Search for the Strangler (20 page)

MCGRATH
: On her back?

DESALVO
: I also tied her feet.

BOTTOMLY
: Okay, I want to review this now. First you put a gag in her mouth, you tied her hands and feet. You put a mustard-colored
sweater over her head.

DESALVO
: The first thing was to tie her hands. Then I put something in her mouth to stop her from screaming. This is very confusing.
She did talk to me and I’m trying to get straight what she said . . . I gotta tell ’em [whispering to himself]. The reason
why I did what I did . . . the thing was on her face. She did talk to me. I know she don’t have no gag in her mouth. I just
tied her hands. She was tied, right, and I got on top of her so she couldn’t be in any position to reach up and scratch me.
Then . . . I strangled her.

MCGRATH
: While she was lying on her back? You got the gag in her mouth now?

DESALVO
: No . . .

BOTTOMLY
: Did she have her clothes off?

DESALVO
: Yup.

BOTTOMLY
: Is this before or after you had sex?

DESALVO
: After . . . her feet was tied there. And her hands were right here. Her hands, I was sitting on them because she was really
fighting viciously. . . . So this [sweater] here I put over her head, it was mustard color.

MCGRATH
: Where did you get it?

DESALVO
: I got the sweater out of her drawer.

MCGRATH
: You get the sweater out of her lower drawer?

DESALVO
: It should still be there in the room. There’s a reason why the sweater was out there in the open.

MCGRATH
: You pulled it out from the bottom drawer, then?

DESALVO
: Exactly!

MCGRATH
: When did you get her clothes off, Albert? You strangled her with her clothes on and you hadn’t penetrated her?

DESALVO
: No.

BOTTOMLY
: And then you cut her hands loose?

DESALVO
: This is what I hate to even talk about. This kills me.

MCGRATH
: I know.

DESALVO
: I’d just as soon forget this whole thing.

MCGRATH
: There are other ways this can be verified.

DESALVO
: This is very serious stuff. I did penetrate her. She turned sideways. She was still alive when I had intercourse with her.
I had intercourse with her. She’s alive, she allowed me to do it to her. And then . . . I came inside her. And then I had
taken her blue jeans off and her white panties. And after, I said now I’m gonna tie you up and leave. She was naked then .
. . I’m trying to think why . . . It don’t make sense now. She had her legs up after I took the panties off her. She didn’t
want me to do it, but I still did it. She argued. I took ’em off her, and her feet went back . . . like this here. [Rustling
sounds in the audiotape suggest DeSalvo is physically imitating Mary’s position.] I’m trying to think . . . at what time .
. . at what time . . . I remember ripping the clothes open. I know this here.

BOTTOMLY
: Is this with the knife?

DESALVO
: I started ripping the bra off her. This is very confusing to me. I don’t know if I did it after or before or how I tied
her up. I do remember putting this thing over her face. I’m almost positive I put a gag in her mouth, but why? It don’t make
sense. I did have intercourse with her right there. And I did, after I tied her hands . . . I did struggle on top of her.

MCGRATH
: This is after you had intercourse with her?

DESALVO
: This one . . . this one here . . . on, um . . . Mary Sullivan, was it?

BOTTOMLY
: Mary Sullivan. You took her pants off before you tied her feet. Is that correct?

DESALVO
: Ah . . . no. That’s the gimmick right there. The clothes were cut.

BOTTOMLY
: She’s got this thing over her head, and she’s complaining about the heat. Maybe you get sick of her complaining and decide
that she’s too much of a problem. You certainly strangled her while this [sweater] was over her head, right? You weren’t looking
right at her face, were you?

DESALVO
: No . . . then I got her in this position here, right? But it could not be so that I strangled her in this position because
I know differently. Because she was over here . . . she was in this position here.

MCGRATH
: By the headboard?

DESALVO
: Her knees were crossed, and then I got on top of her . . . and that . . . that’s about it.

BOTTOMLY
: This is after you had intercourse?

DESALVO
: This is what’s messin’ me up.

BOTTOMLY
: Did you have intercourse with her?

DESALVO
: Yes, I did . . . but I’ll be honest with ya . . .

MCGRATH
: Did you come inside her?

DESALVO
: Yes, I did. I was so mixed up at the time, but I do remember that I strangled her with my two hands.

MCGRATH
: Face to face.

DESALVO
: Well, when you say face to face . . .

MCGRATH
: She was facing you, you had a sweater over her head.

DESALVO
: Yes, I couldn’t see her.

MCGRATH
: And you strangled her by using your thumbs against her Adam’s apple, right? With your thumb?

DESALVO
: Yes.

Nick Eldredge stopped the tape and smiled at me. “See, what did I tell you? DeSalvo did it!” Eldredge jumped out of his chair,
squeezing his large hands around an invisible victim. “You see how he described killing her?”

I had other thoughts about the tape. Albert DeSalvo claimed he had strangled Mary with his bare hands. But, in fact, she was
strangled with two scarves and a nylon stocking. Her autopsy report showed no sign of manual strangulation. DeSalvo also claimed
to have had intercourse with my aunt and ejaculated inside her. He says this not just once but twice. But the autopsy report
showed no trace of seminal evidence inside the vagina. DeSalvo’s using language such as “this one . . . this one here” suggests
that he was pointing to or referring to crime scene pictures as he described how Mary’s body had been left. To me the conclusion
was clear. DeSalvo had gotten the details of Mary’s murder completely wrong. This tape was key evidence in our case. I was
more certain than ever that DeSalvo had not killed my aunt.

A fter hearing the confession tape, I was more determined than ever to push ahead. In May 2000, we held a news conference
to lay out our goals and introduce Professor James Starrs to the public. For the event, I chose an oak-paneled room at the
elegant Omni Parker House in downtown Boston. It was the same room where John F. Kennedy had announced his first run for Congress.
On this day, for the first time, the public would see relatives of the alleged killer and relatives of his alleged victim
standing side by side in a common cause.

Elaine Whitfield Sharp began the event by welcoming my mother to the podium. I was nervous for her—Mom had never spoken in
front of a large crowd before—but her words were effective. They came from the heart. “This started as a simple request,”
she said. “Instead, it keeps getting bigger, with denials and cover-ups of a thirty-six-year-old case. Why . . . why don’t
they want to reopen this case?” Mom asked.

Richard DeSalvo and his son, Tim, were both clearly nervous about going public for the first time, but Tim, who did the talking
for both of them, did not disappoint us. “No one knows the facts,” Tim said. “We’re hopeful that science will reveal those
facts. Let science proceed and let the chips fall where they may.”

I went next. I was even more confident than Tim that his uncle was innocent of these crimes. I told reporters that Albert
DeSalvo’s confession tape, the very thing that connected him to the murders, could also exonerate him. I also used the occasion
to put more heat on the attorney general and the Boston Police Department. “It’s time for the blue wall of silence to finally
be broken in this case,” I said from the podium.

The last to speak was Jim Starrs, who had flown up that morning from Washington. He wore a tweed coat with a small pin bearing
the emblem of George Washington University. Starrs told the journalists that he had no preconceptions about Albert DeSalvo’s
guilt or innocence. Science was an impartial judge, he said. Then both Starrs and Elaine Whitfield Sharp asked for more cooperation
from Attorney General Tom Reilly and Police Commissioner Paul Evans. None of us wished to exhume the bodies of my aunt or
Albert DeSalvo if the evidence was already in possession of the authorities.

Following our news conference, the press immediately went to the attorney general and Boston Police Department for comment.
On the steps of the Massachusetts statehouse, Tom Reilly said he was inclined to provide the families access to the case files.
If Reilly decided to follow through, he would not be setting a precedent because his predecessor, Scott Harshbarger, had let
journalists comb through the strangler files while he was attorney general.

Reaction from the Boston Police Department was much different. In a press release, the BPD said that because of “the deterioration
of evidence,” the department would not take part in any further investigation into the Boston Strangler case.

Then, a few weeks after Reilly told reporters that he was inclined to cooperate with the families, our lawyers received a
letter stating that our request for access to the evidence had been denied. But it was too late to stop us. Through my lobbying
efforts, the Boston City Council adopted a resolution calling for a reinvestigation of my aunt’s murder. I was also busy getting
information about Mary’s grave to Jim Starrs. Through the funeral parlor, I learned that Mary had been embalmed and buried
in a wooden coffin inside a vault. Starrs was pleased with the news of the embalming because it increased the likelihood that
her tissues would be preserved.

While I was hounding the people at the Doane, Beal, and Ames funeral home, I was also keeping close tabs on Nick Eldredge.
The public had heard enough from the families; it was time for people to hear from Albert DeSalvo himself. I wanted to release
the confession tape to the media. Eldredge had other plans, however. He still hoped to sell the tape. But Eldredge helped
me in another way, by telling me about another investigator who had evidence about my aunt’s murder. This was Andy Tuney,
the Boston Strangler Task Force member who had quit the state police to work for F. Lee Bailey. I called Tuney and asked if
he had any information or evidence that could lead me to my aunt’s killer.

“You’re aunt’s killer is dead. He was stabbed to death in prison. He’s Albert DeSalvo!” Tuney shouted angrily into the phone.

When I asked him about the mistakes DeSalvo had made in his confession, Tuney had no answer. Then I asked him if working for
DeSalvo’s defense attorney after having worked for the Boston Strangler Task Force represented a conflict of interest for
him. “Lee Bailey and I never talked about the case,” he replied. Changing the subject, I asked Tuney whether he had ever searched
for other possible suspects, such as Mary’s boyfriend Nathan Ward, or Preston Moss, or even DeSalvo’s former confidant, George
Nassar. “Aw, we checked Nassar’s employment records. He was working at the time of the murders. He had a sales job at Filene’s,”
Tuney replied gruffly.

This detail intrigued me. Mary had also worked at Filene’s. I had never been able to make a connection between Nassar and
my aunt until now. I had to locate the convicted killer George Nassar.

I knew that Nassar had always shied away from reporters when it came to the Boston Strangler case. It was a long shot, but
I wrote him a letter requesting a meeting at his current residence, the state prison at Walpole. I was surprised to receive
a reply a few days later. I was even more surprised that Nassar wanted to see me. When I went back to the newsroom and told
Ted Wayman that Nassar was willing to sit down with me, the veteran reporter John Henning overheard our conversation.

“Be careful,” warned Henning, who had covered DeSalvo’s Green Man trial in 1967. “George Nassar is a cold son of a bitch.
He’s a pathological liar, and he’d kill you just as soon as look at you.”

Laura and my mother were also worried. “Don’t give him any personal information,” Laura advised. She was now seven months
pregnant. I lied and said that as a journalist I dealt with dangerous characters all the time. Deep inside, I felt frightened,
but I needed to look into Nassar’s eyes and ask him if he had murdered Mary. I had heard that Nassar was suffering from terminal
cancer. Maybe Nassar was ready to give me a deathbed confession.

Elaine Sharp advised me not to tackle Nassar head-on but to elicit any information I could in a more roundabout way. “Why
would Nassar agree to do an interview?” she wondered. “There has to be something in it for him. Guards go through all the
mail, and maybe your letter piqued some interest. Maybe word has gotten back to Tom Reilly about what you’re doing.” She took
a moment and laughed off her last comment, adding, “It’s possible that one day we’ll benefit from my paranoia.”

On the day of the interview I awoke early to prepare myself, allowing a few bites of a bagel to float around with the butterflies
in my stomach. Then, pouring a hot cup of black coffee to go, I hopped into my car and began the hour-long drive to Walpole.
Again, I called on Mary to give me the strength I needed to get through this.

Arriving in Walpole, I couldn’t find the prison. There were no signs pointing the way to it, either. Apparently, residents
didn’t want to remind themselves or inform others that they had the worst criminals in Massachusetts for neighbors. Even when
I asked for directions, the townsfolk gave me little help.