Who was Albert DeSalvo?

Albert Henry DeSalvo (September 3, 1931 – November 25, 1973) was a criminal in Boston, Massachusetts, who confessed to being the "Boston Strangler," the murderer of 13 women in the Boston area from 1962 to 1964.

Between June 14, 1962, and January 4, 1964, 13 single women between the ages of 19 and 85 were murdered in the Boston area; they were eventually tied to the Boston Strangler. Most of the women were sexually assaulted in their apartments, and then strangled with articles of clothing. The eldest victim died of a heart attack. Two others were stabbed to death, one of whom was also badly beaten. Without any sign of forced entry into their dwellings, the women were assumed to have either known their killer or voluntarily allowed him into their homes. The police were not convinced that all of these murders were the work of a single individual, especially because of the wide gap in the victims' ages; much of the public, on the other hand, readily accepted that the crimes were committed by one person.

Lingering doubts remain as to whether DeSalvo was indeed the Boston Strangler—and whether the real murderer could still be at large. When he confessed, people who knew him personally did not believe him capable of the crimes. It was also noted that the women allegedly killed by "The Strangler" were of widely varying ages, social strata and ethnicities, and that their deaths involved inconsistent modi operandi.