The End of the Boston Strangler Explained – Was the Boston Strangler Albert DeSalvo?

In 1962, Boston was in turmoil as a serial killer later referred to as The Boston strangler, was at large. The notorious killer posed as a craftsman to break into women’s homes before brutally murdering them.

Over the next two years, 13 innocent women fell victim to the monstrous killer while the city pushed to uncover the man’s identity. Loretta, a reporter for the Record American newspaper, believed the murders were connected and would join her colleague Jean to uncover the story of one of the most baffling true crime cases to date.

The end of the Boston Strangler explained

Why is Michigan State Police detective DeLine calling Loretta?

In 1965, three years after the first Boston Strangler murder, six women were brutally murdered in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Detective DeLine, who is working on the case, calls Loretta as the nature of each crime mimics that of the Boston Strangler and nobody knows the case better than she. While on the phone, DeLine asks Loretta if she still believes DeSalvo is responsible for the murders.

Loretta travels to Michigan to see DeLine, who lets her look at the crime scene photos, and she notes that the murders are almost identical to those of the Boston Strangler. After Loretta sees Daniel Marsh in the local paper confirming that he is indeed in Michigan, Loretta tells DeLine how convinced she is that he is involved in the Boston Strangler murders since the Boston Strangler killed his ex-girlfriend . DeLine agrees and tells Loretta that he is unofficially her prime suspect in the recent murders.

Who was Harrison and why did Loretta meet him?

After DeSalvo’s death, Loretta visits the prison to see if she can learn more about what happened to him. While she is there, a woman hands her a piece of paper with an address on it. The gentleman whose address is listed is Harrison, and he was visiting Bridgewater with DeSalvo.

During a visit to Harrison, it is revealed that Daniel Marsh, Albert DeSalvo, and George Nassar visited Bridgewater at the same time. Marsh and Nassar aided DeSalvo in the Boston Strangler murders and his confession.

DeSalvo was willing to confess because Nassar’s attorney, F. Lee Bailey DeSalvo, promised that if he took responsibility for the crimes, he could get him a book deal that would net him a million dollars and make him rich and famous. Since DeSalvo had a family to support, he agreed, understanding that Nassar and Marsh would also receive reward money.

Loretta later visits Nassar in prison and confirms that with every confession DeSalvo made, there was an agreement that he would receive reward money. Despite being identified as a Boston Strangler in a witness statement, Nassar insists that he has never murdered women and that DeSalvo convinced him he was responsible for the crimes.

Nassar tells Loretta that Boston needed DeSalvo as the killer because the thought of other copycats out there was too much of a burden for the city.

Was Albert DeSalvo the Boston Strangler?

Although it was never confirmed that DeSalvo murdered all of the women in the Boston Strangler case, he did confess to Assistant Attorney General John Bottomley that he was behind the heinous murders. The problem, however, is that he was unable to answer certain questions about some of the crimes, such as the color of the robe worn by one of the victims the night of their murder and the layout of their apartment.

Loretta listens to the transcript of his confession and believes that Bottomley showed DeSalvo crime scene photos during his interviews to help him lie.

She later visits Albert’s brother Richard and tries to convince him to get Albert to contact her from prison as she believes there is more to his story. Albert calls Loretta and invites her to meet him face-to-face at prison the next day, but after their phone call ends, Albert is murdered and the meeting with Loretta never takes place.

Was there more than one Boston Strangler killer?

Although never confirmed, Boston Strangler hints that there may have been more than one Boston Strangler. At the end of the film, Loretta explains her theory that many men during this period were Boston Strangler copycats, making their crimes look like the work of the notorious serial killer in order to get away with murder.

Although the most likely conclusion of the case is that DeSalvo was in fact the Boston Strangler, there are still so many unanswered questions, such as why a witness in a lineup identified George Masser as the strangler, or why DeSalvo couldn’t provide a concrete answer Questions during his confession related to the crime scene.

At the end of the film, we learn that Daniel Marsh was never charged with any of the murders, but in 2013 DNA linked DeSalvo to the 13th murder. To date, the remaining murders remain unsolved.

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