Nobody that knew DeSalvo believed that he was the Strangler: his wife and family, his former employers, his lawyer, an eminent prison psychiatrist, and even the police who had become very familiar with Albert with his frequent arrests for breaking and entering. Everyone who knew him thought of him as a very gentle, decent family man, who just happened to be an incorrigible small-time thief.

Susan Kelly in The Boston Stranglers: The Public Conviction of Albert DeSalvo and the True Story of Eleven Shocking Murders makes a persuasive argument for DeSalvo being innocent of the strangling murders.

DeSalvo shackled, escorted by officer (CORBIS)

She cites a number of reasons why she and others still believed that DeSalvo was innocent. One of the strongest of these reasons is that there was "not one shred of physical evidence that connected him to any of the murders. Nor could any eyewitness place him at or even near any of the crime scenes. Albert had a relatively memorable face, particularly because of his prominent, beak-like nose.

The Strangler (or Stranglers, since some experts believe that it had to be at least two different murderers and possibly more) was seen by a number of eyewitnesses.

One was Kenneth Rowe, the engineering student who lived on the floor above Joann Graff’s apartment. He spoke to the stranger who was looking for her apartment just before she was killed. When Rowe was shown a photo of Albert DeSalvo, he did not recognize him as the man looking for Joann.

Jules Vens who ran Martin’s Tavern right near Joann Graff’s apartment in Lawrence did not identify DeSalvo as the man who, dressed identically to the man Rowe had seen, had come into the tavern nervous and agitated as though someone were following him.

Eileen O’Neil could not identify DeSalvo as the man who she saw in Mary Sullivan’s bathroom window around the time of her death.

Plus, Kelly points out, "three fresh Salem cigarette butts were found in an ashtray near Mary Sullivan’s bed. Neither Mary nor her roommates …smoked this brand. A Salem cigarette butt was found floating in the toilet of Apartment 4-C at 315 Huntington Avenue in Boston the day Sophie Clark died there…Albert DeSalvo did not smoke."

Even more remarkable were the reactions that two very important eyewitnesses had to seeing Albert and his killer friend George Nassar. Marcella Lulka, who lived in the same apartment building as Sophie Clark, had an encounter with a man called "Mr. Thompson" who said he had come to paint her apartment. This man was about 5 feet nine with pale honey-colored hair combed straight back over an oval face. She said he could have been a light-skinned black or a white man. She estimated his age as around 25 years old. She got rid of him by telling him that her husband was asleep inside her apartment. This encounter was just before Sophie Clark was murdered.

"Mrs. Lulka later sketched for police a portrait of "Thompson." It shows a delicately featured young man with a long, narrow face, a very thin nose, a point chin, and large, almond-shaped eyes. It looks nothing like Albert DeSalvo." (Kelly).

When Albert began confessing to the stranglings, Bottomly rounded up Mrs. Lulka and Gertrude Gruen so that they could secretly view Albert in prison. Gertrude Gruen was considered at that time the only woman who survived an encounter with the Strangler. She had given her attacker a good fight and he fled.

Both women thought that they were coming to view one man – Albert DeSalvo. Neither realized that they would see another man also – George Nassar. The women posed as visitors in the prison’s visiting room. Nassar was the first one to enter the room to meet with the prison social worker. Gerold Frank describes this unexpected reaction:

[George Nassar]..darted a sharp glance at her [Gruen], and then a second. She thought, There’s something upsetting, something frighteningly familiar about that man. Could he know her?

At that moment, DeSalvo entered and took his place across the table from Dr. Allen. Miss Gruen looked at him. No, he was not the man who talked with her, attempted to strangle her, the man with whom she fought, the man who fled when her screams brought workers on the roof peering into her windows.

But the man now talking to the social worker, the man who had turned his dark eyes on her so sharply –

Moments later, in Dr. Robey’s office, surrounded by police, she said agitatedly, "I don’t know what to say…I’m so upset." She appeared on the verge of a breakdown…Finally she was able to talk.

It was not Albert DeSalvo, she said. When she had been shown his photographs a week earlier, she’d thought she saw certain similarities. "Now, I know he is not the man," she said. But the first man who entered – George Nassar – I realize how shocked I was when I saw him. To see this man, his eyes, his hair, his hands, the whole expression of him…" He looked like the man who attacked her, walked, carried himself like him, his posture…"My deep feelings are that he had very great similarities to the man who was in my apartment."

But – she was not sure. She wept with frustration. She wanted so badly to identify this man.

And Marcella Lulka, who had also been brought to identify DeSalvo?

She had not been sure when shown his photographs a few days before. Now, she said, seeing him in person, she must definitely eliminate him. But the prisoner who preceded him – Nassar –when she saw him enter, her heart jumped. In every way but one –his eyes, his walk, his furrowed face, his dark, speculative gaze –he was her mysterious caller of that dreadful afternoon. Only his hair was different. "Mr. Thompson" had honey-colored hair, as she had told detectives. This man’s hair was black. Might it not have been dyed the day she saw him…"

The motive for DeSalvo confessing to the crimes remains the same whether he actually committed them or not. He believed that he would be spending the rest of his life in jail for the Green Man attacks and wanted to use the confession to raise money to support his wife and children. Plus, to a braggart like DeSalvo, being the notorious Boston Strangler would make him world famous. Dr. Robey testified that "Albert so badly wanted to be the Strangler."

One of the key issues that Kelly addresses – with mixed success – is the accuracy of the voluminous confession and its myriad of details, some of which were correct and some of which were not. How did Albert DeSalvo, a man of average or less than average intelligence convincingly absorb so many, many details about the victims and their apartments if he was not the Strangler?

Kelly points out that Albert had an exceptional memory. Dr. Robey testified that he had "absolute, complete, one hundred per percent total photographic recall." One of his lawyers. Jon Asgeirsson noted that "Albert had a phenomenal memory. Another of his lawyers, Tom Troy agreed, "It was remarkable."

Robey cites an example of how he tested Albert’s ability to make instantaneous mental carbon copies of people, places, things: "We had a staff meeting [at Bridgewater] with about eight people. Albert walked in and walked out. The next day we had him brought back in. Everyone had on different clothes, was sitting in different positions. I said, "Albert, you remember coming in yesterday? Describe it."

Albert did, perfectly (Kelly)

She also cites a number of sources of information available to Albert to learn what he did about the crimes:

1. The newspaper accounts were extraordinarily detailed. The Record American printed up a chart, along with the victims’ photos, called "The Facts: On Reporters’ Strangle Worksheet." This chart was a summary of all the important details of each crime, what victims were wearing, their hobbies, affiliations, etc. Kelly says, "That DeSalvo had memorized this chart is apparent because in his confession to John Bottomly, he regurgitated not only the correct data on it but the few pieces of misinformation it contained as well.
2. Leaks by law enforcement agencies, particularly the Strangler Bureau, which was criticized for being lax with its accumulated material, and the Suffolk County Medical Examiner, who allegedly held a number of unauthorized press conferences in which he freely distributed information about the victim autopsies.
3. Albert’s own research as a burglar put him in many of the apartment buildings in which women were murdered. He knew the layouts of the apartments and, according to Kelly, had visited each apartment after the murder.
4. Information deliberately and inadvertently fed to him by people anxious to wrap up the investigation, such as John Bottomly who, according to Kelly, "did knowingly and quite intentionally provide Albert with information about the murders –while he was taking the latter’s confession to them…which explains why the only version of it [the confession] ever made public was abbreviated and heavily doctored. The full version virtually exonerates DeSalvo."
5. Possible information provided by another suspect who could have coached DeSalvo on the details. Police speculated that George Nassar could have been one such source of information.

Finally, experts never saw the stranglings as the work of one individual. The modi operandi were not identical and the victims as a group were quite dissimilar. Kelly summarizes some of the more obvious differences:

No similarity whatsoever exists between the relatively delicate killing of Patricia Bissette, whose murderer tucked her into bed, and the ghastly homicidal violation inflicted on Mary Sullivan, whose killer’s intent was not just to degrade his victim by shoving a broom handle into her vagina but to taunt the discoverer of her corpse by placing a greeting card against her foot. Beverly Samans was stabbed but not sexually assaulted; Joann Graff was raped vaginally and strangled. Evelyn Corbin had performed –probably under duress – oral sex on her killer. Jane Sullivan was dumped facedown to rot in a bathtub. Ida Irga was left in the living room with her legs spread out and propped up on a chair.

Serial killers tend to select and stick with a particular kind of victim. For example, Jack the Ripper picked prostitutes; Ted Bundy picked pretty, longhaired young girls; Jeff Dahmer young boys, etc. The strangling victims represent a wide disparity in age and attractiveness and race which flies in the face of serial killer profiling expertise. A very likely explanation is that some of the crimes were committed by one individual, especially the murders of Ida Irga, Jane Sullivan and Helen Blake.

And what about Mary Mullen, the elderly woman who died of a heart attack? Kelly says that this may be the only killing of which DeSalvo is guilty. He probably burglarized her apartment and she died of fright. Did the same Albert DeSalvo who carried his unintended victim over to her couch and fled without stealing anything savage the bodies of Ida Irga and Jane Sullivan?

The Mary Brown affair raised some interesting questions. She had been raped, strangled and beaten to death in Lawrence in early March of 1963. Albert’s confession to this crime was very sketchy and many of the details were incorrect. Perhaps, Albert had been told about this crime from the Bridgewater inmate who was really responsible. Kelly says Mary Brown lived on the same street as the man that George Nassar shot to death in 1948.