Albert De Salvo biography

Furthermore, this time they had a lead regarding the killer's possible identification. A female neighbor informed the police that a man had knocked on her door,

insisting that he had been sent to paint her apartment. He finally left after she told him that her husband was sleeping in the next room.

Three weeks later another young woman's life was to end a tragically. Twenty-three-year-old Patricia Bissette was pregnant when she was found dead in her apartment —again near the vicinity where Anna Slesers and Sophie Clark had lived. Bissette was discovered by her boss when she didn't turn up for work. Her body lay in her bed covered by sheets, but she had been sexually assaulted and strangled with her own stockings.

While the city appeared to have been spared another attack for several months, the police desperately tried to find any connection between the women and people they may have known. Every sex offender on the Boston Police files was interviewed and checked, yet still nothing turned up.

Before long, a series of murders started again. This time the body of 68-year-old Mary Brown was found strangled and raped 25 miles north of the city in March 1963.

Two months later the ninth victim associated with the same madman was to be Beverly Samans. The 23-year-old graduate had missed choir practice on the day of her murder on Wednesday, May 8, 1963.

Samans was found with her hands tied behind her back with one of her scarves. A nylon stocking and two handkerchiefs were tied around her neck. Bizarrely, a piece of cloth over her mouth hid a second cloth which had been stuffed in her mouth. Four stab wounds to her neck had most likely killed her rather than strangulation.

There were a further 22 stab wounds to Samans' body, 18 in the shape of a bulls-eye on her right breast. She had been raped, but there was no evidence of semen. It was thought that because of her strong throat muscles due to singing, the killer had to taken to stabbing her instead of strangulation.

The police, who were now desperate, even sought the help of a clairvoyant. He described the killer as a mental patient who had absconded from Boston State Hospital on the days the killings took place. However, this was soon discounted when another murder was committed. On September 8, 1963, in Salem, Evelyn Corbin, youthful-looking 58-year-old divorcee became the latest victim.

Corbin was found nude and on her bed face up. Her underwear had been stuffed in her mouth and again there were traces of semen, both on lipstick stains and in her mouth. Corbin's apartment had been ransacked in a similar fashion.

On November 25, Joann Graff, a 23-year-old industrial designer was raped and killed in her apartment in the Lawrence section of the city. Several descriptions of her attacker matched those of the man who had asked to paint Sophie Clark's neighbors flat. The description detailed a man wearing dark green slacks, dark shirt and jacket.

On January 4, 1964, one of the most gruesome murders was discovered when two women came across the body of their roommate.