Morbid - 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 Cowritten by Alaina Urquhart, Ash Kelley & Dave White (Since 10/2022)Produced & Edited by Mikie Sirois (Since 2023)Research by Dave White (Since 10/2022), Alaina Urquhart & Ash KelleyListener Correspondence & Collaboration by Debra LallyListener Tale Video Edited by Aidan McElman (Since 6/2025) Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hey, weirdos, I'm Ash, and I'm Elena. And this is morbid. Big old Boston edition. I have a tickle in my throat. Welcome to Boston, everybody. Welcome to Bean Town. This is not 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, like, psychology. We really want to dissect this case because it's our hometown case. It's a big case. You want to know what the case is? The Boston Strangler or Strangler's. 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 de Salvo is the lone Boston Strangler, whether he is the Boston Strangler at all, and whether there are more.

Shit. So this is going to be a fun ride. So everybody hold on. It's going to buckle up in tears. seat belts. 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 skipperoo 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. Yeah, it is. And we 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 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. Thank you.

And it was such like an intense, like rage-induced in case. Yeah, it's just so mad at Diane. That it was like, ugh. So yeah, we definitely, nobody meant any harm by that. So hopefully nobody's too offended. We also have some, it's not news yet, but it hopefully will be soon. It's 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 face. We won't do that. We won't do it. We'll refrain. But I'll want to. I'll want to smush a cute face.

Just 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 shoutouts. 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'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. Do it up, sis. And it turns out that you're the one who got him to listen to Morvit at True 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 Tackett, 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. Gorgeous.

Named Jenny. Jenny, your fiancé. Tim would just like us to shout you out because to him, you are the best fiancé that has ever graced the galaxy. You're the bees fucking knees, Jenny. You really are. You're the cat's pajamas. and we just want to tell you that you're doing awesome. You are.

You're doing great fiancé work over there. Good fucking job, Jenny. So keep it up because Tim loves you like 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 for a sec.

I got this old-timey telephone, let's start a cult shirt at www. at murder apparel. You can get the same shirt as me. If you head on over to Instagram at Murder Apparel, 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 a cult. Do it. Yay. All right. Let's dive in.

All right, I'm going to take you back. I'm going to take you back. You didn't even tell them that I just don't. 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. Yeah, there's a lot of like gyrations going on. If this was a visual medium, you would all unsubscribe immediately. You'd be like, goodbye. I'm going to take you back to Boston, Massachusetts, home sweet home. What year? In the 1960s.

Oh, 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, and actually,

what's interesting about this time is we're so used to now, you know, when big serial killer names come up, we're like, yeah, you know, Ted Bundy, right, John Lane Gacy, like you know all these serial killers. Back at end, this was no. not a thing. So it's like the Boston Strangler was a whole brand new breed of awful nightmare. It must have been so fun. 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, nobody knew to connect these things. That just wasn't a thing yet. Right. Like it wasn't like, we got a serial killer. on our hands, boys? Was the term serial killer even a thing yet? No, 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 what. Direct quote from 1962. Police officer was like, what the fuck is going on here? Ked. And a half a parking lot.

What the fuck? You actually just sound like Papa. We just do. Yeah, we sound like my dad. That's it. But 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. I hate that.

I know it really is awful. And then the last, so there was 13 victims altogether of the Boston Strangler. Oh, 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. Seven plus six is 13.

I'll leave. Math. 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's still now we look back on it and we're like, huh. Wait a second.

Huh. 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 going to 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 going to 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 Slessers. Oh, 55's like pretty young.

Yeah, it's considered elderly, I think, relative to the last victims. Okay, got it. Who were mostly, like, in their 20s and stuff. So that's, you know what I mean? Like, it's quote-unquote elderly. Right. She was a seamstress for a decorating firm on Canal Street. She lived in a brick house apartment, probably one of those beautiful ones.

Oh, those Burkha's apartments in Boston are so dope. They really are. It was at 77 Gainsborough 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, she could probably hear the music.

I was just going to say that. That must have 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. Hate it. 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 Euris, 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 Lopje. 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 spookier. 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 these four women were murdered. But literally opera music playing in any situation is like, what? Like, I just think about Hannibal Lecter pausing to conduct that like, 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 to 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.

That was impressive. I liked it. So at 745, her son Yuras came to the apartment to get her. And when he walked in, he found her body on the kitchen floor. Oh, no. He said he had to, he said he first, like, banged on the door for a while. She wasn't answering. And he was like, is she just not there?

Is she late? Like, 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 going to give you anxiety. It's real bad. So he found her on the kitchen floor.

She was dressed in a house coat. The housecoat 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 housecoat was wrapped around her neck in a huge bow.

Oh. Not just in a knot in like a bow. Housecoat is like a bathrobe. Yeah, basically a bathrobe, 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 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. 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 boating. 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 victims. It was like the way he did it. It was like his signature. And it actually became known as the strangler's knot later in the investigation, which is the scale. scariest thing I've ever heard.

Yeah, I don't tie that not. I don't love that. Untie that essentially right now. The strangler's 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, which happened in a lot of these cases.

he really liked to sexually assault with objects. That's this weirdest fucking thing. It's awful. And honestly, I looked up and I think, and 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 want to know what the, it's like its own niche of fucked up. Yeah,

that's, I just want to know what the reasoning behind that is, you know, in their brain. Her son said she had zero enemies. She's a 55-year-old opera lover. And he initially

immediately assumed it was a suicide because he said she was like having a rough time lately, I guess. And he also said just the way she was laying was near next to the door. And he assumed she'd tried to hang herself with that cord on the door and it just broke. Now homicide detective

James Mellon and John Driscoll 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 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 willy-nilly, 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 not so 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. Yeah, I think that's what I meant to say. Detective Mellon says it was, 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 admitted suicide than to picture his mom being fucking gruesomely murdered.

Yeah, it's like, who would think that first? Like you would rather think something else. Yeah, I don't even, yeah, just anything else. And I guess they said that when. When they talked to Euris in the living room, they were asked like, you know, how was he? Like, 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 here?

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. Obviously that didn't 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. Oh, my God. Mary Mullen. Now, she was found dead on the sofa in her apartment. Mm-hmm. It didn't, she didn't appear to be strangled or anything like that.

This is why this one's very different. Mm-hmm. 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 police thought that she might have been frightened to death.

Which 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 were...

Or 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 full on mommy issues. Yeah.

If this is the same person for at least. these six, this is full-on mommy issues. Are you going to talk to me later about Albert DeSilvo's mom? Hell yeah. Okay, cool. 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 Wellesley. Oh, come on. She was going to be staying, I think, just one night there. It was super hot that day. Like, super hot like it is today. I was just going to say, like. today. And she was walking around. She opened her windows to let some air and fresh air is 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 p.m. that night. 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 doorbell. No one you know is at that door. Now one of the things that we think. think happened, which again we're going to talk about in part two when we talk about Albert Salvo, is none of these scenes had any forced entry. None of them. Like he 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 maintenance guy, a salesman, anything like you, 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 husband. Yes. I'm like her sister's brother, her...

Twice removed. You know. 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 here at 6. Something's weird. So Chester calls Nina.

Okay. He gets no answer on the time. 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 7.30 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 had 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, a 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 really just did a number. And again, that is some deep psychological shit right there. Wow. Because that is so beyond. For your mind to even go there to do that? It's like, what? Like, you're a sick, twisted motherfucker.

Like, that's trying to inflict maximum damage. Oh, my God. Yeah. Oh, my God. So, again, 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 good hard yes because there was obvious skin and blood under her fingernails they did scrape those out and they did blood typing for the blood because that's all they could do with that point but yeah she fought like hell oh Nina I know uh onto victim number four the same day jeanna nichols in Lynn uh 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 heard like kind of a, not a, 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, wow, she must be like really cleaning up there, like what the hell's

going on. Right. Forty-eight hours later, she found out that that was probably the Boston Strangler. 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.

Retweet. 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, Elena. I am not 37. I was like, the fuck.

I said 33. Oh. But they would always do this together at the same time. And Helen Blake, their other neighbor always joined them. The three of 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 Helen? That'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, doors open. She said there was like spoiled milk on the top of the refrigerator that hadn't been put in the refrigerator yet. Like, 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 face down. 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. 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, like, various ligatures. It's usually not one, it's not, like, one cord or one thing. It's like, multiple things. Stockings, bras, like, multiple layers to make these, like, really garish bows. Like, these 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 shit was going down.

I mean, I would say so. This is when he was like, yeah, something's happened. 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? Oh, the fear would be. 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 in bed at night and like just not even want to close I would never go to sleep because they were just like is he coming like what's happening I would be pounding red bulls and my mama my grandma who was living in an apartment with other girls in 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, that was smart. She said they, her and her roommates, which this is where we get are savvy. My is super savvy.

She said they just set up a big pyramid of bottles in front of their door in any entrance so that if he tried to come in, it would knock over all the bottles and create like a big scene. And like commotion. 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. That's the baddest 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. What was one before that? The 30th?

The 30th. Okay. Yeah. So this is like a little break for him. Yeah, 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-year-old widow Ida Urga.

And she was found like the others strangled to death. Now, Ida Erga had immigrated to the U. US from Ukraine with her two-year-old son and settled in Boston in the 1920s. Which like makes me even sound like, so you came all the way. For like a better life. And she came from like a war torn time in area for a better life. You settle in Boston. You're like, this is where I'm going to live now.

She lives her whole last life there. Your whole ass life there. You have grand. She had grandkids. She was like, she had a whole life. And it's like at 75. And because 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 snuffs it out. Yeah. It just makes me so angry. Because it's like, come on, the universe. What the fuck. 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 live alone. I'm worried. Yeah. And he was like, no, like, 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 going to let him in. Don't work. Oh, her poor son. Yeah.

So the day she was murdered, she had gone out with friends, like got all dressed 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 going to be meeting her sister, but she didn't show up.

I would meet my sister after I lunched. 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 want, I both confused by this. There's a murderer 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. There's 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 loved one. Maybe you 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, even if she fell or something. What's your fucking 13-year-old going to do? Your poor 13-year-old son's going to 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 sounded weird. Like when you have kids and you can just send them to do shit that you don't want to do. It's true. And it's the running theme in life. I mean, I do look forward to that day when I can send them to do things I don't want to do. Maybe not that specific thing. Maybe not this thing. Now, let me be clear that Ida was posed.

specifically. Oh, and this 13-year-old finds her? Oh, yeah. Oh, fuck. And she was posed, and this, I mean, this is going to 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 nightgown on that was torn open on the front like the rest of them. Uh-huh. It was exposing her. And her legs were spread apart, something like five feet apart.

Like spread eagle. Yeah. Ugh. But this was a little different. Right now, this person is escalating. If this is the same, if this is the same person, he's escalating. Mm-hmm. He's like pulling a tie-of-the-chai Omega house.

Exactly. Kai 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 a pillow was placed under her behind to prop her 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 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. Oh my God. Because they had sent a cousin. So a lot of people unfortunately got this awful sight. I think that one and 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. Mm-hmm.

So that you guys can have a breather from this awfulness. Yeah, like going to walk in a nice park. It was on the same day. What? How? It's, what we're going to 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 going to wait to, I'm going to 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 he just like couldn't get enough. 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 are these people created? But again, we're going to get really far into that. And 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 shit. 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 kind woman name. It really is.

Like sweet old Jane Sullivan. Just Jane Sullivan, you know? And it's so Boston. 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 this victim pool. Oh, really? Yeah. 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 good for you, Jane. Get it girl.

I'm killing it, Jane. She was found halfway into her bathtub at home, and she lived at 435 Columbia Road in Dorchester. Mm-hmm. 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 in four. arms were in the bath and covered by water. Okay. And her, she had a house coat on.

Mm-hmm. And it was pulled up to her shoulders, exposing her completely, naked. Her underwear was around her ankles. And again, she was kneeling. Mm-hmm. He had exposed, purposely exposed her buttocks. And she had been dead for a week at that point. Oh, God.

Now, in the water? Yeah. Oh, God. So she had been strangled by two nylon stockings, which were in a boat. Okay. And they said she was very decomposed at that point. I believe it. This was obviously hot weather, too, so it's not like this 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 inferiority. 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 started thinking that this was like someone who, who had worked at, you know, one of the mental hospitals,

which is what they called them then. And they thought that this could be somebody that was, you know, some disgruntled worker who had worked with older nurses and was pissed and decided to, but again, they had like nothing. Right. Because it's like he wasn't taking 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 for all the shit. fibers and things that they can test and DNA and all that. And with these elderly women, he wasn't leaving semen or anything because he was raping them with objects. Which is 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 hardened police officers are obviously going to think of their own moms. Yeah, and just like sweet nannas. 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 they like tied knots like 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.

Wearing a hat on them. Had. Had. It was hysteria at this point in Boston. But police were desperately trying to calm people down because there was just no evidence. So they were like, we have nothing. There's nothing 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, pointing 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. For separate episodes. 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. It seems like it's taken from some of the false, inaccurate things that the police put 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 de Salbo to some of these killings. So he did at least do some of them. Exactly, which we're going to get into in part two. So stay tuned. for that and everybody take a take a deep breath namaste everybody hug nama go hug your nana just you know help a woman an old lady across the street yes just like you know just i don't know wait don't i was going to say wave at an old 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 is respect your eldest. And I'd 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. 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 at it. into this. And yeah, I think that's where we are. Well, 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 morbid podcast. Find us on Twitter. A morbid podcast. 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 If you're feeling so inclined. Patreon.com slash morbid podcast. And just so you know, I just packaged up the last of your goodies for this month. Woo! 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. Mw.