The Boston Strangler case refers to a series of murders that occurred in the Boston metropolitan area between June 14, 1962, and January 4, 1964, during which thirteen women between the ages of 19 and 85 were killed in their apartments across five cities and three counties in eastern Massachusetts. Albert DeSalvo confessed to the crimes in 1965, though he was never formally charged with the murders, and considerable debate persists over whether he acted alone or at all. The Commonwealth of Massachusetts reportedly offered a $10,000 reward for information and received thousands of letters and calls from around the world, according to the EBSCO Research database. The case left specific locations across Boston and its surrounding communities with a documented history of tragedy that residents and visitors still reference more than six decades later.
Where Did the Boston Strangler Murders Take Place?
The murders attributed to the Boston Strangler did not occur in a single neighborhood. They were spread across multiple communities — Back Bay, Beacon Hill, Cambridge, Lawrence, Lynn, and Salem — a geographic dispersal that initially made investigators doubt the crimes were connected. According to the Encyclopaedia Britannica, the case ultimately involved five separate District Attorney’s offices, and Massachusetts Attorney General Edward Brooke took personal charge of the investigation in January 1964.
The first victim, 55-year-old Anna Slesers, was found in her apartment on Gainsborough Street near Symphony Hall on June 14, 1962. According to Wikipedia’s entry on the case, she was a seamstress and churchgoer. Over the following eighteen months, twelve more women were killed in similar circumstances — most sexually assaulted and strangled with articles of their own clothing, the ligature reportedly left tied in a distinctive bow.
The final victim commonly attributed to the Strangler was 19-year-old Mary Sullivan, found in her apartment at 44A Charles Street on Beacon Hill on January 4, 1964. According to ABC News reporting from 2013, Sullivan was strangled with her own stocking in her apartment, and a card reading “Happy New Year” was left near her body. The Charles Street address would become one of the most referenced locations in the case’s long aftermath.
Who Was Albert DeSalvo?
Albert Henry DeSalvo was born on September 3, 1931, in Chelsea, Massachusetts. According to his Wikipedia biography, he had a history of breaking and entering and sexual offenses before the Strangler murders began. He was known to police as the “Measuring Man” — he would knock on women’s doors claiming to be a modeling scout and take their measurements — and later as the “Green Man” for a series of home invasions in which he sexually assaulted women across four states.
DeSalvo confessed to the Strangler murders in 1965 through his attorney, F. Lee Bailey, while incarcerated at Bridgewater State Hospital. Evidence suggests that aspects of his confession were unreliable — he reportedly described crime scene details that contradicted police records. He was never tried for the murders due to insufficient physical evidence. Instead, he was convicted of the Green Man rapes — in which he allegedly broke into over 400 homes and assaulted over 300 women across four states, according to the Alcatraz East crime museum — and sentenced to life imprisonment. On November 25, 1973, DeSalvo was stabbed to death in his cell at Walpole State Prison at age 42. His murder remains unsolved.
In July 2013, Suffolk County District Attorney Daniel F. Conley announced that DNA analysis had linked DeSalvo to the murder of Mary Sullivan with, according to ABC News, “99.9 percent certainty.” DeSalvo’s remains were exhumed from Puritan Lawn Cemetery in Peabody, Massachusetts, to confirm the match. While this linked DeSalvo to one victim conclusively, authorities stated he “most likely” committed the other murders as well — a hedged conclusion that acknowledged the ongoing controversy.
What Locations Are Associated with the Case Today?
Several locations connected to the Boston Strangler case remain standing and accessible, though none are marketed as haunted attractions or memorialized in any formal way. The buildings are residential properties where people live today, and approaching them requires the kind of sensitivity that any location associated with violent crime demands.
The Beacon Hill apartment at 44A Charles Street, where Mary Sullivan was killed, sits in one of Boston’s most historically preserved neighborhoods. The building itself is unremarkable — a brick row house typical of the area — but its address is referenced in virtually every account of the case. Beacon Hill’s narrow streets and gas-lit lamps give the neighborhood an atmosphere that lends itself to the kind of uneasy historical awareness that surrounds sites of documented violence.
The Back Bay neighborhood, where several early victims lived, retains much of its nineteenth-century brownstone architecture. The density of apartment buildings in Back Bay meant that the Strangler’s victims were living in close proximity to hundreds of neighbors, a fact that intensified public fear during the eighteen months of active investigation. According to the EBSCO Research entry on the case, the murders “engulfed the city in panic” and led the Boston police chief to redirect nearly all department resources to the search.
Cambridge, across the Charles River, was the site of at least one attack and was also where DeSalvo committed some of the Green Man sexual assaults that eventually led to his identification. The proximity of these locations to Harvard University and MIT meant that the academic community was directly affected by the atmosphere of fear that pervaded the region during the early 1960s.
For visitors interested in Boston’s broader dark history, our Boston ghost tours page covers guided experiences that contextualize the city’s violent past within walking tours of its oldest neighborhoods.
How Did the Case Change Boston?
The Boston Strangler case had measurable effects on how the city approached public safety. According to Britannica, the case marked one of the first instances in which mass media, state and national law enforcement, and a “terrified community” were all simultaneously engaged with a serial murder investigation. The investigation reportedly involved approximately 2,600 suspects who were interviewed by police, and the Attorney General’s task force — formed on January 17, 1964 — coordinated efforts across the five jurisdictions. The media coined the terms “Phantom Fiend” and “Boston Strangler” in 1962 and 1963, respectively — the Sunday Herald published an article on July 8, 1962, declaring that “a mad strangler is loose in Boston.”
The case reportedly led to increased adoption of door locks and peepholes in Boston apartments, changes in how single women approached home security, and a lasting cultural wariness in neighborhoods where the murders occurred. DeSalvo’s ten-day trial in January 1967 resulted in a life sentence, and his 1973 murder at age 42 in Walpole State Prison — where he had served approximately six years — added another unsolved crime to the case’s legacy. The 1968 film The Boston Strangler, starring Tony Curtis and produced on a budget of approximately $4 million, further embedded the case in national consciousness and ensured that the geographic locations associated with the crimes would remain part of Boston’s dark tourism landscape.
Some residents of the affected neighborhoods reportedly experience an awareness of the buildings’ history that falls short of explicit paranormal claims but reflects a persistent discomfort. Evidence for any supernatural presence at these locations remains anecdotal at best, and researchers who study place-based trauma suggest that the unease visitors describe may reflect psychological associations rather than paranormal phenomena. Whether this constitutes a “haunting” in the traditional sense is a matter of interpretation — but the locations arguably carry a weight that anyone familiar with the case can feel when walking past them.
Is There Controversy About DeSalvo’s Guilt?
Significant controversy persists. While the 2013 DNA evidence linked DeSalvo to Mary Sullivan’s murder, questions remain about the other twelve victims. According to Susan Kelly, author of The Boston Stranglers (published by Pinnacle Books), the murders may have been committed by as many as eight different killers rather than a single individual. Kelly’s research, which drew on files from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts’ Strangler Bureau, argued that the victims’ widely varying ages, ethnicities, and the inconsistent methods of killing pointed to multiple perpetrators.
Former FBI profiler John Douglas, in his book The Cases That Haunt Us, identified DeSalvo as a “power-assurance” motivated rapist — a type he described as unlikely to kill in the manner attributed to the Strangler. DeSalvo’s confessions contained numerous factual errors: in one instance, according to Kelly’s research, he claimed to have thrown a murder weapon into a swamp when police had found it in the victim’s kitchen.
The debate over DeSalvo’s role illustrates a broader challenge in true crime history: the gap between public narrative and documented evidence. For visitors exploring Boston’s dark history through locations like those covered in our guide to colonial-era ghosts of Boston or the most haunted places in Boston, the Strangler case serves as a reminder that not every historical mystery has a clean resolution.
Frequently Asked Questions
Where did the Boston Strangler murders happen?
The thirteen murders attributed to the Boston Strangler occurred across multiple communities in eastern Massachusetts between 1962 and 1964, including Back Bay, Beacon Hill, Cambridge, Lawrence, Lynn, and Salem. The geographic spread across five cities and three counties initially made investigators doubt the crimes were connected, and the case ultimately involved five separate District Attorney’s offices.
Is Albert DeSalvo confirmed as the Boston Strangler?
DNA evidence from 2013 linked Albert DeSalvo to the murder of Mary Sullivan, the final victim, with what authorities described as 99.9 percent certainty. However, DeSalvo was never formally charged with any of the Strangler murders during his lifetime, and some researchers argue the killings were committed by multiple perpetrators rather than a single individual.
Can you visit Boston Strangler locations today?
The buildings associated with the Boston Strangler case are residential properties where people currently live. They are not tourist attractions and are not marked or memorialized in any way. Visitors interested in Boston’s dark history should approach these locations with sensitivity and are encouraged to explore the city’s broader haunted history through guided tours, which provide historical context without intruding on private residences.