaker 1: know what your work meant to her. I mean, you
25:57
Speaker 1: showcased her sister, you talked about her. We didn't really
26:00
Speaker 1: know anything about all the victims like you presented Mary
26:05
Speaker 1: to us. I can tell you my students reading a
26:09
Speaker 1: Rose for Mary changed the way they investigate cases. And
26:13
Speaker 1: now at their respected departments. So you know that had
26:17
Speaker 1: to mean so much to her that you would do that.
26:21
Speaker 3: Well, I think you did, and I appreciate you saying that, Jeryld.
26:24
Speaker 3: You know, you know she wanted justice for her sister.
26:27
Speaker 3: My mother is the real hero in this story. It's
26:30
Speaker 3: not me and I maybe the conduit of some of
26:32
Speaker 3: the information, but she was the person that didn't back down,
26:36
Speaker 3: that refused to give up hope that at least should
26:40
Speaker 3: find some answers to the murder of her, of her
26:44
Speaker 3: beloved sister. You know, and you talk about, you know,
26:47
Speaker 3: Albert DeSalvo being stabbed to death in prison in nineteen
26:50
Speaker 3: seventy three, Well he was stabbed to death just days
26:54
Speaker 3: before he was going to recant his confession to the
26:58
Speaker 3: entire world. So this was really to keep him quiet.
27:03
Speaker 3: I interviewed the actual prison guards who were on duty
27:07
Speaker 3: in November nineteen sixty three, and I'm sorry November nineteen
27:10
Speaker 3: seventy three, and they were paid to look the other way.
27:13
Speaker 3: They saw the killer get in and get out of
27:16
Speaker 3: the prison infirmary with a knife covered in blood, and
27:19
Speaker 3: nobody saw a thing.
27:21
Speaker 2: Now.
27:21
Speaker 3: I also uncovered Ryll dozens of letters written by Albert
27:26
Speaker 3: DeSalvo in his own hands in one of the smoking guns.
27:30
Speaker 3: That also leads me to believe he wasn't the killer
27:33
Speaker 3: is that he wrote a letter telling people that he
27:36
Speaker 3: was going to recant the confession, that he was going
27:38
Speaker 3: to name names, that he was going to blow up
27:41
Speaker 3: this entire case, and within days he staffed it in.
27:45
Speaker 1: You know, we both have mentioned Flee Bailey. When I
27:48
Speaker 1: talked to him about this case, I said to him, well,
27:52
Speaker 1: you know, this case kind of elevated your fame, and
27:54
Speaker 1: you even bought a helicopter and he granted and he said,
27:59
Speaker 1: I bought a hellic copter company.
28:01
Speaker 2: Yeah that sounds like.
28:04
Speaker 1: Yeah. So I mean it did elevate him. There's no
28:08
Speaker 1: doubt it made him famous.
28:09
Speaker 3: Oh no, I mean he became an international name.
28:12
Speaker 2: At the time, he had just defended.
28:17
Speaker 3: Doctor Sam Shepherd, which was inspired the TV show in
28:20
Speaker 3: the movie The Fugitive, But the Boston Strangler case really
28:23
Speaker 3: put him on the map. And as I mentioned, he
28:26
Speaker 3: and I battled on cable TV for years. Finally we
28:30
Speaker 3: get together for lunch. A mutual friend of ours put
28:33
Speaker 3: us together and I said, well, when hell Freeze is over,
28:35
Speaker 3: am I ever going to sit down with me, Bailey
28:38
Speaker 3: and Scar Enough we did, and you know, we each
28:41
Speaker 3: learned a little bit from each other and help that
28:44
Speaker 3: we were drinking heavily at that time, and two Irish
28:48
Speaker 3: guys start singing Irish fight songs and we're stumbling out
28:51
Speaker 3: of the bar with our arms wrapped around each other.
28:53
Speaker 3: And as I said, we became great friends after that.
28:57
Speaker 3: Bailey is a crafty, crafty attorney.
29:00
Speaker 2: You know.
29:00
Speaker 3: I had to give him his props in terms of
29:03
Speaker 3: how he was able to kind of manipulate this case,
29:06
Speaker 3: you know, in the nineteen sixties and elevate himself and
29:09
Speaker 3: doing so for his own reasons. But you know, do
29:12
Speaker 3: I believe what he was doing was wrong? Certainly, and
29:15
Speaker 3: I told him that, and so there was never any
29:19
Speaker 3: dancing around how he felt about the case with each other.
29:22
Speaker 3: We did become friends, you know, unlikely friends, if you will.
29:26
Speaker 2: After that.
29:27
Speaker 1: Well, it's hard not to get drawn in by just
29:30
Speaker 1: his charisma and his stories in his life. I mean,
29:34
Speaker 1: he I mean, you know, let's face it, I mean,
29:37
Speaker 1: he was who he was. But as far as American
29:39
Speaker 1: history and famous crimes go, his name is there a lot.
29:44
Speaker 2: There's a tribute, No, And he was as you mentioned
29:46
Speaker 2: a very charming guy.
29:48
Speaker 3: You know, I kind of you know, I thought of
29:50
Speaker 3: him as my crazy uncle by at the end.
29:53
Speaker 1: You know, Yeah, that's a good way to put it.
29:55
Speaker 2: Yep.
29:56
Speaker 1: Well, let me just say one thing about Zone seven
29:58
Speaker 1: that I love is I try to have something that
30:02
Speaker 1: a young detective or a rookie can take and just
30:05
Speaker 1: kind of put in their mental toolbox. And one thing
30:08
Speaker 1: you said that is just hauntingly accurate is the case
30:14
Speaker 1: the investigation doesn't end. It doesn't end at arrest. It
30:18
Speaker 1: doesn't even necessarily end after somebody's convicted. If there's any
30:23
Speaker 1: loose ends, anything that needs to be tied up, you
30:26
Speaker 1: need to tie up. And I am telling you, in
30:29
Speaker 1: twenty ten, this was the biggest case the Cold Case
30:32
Speaker 1: Investigative Research Institute had ever worked on. When it was
30:37
Speaker 1: quote solved in you know, twenty thirteen, we thought this
30:42
Speaker 1: is awesome. You know. We said that they need to
30:46
Speaker 1: a zoom him and cross check the DNA. We thought
30:48
Speaker 1: that's great. We had an action plan, we had a
30:52
Speaker 1: solvability factor, and we were done. And it was and
30:56
Speaker 1: I'd followed you. I mean, I've seen all the movies,
30:58
Speaker 1: I've got all your books, but I had not heard
31:01
Speaker 1: you talk, honey until we were at the Hampton's, and
31:06
Speaker 1: I'm like, what have we missed. I've got to get
31:10
Speaker 1: him on the Zone seven because people need to know
31:13
Speaker 1: there is more of the story. And I also love
31:15
Speaker 1: the fact that you keep saying, listen to his words
31:19
Speaker 1: and make your own mind up. And that is to
31:24
Speaker 1: me one of the best things that you can tell anybody,
31:27
Speaker 1: whether they're detective or not, make your own mind up.
31:30
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, one hundred percent. And you know this
31:33
Speaker 3: this documentary that is out now. I actually asked the producers,
31:37
Speaker 3: I said, interview John Dinna Telly. He's got a different,
31:40
Speaker 3: you know, viewpoint than I do. You know, I want
31:42
Speaker 3: you know, I want these different you know, conversation is productive.
31:47
Speaker 3: As long as it's productive, it's great. You know, let's
31:49
Speaker 3: agree over the evidence again and again. There may be
31:53
Speaker 3: something I missed early, maybe be something you missed, but
31:56
Speaker 3: be open to it. Be open to, you know, a
31:59
Speaker 3: change of the parrot if you will. That's what separates
32:01
Speaker 3: the real investigators from you know, the not so real investigators.
32:06
Speaker 1: In my opinion, Yeah, and I believe in going to
32:09
Speaker 1: the source. I don't care who the source is, whether
32:11
Speaker 1: they're a criminal or a police officer or a prosecutor
32:14
Speaker 1: go to the source. And you know, when I met
32:17
Speaker 1: with John, he said, of all the movies, all the books,
32:21
Speaker 1: all the magazines, he said, do you know you're the
32:23
Speaker 1: first person that's ever coming here. And I said, well,
32:27
Speaker 1: that's what I'm saying. You got to look at it.
32:30
Speaker 1: And when I looked to that file, I was so
32:32
Speaker 1: impressed by just the you know, seene drawings that their
32:37
Speaker 1: dad had done, and the painstaking work that he had
32:41
Speaker 1: put in sitting at their kitchen table that he drew
32:44
Speaker 1: by hand like it was insane. And uh, you know
32:48
Speaker 1: when I've said that at every police academy that I've
32:50
Speaker 1: talked about cold cases, I said, you know, y'all like
32:53
Speaker 1: y'all can't do a sketch, it ain't got to be good,
32:56
Speaker 1: But you act like you can't do one much less
32:58
Speaker 1: what he did to scale with no computer equipment that
33:03
Speaker 1: we have today. So it's all a good lesson. But
33:07
Speaker 1: you know, Casey Sherman, I appreciate you. I appreciate you
33:10
Speaker 1: being a part of my Zone seven. I appreciate you
33:13
Speaker 1: answering the phone in two thousand and nine. I appreciate
33:17
Speaker 1: you buying me lunch because that was I'm telling you all,
33:19
Speaker 1: the best time chowder I've ever had, and I just
33:22
Speaker 1: appreciate you sharing Mary's story. I think it's powerful and important.
33:26
Speaker 3: Same here errel Well, thank you, and again thanks to
33:29
Speaker 3: your audience for listening. And as I said, make up
33:32
Speaker 3: your own mind, whether it's the case that we're talking
33:34
Speaker 3: about today or a case that somebody might be investigating.
33:37
Speaker 1: On their own. I'm going to end Zone seven the
33:40
Speaker 1: way that I always do with a quote. There was
33:43
Speaker 1: not a single serial killer. There were several. Casey Sherman,
33:50
Speaker 1: author and nephew of Mary Sullivan. I'm Cheryl McCollum, and
33:56
Speaker 1: this is Own seven