DNA link to Boston Strangler suspect
Source: Agencies |
July 12, 2013, Friday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
ADVANCES in DNA technology have allowed investigators to link longtime suspect Albert DeSalvo to the last of the 1960s slayings attributed to the Boston Strangler, a prosecutor said yesterday.
The DNA produced a "familial match" with DeSalvo in the rape and murder of Mary Sullivan, Suffolk District Attorney Daniel Conley said. DeSalvo's remains were being exhumed, and Conley said he expected investigators to find an exact match when the evidence is compared with his DNA.
Sullivan, 19, was found strangled in her apartment in January 1964. She was long considered the strangler's last victim.
The announcement represents the most definitive evidence yet linking DeSalvo to the case.
Eleven Boston-area women between the ages of 19 and 85 were sexually assaulted and killed between 1962 and 1964.
DeSalvo, married with children, a blue collar worker and army veteran, confessed to the 11 Boston Strangler murders, as well as two others.
He was never convicted of the Boston Strangler killings, but sentenced to life in prison for a series of armed robberies and sexual assaults. DeSalvo was stabbed to death in the state's maximum security prison in Walpole in 1973 - but not before he recanted his confession.
Officials stressed that the DNA evidence links DeSalvo only to Sullivan's killing and that no DNA evidence is believed to exist for the other Boston Strangler slayings.
State Attorney General Martha Coakley, however, said investigators hoped that solving Sullivan's case might put to rest doubts about DeSalvo's guilt.
Conley said the "familial match" excludes 99.99 percent of suspects but isn't enough to close the case.
The DNA produced a "familial match" with DeSalvo in the rape and murder of Mary Sullivan, Suffolk District Attorney Daniel Conley said. DeSalvo's remains were being exhumed, and Conley said he expected investigators to find an exact match when the evidence is compared with his DNA.
Sullivan, 19, was found strangled in her apartment in January 1964. She was long considered the strangler's last victim.
The announcement represents the most definitive evidence yet linking DeSalvo to the case.
Eleven Boston-area women between the ages of 19 and 85 were sexually assaulted and killed between 1962 and 1964.
DeSalvo, married with children, a blue collar worker and army veteran, confessed to the 11 Boston Strangler murders, as well as two others.
He was never convicted of the Boston Strangler killings, but sentenced to life in prison for a series of armed robberies and sexual assaults. DeSalvo was stabbed to death in the state's maximum security prison in Walpole in 1973 - but not before he recanted his confession.
Officials stressed that the DNA evidence links DeSalvo only to Sullivan's killing and that no DNA evidence is believed to exist for the other Boston Strangler slayings.
State Attorney General Martha Coakley, however, said investigators hoped that solving Sullivan's case might put to rest doubts about DeSalvo's guilt.
Conley said the "familial match" excludes 99.99 percent of suspects but isn't enough to close the case.
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