Morbid - Episode 78: The Boston Strangler Part 1

Episode Date: July 7, 2019

It's our hometown murder time! We split this case into parts because there is truly a lot to unpack and we thought our beloved Boston deserved our time and attention. In Part 1, we take a look at the first 6 victims of The Boston Strangler(s) and set ourselves up to talk about the last 7, the psychology behind these crimes, as well as Albert DeSalvo's infamous confession in Part 2.  This is a wild ride, so we suggest you hang on to your. butts and leave your Yankees hats at home. ***THIS EPISODE CONTAINS GRAPHIC DESCRIPTIONS OF SEXUAL ASSAULT*** Sources: The Boston Strangler by Gerold Frank https://abcnews.go.com/US/boston-strangler-case-solved-50-years/story?id=19640699 https://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/12/us/dna-evidence-identified-in-boston-strangler-case.html See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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That's ANGI, or download the app today. Hey, weirdos, I'm Ash. And I'm Elena. And this is morbid. I'm going to be a wonderful portrayal of Boston in this episode. Sure isn't. I don't think we're going to get anyone to move here. Nope, but this is like our big old hometown murder edition. Yes. So welcome. Hold on to your butts. Oh yeah, really hold on to your butts for this one. So we are thinking that we are going to split this one into three parts possibly because it's just gigantic.

And we really want to go into the psychology. We really want to dissect this case because it's our hometown case. It's a big case. Do you want to know what the case is? The Boston Strangler or Stranglers? Question mark. Question mark. Question mark.

And that's what we're going to be doing in the probably third part is we're going to be discussing the theories of whether Albert DeSalvo is the lone Boston Strangler, whether he is the Boston Strangler at all, and whether there are more. Shit. So this is gonna be fun ride, so everybody hold on. It's gonna buckle up into your seatbelts.

And before we jump in, I just want to say that probably, well, at least the first two parts are going to have somewhat graphic descriptions of rape and sexual assault. Unfortunately, so if that is something you are not comfortable listening to before I say it, I will tell you so you can do a little skip a rule if you want to. Totally up to you. I just want to make sure everybody knows that is a big part of this case,

and it's very upsetting, so we get it if you want to skip. So without further ado, we have some business to attend to because this is a full length morbid. And we want to attend to business on those. All right, so first and foremost, I just want to apologize. During the Diane Downs episode last week, I kind of made it sound like I was using

borderline personality disorder as an insult. And I just want to clear that up. That is not at all what I intended to make it sound like. Definitely not. She actually did have borderline personality disorder, but it was not my intention to make it sound like. Definitely not. She actually did have borderline personality disorder, but it was not my intention to make it sound. Like I was using that to insult her because I understand that that is a disease

that people struggle with and I am so sorry to anybody that I offended. We would never do that. It just was, that was such, that was a great episode for us. Thank you. And it was such like an intense, like rage and do- Yeah, it was just so mad at Diane. That it was such like an intense like rage and do-

Yeah, it's just so mad at Diane. That it was like oh, so yeah, we definitely nobody meant any harm by that. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no is about to be news that we are currently working on getting some live shows going because we want to see your cute little weird faces. We just want to smush your faces. We won't do that. We won't do it. We'll refrain. But I want to. I want to smush a cute face.

So let's know it. We'll want to keep it real weird. So we will keep you guys updated on that because we are currently in, you know, talking, trying to figure it all out, trying to schedule it, set it up, it's in the planning stages, so we will let you know when that is happening. And I think the only other couple of things

we have to talk about real quick is we had a couple of people request some shout outs and we wanted to honor those. So the first person we would like to shout out is Stephanie Tackett and we would like to say happy 21st birthday. You went in with the number and I wasn't ready for that. Sorry, well it was a big birthday.

Oh my God, it is. I'm still celebrating mine annually. I know you are. This year I celebrated the second anniversary of's a big birthday. Oh my God, it is. I'm still celebrating mine annually. I know you are. This year I celebrated the second anniversary of my 21st birthday. That's all you get. That's what you get to do, girl, forever and ever. And your bro Donald Mills, who we love with all our heart

and soul, because he's amazing. He was the one who requested that we shout out your 21st birthday. So, you know, give him a big old pat on the back for that one. heart and soul because he's amazing. He was the one who requested that we shout out your 21st birthday, so you know, give him a big old pat on the back for that one. Do it upsass. And it turns out that you're the one who got him to listen to more of it at your crime podcast. So thank you. So we love you bitch. You kept it so weird on that. You did. You really did. So we love you Stephanie, and and we love you Donald Mills so much love in our hearts And the next one we just wanted to give a quick little shout out to is a

Beautiful lady Name Jenny Jenny your fiance Tim Would just like us to shout you out because to him you are the best fiance that has ever graced the galaxy. You're the bee's fucking knees, Jenny. You're the cats pajamas and we just want to tell you that you're doing awesome. You're doing great fiance work over there. Good fucking job, Jenny.

So keep it up because Tim loves you. And so much. He loves the ground that you walk on. He does. He loves it all. He loves everything about you. So you know what? Tim and Jenny forever and always. Yes. Love. Speaking of love and all that is lovely, I love your shirt, Ash. Oh my God. Thank you. Do you know where I got this actual shirt? Where did you get that shirt that says, let's start a cult?

With an old-timey telephone? I got this. Is that what that is? Yeah, yeah. Cool, I couldn't tell first. I got this old-timey telephone, let's start a cult shirt at www.MurderaParel. You can get the same shirt as me

if you head on over to Instagram at MurderaParel, check out all their fucking cool shirts that also includes a morbid t-shirt. It really does. And if you want all those cool shirts, you should buy all of them and get 25% off using our code morbid. M-O-R-B-I-D. Again, that is code morbid at checkout for 25% off. Get all your true crime and crazy horror shirts that you want.

And start occult. Do it. Yay. All right. Let's dive in. Whew. All right, I'm gonna take you back. I'm gonna take you back.

You didn't even tell them that I just dove in. Oh, she dove in. Thank you. She did a swan dive in. All right, we're in. Yes. So now we're back. We're going back in the way back machine. Wow. We're doing a lot here to get there. There's a lot of like gyrations going on. This was a visual medium. You would all unsubscribe a media. You'd be like, good bye. Yeah, see you later. I'm going to take you back to Boston, Massachusetts, home sweet home.

What year? In the 1960s. Ooh. 1962, to be exact. What were people doing back then? The Civil Rights Movement was going on in Boston. That was a great movement. It's a great movement.

I love it. And people were just like living there. And actually, what's interesting about this time is where so used to now, you know, when big serial killer names come up, we're like, yeah, you know, Ted Bundy. Right, John Wayne Gacy, like you know all these serial killers. Back then, this was not a thing.

So it's like, the Boston Strangler was a whole brand new breed of awful nightmare. It must have been fun to not know what serial killers were. Yeah. That's what I meant. So when this all started happening, first of all knew to connect these things that just wasn't a thing yet, right? Like it wasn't like whoop, we got a serial killer on my hands was was the term serial killer even a thing Yeah, not at all not for a while So at this point it was just like what the fuck's going on and that's probably what they all said It's probably a lot of people from 1962

He's officer was like what the fuck is going on here? Ked. Ked. And a havenpuck in lot. What the fuck? You actually just sound like Papa. We just do. Yeah, we sound like my dad.

That's it. But, um, so what we're going to do is part one. This one we're going to go through the first six victims, which are all elderly, which is interesting because, I know it really is awful. And then the last, so there was 13 victims altogether of the Boston Strangler. Unlucky 13. Or Boston Stranglers.

Question mark parentheses. The first six were all elderly. The finals, what is that seven? Seven. The final seven. Is that seven? Yeah, I think that's eight. No, no, it's not. Okay. Seven plus six is 13. I'll leave. The final seven were younger, which was what made people question if it was really one person, how do you just switch victim profiles like that, even though that wasn't technically like a thing or a thought process back then, it was it's still now we look back on it and we're like, huh, wait a second. Yeah. And we all stroke our chins. So what we're going to do in part one is we're going to go over

the first six victims, the elderly ones, unfortunately. And that's where we're gonna stop. And then we are going to carry on in part two with all of the rest of the victims and discuss some of the psychology and all that good stuff. So here we go. Go. We're gonna start with the victim one, which is a great place to start. Always. I typically like to start at the beginning.

Always. So June 14th, 1962. The first victim was 55 year old Anna slussers. Oh, 55's like pretty young. Yeah, it's considered elderly, I think, relative to the last victims. Okay, I got it. We're mostly like in their 20s.

Oh yeah. So that's, you know what I mean? Like it's quote unquote elderly. Right. She was a seamstress for decorating firm on Canal Street. She lived in a brick house apartment, probably one of those beautiful ones. Oh, those brick house apartments in Boston are so dope. They really are. It was at 77 Gainsboro Street in Boston, and it was behind Symphony Hall.

Oh, shit. Yeah. She had a huge passion for music. She loved Symphony music and opera, so this was kind of perfect, because if you think about it, you can probably hear the music. I was just gonna say that.

That was been really cool to live there. So that was probably ideal. Now at 5.30 p.m. that night, she was seen entering her apartment alone. That was the last time she was seen a lot. She was getting ready in her apartment that night because her son was going to be picking her up around seven. Her son's name was Yaris and he was 23 years old. He was picking her up that night because they were going to church for a memorial service. I believe for victims of the Russian invasion of Lapia. Oh wow. So they were going for a memorial service. I believe for victims of the Russian invasion of Latvia. Oh wow. So they were going for a specific reason. He was going to be getting her around seven.

She had opera music playing in the home and she decided to run a bath while she was in there. Oh, I'm stressed. Side note, opera music playing makes everything fucking spooky. Never play opera music. Like again, and let me be clear, we will try to lighten some of these up with talking about this stuff. We're not lightening the fact that the other one is not. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, I just think about Hannah Belector pausing to conduct that, you know, the rest of the opera piece after he legit just ate a prison guard's face and like, bludgeoned him to death

and he's got blood all over him and he's literally just like sitting there like, swaying the music. That's all I think of. I'm like, oh, God. Did you like my opera piece? You killed it. I thought opera music was playing. It was out of my face.

Wow. Thank you opera music was playing. It was out of my face. Wow. Thank you. I was impressed. I liked it. So at 7.45, her son, Euras, came to the apartment together. And when he walked in, he found her body on the kitchen floor. Oh, no. He said he had to...

He said he first banged on the door for a while. She wasn't answering. And he was like, is she just not there? Is she late? What's going on? So he, after, he said like 30 to 40 minutes of like trying to get in this place. Jesus. He like threw himself against the door twice. And that's what it took to bust open the front door. Can you imagine the panic in his like body? Yeah. And that's, and so he said, he went back to like, he went to the living room. She wasn't in there He went to the bedroom. She wasn't in there. I'm like getting anxiety about this. Yeah, this whole thing's gonna give you anxiety It's real bad. So he found her on the kitchen floor. She was dressed in a house coat the house coat was torn open

And it was exposing her like naked. Oh God That's a thing with all of these women. He leaves them like that. He leaves them exposed. Oh, that's so shitty. The cord of her house coat was wrapped around her neck in a huge bow. Oh, not just in a knot, in like a bow.

House coat is like a bathroom, right? Yeah, basically a bathroom, yeah. And this wasn't just some regular bow, like not a bow that you are thinking in your head. It was apparently a combination of a granny knot, a square knot, and a double half hitch. What the fuck? Which is something that I guess I don't know anything

about knots at all, so I looked it up. Apparently it's not recommended to use the double half hitch alone, because it's not recommended to use the double half hitch alone because it's not a very secure knot by itself. So it's often used in conjunction with other knots. The advantages to this knot used with other knots is that it's adjustable, it's secure, and it ties quickly. Okay. The disadvantages, which actually are advantages to the strangler, are that it's very hard to untie. Oh.

So, it kind of looks like a pretzel. Oh, okay. Yeah. And- What, like, where do people typically learn about these knots? Like, does this have anything to do with where he could, like, what he could be about? Well, that's what's interesting. This one is typically used in, like, mooring, like, boatingating. Okay. So I think that was something that they looked at eventually because this

particular way of tying the ligature was found on like pretty much all the victim. Sure. It was like the way he did. It was like his signature. And it actually became known as the stranglers not later in the investigation, which is the scariest thing I've ever heard. Yeah, I don't love that. I don't tie that essentially right now. The sprinklers not like, so I think that's where you typically see it. Now, the killer had tried to strangle her with a man's belt, but it broke. She was also sexually assaulted, but they think that she was sexually assaulted with an object. Uh-huh.

Which happened in a lot of these cases. He really liked to sexually assault with objects. That's the weirdest fucking thing. It's awful. And honest, I looked up and I think, hopefully in part two, I'm going to have some psychology behind this because I've been trying to research why some rapists do that, like some why they choose that.

As the way, because that is very interesting and fucked up. Like it's, I just wanna know what that is. It's like it's on Nietzsche fucked up. Yeah, that's, I just wanna know what the reasoning behind that is, you know, in their brain. Her son said she had zero enemies. I mean I mean like she's a 55-year-old fucking seester. Yeah. And he initially immediately assumed it was a suicide because he said she was

like having like a rough time lately, I guess. And then he also said just the way she was laying was near next to the door and he assumed she'd try to hang herself with that cord on the door. Now homicide detectives James Mellon and John Driscoe were the first ones called to the scene. They found the apartment completely ransacked. Her purse contents were emptied on the floor. There was but the but nothing was missing. So was it almost like someone was trying to make it look like a robbery? Absolutely.

They said none of it made sense. It was just ransacked like Willie Nellie, but nothing was taken. And they said there was a gold watch and expensive pieces of jewelry left behind. It was like chilling. So this was clearly not a robbery situation. This was made to look like a robbery.

They, when they looked at the scene, were like, no, this is not suicide. Not at all. Yeah, because how would she have tied that knot so, yeah, like elegantly or whatever? Yeah, it doesn't. I don't know, that's a weird word to use. No, it's true.

It's like how intricately, you know? I think that's what I meant to say. Mel, Detective Melon says, he was like, there's no way. He said he was actually frustrated that anyone could assume this was a suicide. Because he said it was so obvious that it wasn't. He said he could see a small blood trail where she had been dragged from the bathroom

to where she was found. Do you know what? I wonder if her son, if it was like almost easier for him to think that she's been a suicide. That to picture his mom being fucking gruesomely murdered. I wonder if her son, if it was like almost easier for him to think that she's been to suicide. Oh, yeah. To pictures, mom being fucking gruesomely murdered. Yeah, it's like, who would think that first? I mean, you would rather think.

Yeah, I don't even think of anything else. Mm-hmm. And I guess. Hi, I'm Lindsey Graham, the host of Wondery's podcast American scandal. We bring to life some of the biggest controversies in US history. Presidential lies, environmental disasters, corporate fraud. In our newest series, we look at the Kids for Cash scandal, a story about corruption inside America's system of juvenile justice. In Northeastern Pennsylvania, residents had begun noticing an alarming trend.

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What makes a person a murderer? Are they born to kill or are they made to kill? I'm Candice DeLong and on my podcast Killer Psychie Daily, which you can find exclusively on Amazon Music, I share a quick 10-minute rundown every weekday on the motivations and behaviors of the criminal masterminds you read about in the news. I have decades of experience as a psychiatric nurse, FBI agent, and a criminal profiler. On Killer Psychie Daily, I'll give you my expert perspective on cases like the mysterious New York City drugings, Raking Down Valow, a.k.a.

Mommy Doom stays motives, and what drove Kaitlyn Armstrong to murder? I'll also bring on expert guests who add even more insight into these criminal minds. I promise you won't regret adding these 10 minutes to your morning routine. Hey, Prime members, listen to the Amazon Music exclusive podcast killer psyche daily in the Amazon Music app. Download the app today. They said that when they talked to Yoris in the living room, they were asked, you know, how was he, what was he acting?

And they said he was like very like just calm and quiet, which immediately led them to be like, hmm what's going on? Of course. Because they were like, she doesn't have any enemies and you're here and I'm confused. Right. So he was considered immediately. They said they liked him as the suspect. Oh wow. They got that to the pan out. But yeah, so they said police questioned eight men about this murder and all were released. Wow. So victim two happened on June 28th, not long after that first one. That first one was June 14th. So only a few days later. This was on Commonwealth Avenue in the back bay. Oh, shit. This one's odd. And this one is like attributed to Albert DeSalvo only because he

admitted this one I think. The victim was 85-year-old Mary Mullen. Now she was found dead on the sofa in her apartment. It didn't she didn't appear to be strangled or anything like that. This is why this one's very different. But years later Albert DeSalvo told investigators that he was there and that she died in his arms. I think he was there to do what he normally does and she died in his arms. Did she have like a heart attack? So that her cause of death was confirmed as a heart attack. And the police thought that she might have been frightened to death. Which he, if he was there, I'm sure she was fucking frightened. Which is horrible. That's so sad. So victim three was in the afternoon of June 30th. Wow. So two days later. Oh yeah.

Some of these are not even two days. Some of these were done on the same day. Wow. Yeah. What are you so mad about, sir? Yeah. Oh, this is, this is full on mommy issues. Yeah. If this is the same person for at least these six, this is full on mommy issue. Are you going to talk to me later about Albert DeZelbo's mom? Hell yeah. Okay, cool. So I'm stoked. So Nina Nichols was the victim. She was a 68 year old widow. She had just been stopping by her apartment that night to change and pack a bag to go see her sister in Wellswell. Oh come on. She was going to be staying I think just one night there. It was super hot that day. It was super hot

like it is today. I was just going to say like today. And she was walking around, she opened her windows, Celetzamaren. Thresh airs for dead people. 100% it is. And she was just changing. She got on the phone with her sister. And she told her that she planned to be at her place around 6 PM that day. During the phone call, her sister said that Nina said, oh, someone's at the door, I'll call you right back. No. And she said she heard her door. I'll call you right back. No.

And she said she heard her doorbell. No one you know is at that door. Now, one of the things that we think happened, which again, we're going to talk about in part two when we talk about Albert Selva, is none of these scenes had any forced entry. None of them. Like you was led into most of these places.

This person was likely led into these places. So they're thinking he posed as, you know, a salesman, a salesman, anything like just something that would not make you these women feel alarmed. So again, she said she was going, she told her sister, she would be at her place around 6 p.m. Sometime around 7.30 p.m. she had not shown up. So her brother-in-law, so her sister's brother, her sister's husband. Yes, my sister's brother, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her brother-in-law. Chester Stedman, he at 7.30 probably got a call from his wife, her sister, saying, it's 7.30, she said she was going to be ear here at 6 something's weird. So Chester calls Nina. Okay. He gets no answer on the telephone when he called several times and again he's like it is way too late for her to not be here and to not be answering the phone.

So he calls the superintendent of her building. Now a little bit after 730 p.m. That's when the superintendent found her on the bedroom floor. Oh no. She was wearing a pink flannel robe that was torn from the waist down to reveal her naked body underneath. Two stockings were tied around her neck in a bow and they were tied so tightly that they had cut into her skin. Oh my god. They'd actually cut her skin and she was bleeding. Oh, that stresses me out. Police found, again, no evidence of forced entry. Nothing was missing.

Same exact situation. Was it ransacked? It was. It was ransacked. Now, quick little trigger warning. This is a rough one. So just no, there's a sexual assault thing coming up here. Why don't I get to skip? She was sexually assaulted with a wine bottle. I don't get to skip

and you ruin wine for me. Yeah. Oh my god. That's just awful. That's beyond. The most gruesome thing I've heard thus far. That's just so brutal. It's like, why are you that brutal? That's really just different. And again, that is some deep psychological shit right there. Wow. Because that is so beautiful. For your mind to even go there to do that. It's like, what? Like, you're a sick, twisted mother fucker. Like, that's trying to inflict maximum damage. Oh my God. Yeah. Oh my god. So again, enough they said the way the apartment was ransacked this time was even sloppier in the

sense that it didn't even make sense. Like they were like it didn't even look like a natural ransacking. He was just like knocking things over and shit. So, and what's sad about this one and also like, go Nina was that she had obviously fought really hard. Yes. Because there was obvious skin and blood under her fingernails. Oh, they did swipe those out and they did blood typing

for the blood because that's all they could do with that one. Well, that's good at least. But yeah, she fought like hell. Oh, which is awful. Nina, I know. On to victim number four, the same day. Cheese.

In the nickels. In Lynn, there was a woman who lived underneath a 65-year-old woman named Helen Blake. And she heard some stuff being moved upstairs in Helen Blake's apartment. And she's heard like kind of a kind of emotion, of like a commotion but like nothing that really alarmed her. She said she just heard a lot of stuff going on up there. So she initially was like, well, she must be like really cleaning up there like what the hell's going on. Right. 48 hours later she found out that that was probably the Boston String. 48 hours later. So that morning, the morning of June 30th, when Helen Blake was murdered, her neighbors,

Annie Winchell and Margaret Hamilton, both in their 70s, left their apartments in the morning, like they always did at the same exact time, because women in their 70s and up I think like routine. Yes. I like routine already and I'm 33. So, we tweet. I'm 23. So, I get it.

Did you say you were 37? I said I was 33. I thought you said you were 37 and I was like that's not true. I am not 37. I was like that fuck. I said 33. But they would always do this together at the same time and Helen Blake, their other neighbor, always joined them. But through them had this thing, they went out,

they got their mail, and they would just kind of chit chat about the day, and then that's how they started the day. That's the cutest most wholesome thing I've ever heard. Except Helen didn't show up. Yeah, that's not wholesome. It's just bad. So they immediately were like, huh, where's that lead? It's weird. Maybe she's not feeling well.

I don't know. Around 6 p.m. that night, her housekeeper entered her apartment. Oh no. She had a key. She could just go in. She said everything was a mess. But not like, hey, Helen, it's fucking messy.

Right, I got my job cut out here. It was literally like a large open. She said there was like spoiled milk on the top of the refrigerator that hadn't been put in the refrigerator yet. It was just very suspicious messy. So she immediately was like, oh shit. Now, when she went further into the apartment, she found Helen Blake, who was a nurse, on her bed facedown. The bottom of her pajamas, which were flannel, were on the floor next to the bed. And two stockings and a bra had been tied in a bow around her neck. Now again, trigger warning, this is rough. No. She definitely had some of the worst elements in her

murder. Just for gruesomeness. She had lacerations to her anus and vagina. Yeah. So this is when, and now what you'll see too is that these bows are being tied with various ligatures. It's usually not one, it's not like one cord or one thing. It's multiple. Stalking's bras, like multiple

layers to make these like theatrical garish bows. Like it's really just like awful. Yeah, it's very theatrical. It is. And in one of these, you're going to see that it is, he's setting these people up. He's posing them in a way that he wants the person who finds them to see this awful sight when they walk in. Okay. So this is when police commissioner Edmund McNamara decided she was going down. I mean, I would say so. This is when he was like, yeah, some stuff. I would say, shit had been going down a little bit more than earlier than that, but like, shit's getting rough, kid. Okay, sir. So he canceled all police leave to get as many police officers

as possible. And he sent out a massive warning to all media outlets to tell women to stay indoors, lock themselves into their apartments, and to be very aware of their surroundings. Imagine like this time and like you're like locked in your apartment and then somebody knocks on the door. I would never answer the door. No, I know, but can you imagine? Like you know that feeling here. I'm here. It would be cool.

Oh, unbelievable. I heard some interviews with some women who like were in Boston around this time and they were saying like they would literally just sit up and bed at night and like just not even want to close the eyes. I would never go to sleep. Because they were just like is he coming?

Like what's happening? I would be pounding red balls. I would never go to sleep. Because they would just like, is he coming? Like, what's happening? I would be pounding Red Bulls. And my mama, my grandma, my grandma, who was living in an apartment with other girls. And this apartment, you could literally use a credit card to just like push open the lock. And we were like, Ma, were you afraid?

And she was like, no, not really. Yeah, she was like, we were fine. Oh, she said, and I was like, I was like, that was smart. She said they, her and her roommates, which this is where we're fine. Oh, she said and I was like, I was like, that was smart. She said they her and her roommates Which this is where we get our savvy Super savvy she said they just set up a big pyramid of bottles in front of their door and any entrance so that if he tried to come in It would knock over all the bottles and create like a big

Like emotion and they'd all be able to like, whatever plan they had devised to like get the hell out of there, they could do it. Oh my God, I didn't know that. Yeah. What a bad bitch. She is a bad bitch. Most a bad a bitch. So that's kind of fun.

The only fun thing about this whole thing. Just about. So this is when, I mean, this was in the very early stages of like criminal profiling and all that. They're just like, I don't know what the fuck is happening, but something's happening. But this is when people who were doing some form of profiling were saying that it's likely this killer had a bad relationship with his mother, and it's what led to this. Okay. Which makes a lot of sense.

So, victim number five was on August 19th. Again, he's just like boom, boom, boom, boom. Was it one before that? The 30th? The 30th. Okay. Yeah. So this is like a little break for him. Yeah, this is this is somewhat of a break. It's a few weeks. This was at seven Grove Garden in Boston's West End. The unfortunate victim was 75- old widow Ida Erga and she was found like the other is strangled to death. Now Ida Erga had immigrated to the US from Ukraine with her two year old son and settled in Boston in the 1920s. Which makes me even sound like you came all the way.

She came from like a war torn time in the area for a better life. You settle in Boston. You're like, this is where I'm gonna live now. She lives her whole last life there. Her whole last life there. You have Grant. She had Grandkids.

She was like, she had a whole life. And it's like, it's 75. And cause this guy doesn't like his fucking mom. It always bugs me out when people live to be like in their 80s or 70s or something. And then some asshole murderer, that's what ends their life. It's like you've lived this whole great life

and that's what snows it out. It just makes me so angry. Because it's like come on universe. What the fuck? Come on. So she had even mentioned to her grown son that year that she was worried about the murders in Boston. I don't blame her.

She was like, I'm alone. I'm worried. Yeah. And he was like, no, it's fine. You're a smart lady. I'm not worried about you because this is when they started saying it doesn't look like this guy is breaking in. It looks like people are letting him in.

So do not let men into your apartment. So, and she was smart, so her son was like, you're smart, I'm not worried about you, you're not gonna let him in. Don't worry. A poor son. Yeah. So the day she was murdered,

she had gone out with friends, like God, I'll dress up, gone out with friends, because apparently she was one of those ladies that was like, was she a lady who lunched? She was a lady who lunched. I can't wait to be a fucking lady who lunches. And she went out and she lunched that day. Lunch girl.

And then she was gonna be meeting her sister, but she didn't show up. I would meet my sister after I launched. You would. And hopefully you would show up because this is awful. Yes. Now when she didn't show up, her sister called the superintendent of her building. And the superintendent actually sent his 13 year old son. But like why though?

Up with the key to check. Did you really think that was a good idea, sir? I'm one, I am both accused of murdering on the loose. And also kind of like, okay, she was 75. Maybe he's like, oh, you know, maybe people are paranoid, They're probably just like But at the same time I'm like one there's a murderer his murderers who are murdering elderly women in apartments in Boston So I don't know when someone says they can't get a hold of a love maybe use your context clues

Maybe you go up there or you call the police. Yeah, I don't know and it's like and also Either way like me even if she fell or something, and she's a man. What's your fucking 13 year old will do? Your fucking 13 year old son's gonna be like, I don't know what the fuck to do here. Like, come on man, get off your ass and go open the door. That sounds like an old people thing though.

Yeah, it's not like when you have kids and you can just send them to do shit that you don't wanna do. It's true, I'm sure. And it's a running theme in life. I mean, I do look forward to that day when I can send them to do things I don't wanna do, but. Maybe not that specific thing.

Maybe not this thing. Now, let me be clear that Aida was posed specifically. Oh, and this 13 year old finds her? Oh yeah, all fuck. And she was posed in this, I mean, this is gonna be graphic. I'm just letting everybody know. Right ahead of time, this is a really graphic one.

No. She was posed specifically so that whoever opened that front door would immediately be staring at her exposed genitals. Oh, she was on her back. God. She had a brown night gown on that was torn open on the front like the rest of them. Uh-huh. It was exposing her her and her legs were spread apart. Something like five feet apart. Like, straight eagle. Yeah. But this was a little different. Right now, this person is escalating. If this is the same, if this is the same person, he is escalating. He's like pulling the tent at the Chai Omega house. Exactly. Chai Omega. Chai Omega. Yes. I almost had it.

You did. You were close. I liked it. Thanks. Her legs were spread apart, but they were propped up on two chairs. And the pillow was placed under her behind to proper up in a truly obscene way. Literally legs on two chairs, five feet apart, spread eagle, and under her bottom were pillows

so that it was literally front and center when you walked in. It was literally propping her up, so that's the first thing you see. I'm nauseous. She had been strangled by a pillowcase and sexually assaulted. There was again, no sign of forced entry into her home. She lived there for 15 years. And actually when the 13 year old's son

of the superintendent had gone to open the door to go, find her. At the same time, a cousin was climbing in her apartment to check on her as well. Because they had sent a cousin was climbing in her apartment to check on her as well. Because they had sent to cousin. So a lot of people unfortunately got this awful sight. I think that one in the last victim, which we'll talk about in part two, are definitely the worst.

Okay. I would say. I mean, they're all awful, but those ones are just a little more obscene than the others. That is super obscene. Yeah. So hang with us guys. This is a really rough one. So victim number six, the last one we're going to talk about tonight, so that you guys can ever breathe there from the softfulness. Yeah, like go in a walk in a nice park. It was on the same day. What? How? What? How? What we're gonna see is I want to say that I think Albert DeSalvo did most of the older ones. Like do you think he did these first six? I think he may have. I'm gonna wait to, I'm gonna hold on to my like full theory

until we get to it. But he also was known by his wife, he was married at least at one point. He had like a voracious sexual appetite. So it makes sense that he would be sexually assaulting multiple women in a day. Because it seems like he was just like this unstoppable nightmare, just nightmare of fucking angry sexual frustration.

Okay. Just a fucking storm of it. Where did these people create it? But again, we're going to get really far into that in like part two. We're going to talk about it so I don't want to give too much away. But this was the same day. In this day, newspapers actually came out and said, quote, the deranged killer who has brought chilling terror to the home of every Boston woman who lives alone. That was the headline. Wow, what a fucking headline. I know. It's like, oh,

headlines aren't what they used to be. They're not. They're really not. This is when 65-year-old Jane Sullivan was murdered. That's just such a like kind woman name. It really is. Like sweet old Jane Sullivan. Just Jane Sullivan, you know, and it's and it's so Boston. In that Jane Sullivan, like I feel like I know at least six Jane Sullivan's. Yeah, we got so many Sullivan's here. In fact, there's two Sullivan's in these this victim pool. Oh really? So Jane Sullivan was a night nurse at Longwood Hospital She was described as quote a beautiful gray haired woman who looked much younger than her years. Oh, so we could free Jane get a girl. I'm telling her Jane She was found halfway into her bathtub at home and she lived at 435 Columbia Road in Dorchester. The police believed her killer murdered her in one room and then carried her to

where she was found and posed her. She was found face down kneeling. Her head and forearms were covered were in the bath and covered by water, okay, and Her she had a house coat on and it was pulled up to her shoulders Exposing her completely naked her underwear was around her ankles, and again, she was kneeling He had exposed purposely exposed her buttocks and She had been dead for a week at the point. Oh God. Now in the water? Yeah. Oh God. So she had been strangled by two nylon stockings which were in in a boat. Okay. And they said she was very decomposed at that point. I believe it. This was obviously hot weather too. Right.

It was so it took a while to identify her. But a psychiatrist who was drawing up like a profile of the suspect said, quote, he is physically small, a fact that nurtures a crippling and ferreality complex. He's a psychotic sex pervert suffering from a most malignant form of schizophrenia. And unless police get to him, he will kill again. This is also when police postulated that each of the women had some kind of ties to Boston hospitals or medical centers. So they were thinking that was the common denominator along with them being like slightly older women. But that's all they really had to go on. Right. So that's when they were thinking that was the common denominator along with them being like slightly older women,

but that's all they really had to go on. Right. So that's when they started thinking that this was like someone who had worked at one of the mental hospitals, which is what they called them then. And they thought that this could be somebody that was some disgruntled worker who had worked with older nurses and was pissed

and decided to. But again, they had like nothing. Because it's like he wasn't taken anything and he wasn't leaving anything behind. That's wild that he was not leaving anything behind. Yeah. Because and again, this is the 60s. So it's not like they're testing, finding all the fibers and things that they can test and DNA and all that. And with these elderly women, he wasn't leaving Seaman or anything because he was raping them with objects. We're just fucked.

This changes later. So keep that in mind. Now, I read that the police in these investigations, which I mean, these are like elderly women living alone. This was probably really hard to be on this case, especially like a bunch of hard and police officers are obviously going to think of their own moms. Yeah, just like sweet nannis. And so I guess this was really hard on them and they had like in the back room they had like a board with all the names on it and And they tied with each of the names like as a reminder to try to like force themselves

to solve this case. It was like really weighing hard on them, weighing hard on them. Had, had. It was hysteria at this point in Boston. And but police were desperately trying to calm people down because there was just no evidence so they were like, we have nothing.

Like, you don't have anything we can do right now. But they were also like, we need you guys to calm down because we're trying to sort through like thousands and thousands of tips and like interviews and all this. And mass hysteria is not good. No, and they were even, they were interviewing all of the sex offenders in the area. They were just doing anything they could.

People were, you know, putting fingers at anybody. And this is when the killings took a turn and it was clear that no women were safe, not just older women. Oh, great. We love when no women are safe. So that's where we're going to end for part two. Because I think I want to leave all the, you know, all the, I want to leave the different victim profiles for part two. Because I think I want to leave all the, you know, all the, I want to leave the different victim profiles for part two. For seven or an opposite. Yeah. I think that's a good idea. And we're going to go further into Albert DeSalvo, and we're going to talk about his confession. We'll go through it as much as we can, because some of it is extraordinarily accurate. And then some of it is completely inaccurate. Interesting. And it seems like it's taken from some of the false

inaccurate things that the police put in the in the papers just to throw people off weird. Yeah, so that's why a lot of people think like, huh? Now, I'm sure a lot of you have read that in recent years DNA has linked Albert DeSalvo to some of these killing so he did at least do some of them. Exactly. Which we're gonna get into in part two. So stay tuned for that and everybody take a take a deep breath. Namaste. Everybody hug. Namado. Hug your Nana. Just hug, you know, help a woman, an old lady, cross the street. Yeah, it's like, you know, just, I don't know. Wait, I was gonna say wave it, and a woman, but don't do that, because that's fucking creepy. That could be scary.

Don't do that. And that could be very worrisome, so don't do that. But just be nice. Respect your elders. Respect your elders, guys. Moral of today's morbid as respect your elders. And I just like to say that a lot of this information that I got for this part of the Boston Strangler series that we're doing, I found in, I found old newspaper clippings and old articles from back then what was going on.

And I also highly recommend listening to the podcast called Stranglers. You can find it on Stitcher. I know, I'm not sure where else, probably everywhere else. But it is a deep, like investigative podcast focusing on the Boston Strangler case. I think there's like 12 episodes that they go through each victim.

They go through all of the, I mean, what Boston, they have like interviews with police officers from that time interviews with family members of the victims. It's fascinating. So everyone go listen to stranglers after you listen to our stuff because it'll give you an even more in depth look into this. And yeah, I think that's where we are. My part one stressed me out,

so I really can't wait for part two. Yeah. While you're waiting for part two in the meantime, you could follow us on Instagram at morbidpodcast. Find us on Twitter. A morbidpodcast. Send us a Gmail.

morbidpodcast at gmail.com. Join the Facebook group. morbid, colon, a true crime podcast. Check out the website that Alina is so lovely designed. morbidpodcast.com. Donate to the Patreon if you're feeling so inclined. Patreon.com slash morbidpodcast. And just so you know, I just packaged up the last

of your goodies for this month. Woo! Woo! Oh, we hope you keep listening. And we hope you keep it weird. But not so weird that I'm not going to do one for this episode, sorry bye. No, it's a bummer. True bummer.

Thanks for listening. Love you. Muah! Hey, Prime Members! You can listen to Morvid, Early, and Add Free on Amazon Music. Download the Amazon Music app today, or you can listen Add Free with Wondery Plus and Apple podcasts. Before you go, tell us about yourself by completing a short survey at Wondery.com slash survey. survey at Wundery.com slash survey.