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I have been listening to the Martha's Vineyard Beach and Book Club, which actually Elena recommended to me.
She did not listen to it, but she said, girl, this title sounds so you.
And let me tell you, it did. I've been listening to it while I walk, and I am absolutely loving it.
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Hey weirdos, I'm Ash. And I'm Elena. And this is Morbid.
Big ol' Boston edition. I have a tickle in my throat.
Welcome to Boston, everybody. Welcome to Beantown.
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.
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 psychology of it.
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 Stranglers? Question mark.
Question mark. Parentheses. 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 DeSalvo 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.
And buckle up into your seatbelts. 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 this.
Alright, 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 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, first of all.
Thank you. And it was such like an intense... like rage-inducing case.
Yeah, I was just so mad at Diane. That it was like, ugh.
So yeah, we definitely, nobody meant any harm by that.
No, not at all. 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 faces. 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 people request some shout-outs, 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 Morbid, a 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.
Named Jenny. Jenny. Jenny, your fiancé.
Tim would just like us to shout you out because to him, you are the best fiance 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. fiance work over there.
Good fucking job, Jenny. So keep it up because Tim loves you.
Like so much. And 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 culture at www.murderapparel.com.
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.
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 dove in.
Oh, she dove in. Thank you. She did a swan dive in.
Alright, 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.
There's a lot of like gyrations going on right now.
If this was a visual medium, you would all unsubscribe immediately.
You'd be like, goodbye. Yeah, see you later.
I'm going to take you back to Boston, Massachusetts.
Home sweet home. What year? In the 1960s.
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 there.
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 Wayne Gacy. Like, you know all these serial killers.
Back then, this was not a thing. So it's like, the Boston Strangler was a whole brand new breed of awful nightmare.
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, whoop, we got a serial killer. 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. Direct quote from 1960.
Police officer was like, what the fuck is going on here?
Ked. Ked. In the Harvard parking lot. What the fuck?
That's literally what was happening. 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 because i know it really is awful And then the last, so there was 13 victims altogether of the Boston Strangler.
Ooh, 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.
7 plus 6 is 13. I'll leave. Math. The final seven were younger, which was what made people question.
What the hell is going on here? 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 was it's still now we look back on it and we're like huh Wait a second.
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.
Okay. 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.
Here we go. Go. We're going to start with victim one, which is a great place to start.
Always. I typically like to start at the beginning.
Always. So June 14, 1962. The first victim was 55-year-old Anna Slessers.
Oh, 55 is 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. 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 brick house 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 alive.
Hate it. She was getting ready in her apartment that night because her son was going to be picking her up around 7.
Her son's name was Uris, 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 Latvia.
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?
I just think about Hannibal Lecter pausing to conduct 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 7.45, her son, Uris, 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 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 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 gonna give you anxiety it's real bad So he found her on the kitchen floor.
She was dressed in a housecoat. 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.
Mm-hmm. 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.
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, OK. Yeah. And 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. I think that was something that they looked at eventually because this particular way of tying the ligature was found on pretty much all the victims. 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 scariest thing I've ever heard.
Yeah, don't tie that knot. I don't like it.
Untie that essentially right now. The strangler's knot.
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 the 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 why they choose that. yeah as the way because that is very interesting and fucked up like it's i just want to know what It's like it's Onitsha fucked up.
Yeah, 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 fucking seamstress.
And he initially immediately assumed it was a suicide because he said she was, like, having, like...
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 tried to hang herself with that cord on the door and it just broke Now, homicide detectives 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.
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 willy-nilly, but nothing was taken.
Mm-hmm. 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 knot so... Yeah.
Like elegantly or whatever. Yeah. 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.
Yeah. Detective Mellon says 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 committed 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.
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They said that when they talked to Uris in the living room, they were asked, like, you know, how was he?
Like, how 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 immediately.
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 2 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 attributed to Albert DeSalvo only because he... admitted this one, I think.
The victim was 85-year-old 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 her cause of death was confirmed as a heart attack.
Okay. 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. 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. Yeah.
And she was walking around. She opened her windows to let some air in.
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 6pm 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 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.
Like he was let into most of these places.
This person was likely let into these places.
So they're thinking he posed as, you know, a salesman, a salesman, anything like just something that would not make you these women feel alarmed.
So again, she said 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 brother, her sister's husband.
Yes. I'm like her sister's brother. Twice removed.
You know. Yeah. 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 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'd 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, quick little trigger warning. This is a rough one.
So just know 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.
That's the most gruesome thing I've heard thus far.
That's just so... It's like, why are you that brutal?
That really just... 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 are a sick person. Twist it, 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 fucked 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 at that point.
Well, that's good at least. But yeah, she fought like hell, which is awful.
I know. On to victim number four. The same day as Nina Nichols.
In Lynn, 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 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. 48 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... It's just bad. So they immediately were like, huh, 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 drawers 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 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 veils. ligatures.
It's usually not one, it's not like one cord or one thing.
It's multiple things. Stockings, bras, like multiple layers to make these like really garish bows.
Like it's really just like awful. Yeah, it's very theatrical.
It is. And in one of these, you're going to see that he's setting these people up.
He's posing them in a way that he wants. 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 happening.
I would say shit had been going down a little bit more 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.
Wow. 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 were in Boston around this time, and they were saying...
They would literally just sit up in bed at night and just not even want to close their eyes.
I would never go to sleep. Because they were just like, is he coming?
What's happening? What's happening? I would be pounding Red Bulls.
And my mama was one of those women. My grandmama. 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 our savvy. Ma 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...
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 bitch.
Ma'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 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, boom.
What was the 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 Erga.
And she was found, like the others, strangled to death.
Now, Ida Urga had immigrated to the U.S. from Ukraine with her two-year-old son and settled in Boston in the 1920s.
Mm-hmm. 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 and 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 ass life there. Her whole ass life there.
She had grandkids. 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, universe. What the fuck?
Come on. um so she had even mentioned to her grown son that year that she was worried about the murders in boston it'll Blame her.
I'd be terrified. She was like, I live alone.
I'm worried. Yeah. And he was like, no, 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 worry.
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 launched.
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 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 am both... 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 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 gonna do?
Your poor 13-year-old son's gonna 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. 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 but 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 in 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. She had a brown nightgown on that was torn open on the front like the rest of them.
It was exposing her. And her legs were spread apart, something like five feet apart, like spread eagle.
What? Yeah. Ugh. But this was a little different.
Right? Right now, this person is escalating.
If this is the same person, he's escalating.
Mm-hmm. He's like pulling a Ted at the Chi Omega house.
Exactly. Chi Omega. Chi Omega. Yes. I almost had it.
You did. You were close. Thank you. 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.
Okay. 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 because they had sent a cousin.
So a lot of people unfortunately got this awful sight.
Yeah. 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 go on a walk in a nice park. It was on the same day.
What? How? What we're going to see is...
I want to say that I think Albert DeSalvo did most of the older ones.
Do you think he did these first six? I think he may have.
I'm going to hold on to my 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 couldn't get enough. Because it seems like he was just this unstoppable nightmare.
Beast. 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 in 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. And 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. that jane sullivan like i feel like i know at least six jane sullivans yeah we got so many sullivans here in fact there's two sullivans in these 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. Sully, good for you, Jane. Get it, girl.
You're 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 and forearms were in the bath and covered by water.
Okay. And she had a house coat on, 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. In the water? Yeah. Yeah. Oh God.
So she had been strangled by two nylon stockings, which were in a boat.
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.
Mm hmm. So they were thinking that was the common denominator along with them being like slightly older women.
Mm-hmm. But that's all they really had to go on.
So that's when they started thinking that this was someone who had worked at one of the mental hospitals. which is what they called them then.
And they thought that this could be somebody that was some disgruntled worker who had worked with older nurses and was pissed.
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.
Because, and again, this is the 60s, so it's not like they're... Testing for all this shit.
Finding all these 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. Swallow.
To be on this case. Yeah. Especially, like, a bunch of hardened police officers are obviously going to think of their own moms.
Yeah, just like sweet nanas. It's just like, 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. with each of the names as a reminder to try to force themselves to solve this case.
It was really... Weighing hard on them.
Wearing a hat on them. Hat. Hat. 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. You don't have leads.
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.
Mm hmm. They were just doing anything they could.
People were 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 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. And 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 DeSalvo to some of these killings.
So he did at least do some. Exactly, which we're going to get into in part two.
So stay tuned for that. And everybody take a deep breath.
Namaste. Everybody hug. Namago. Hug your Nana.
Just hug, you know. Help a woman, an old lady across the street.
Across the street, yes. Just like, you know, just, I don't know.
Don't, I was going to say wave at an old woman, but don't do that.
Cause 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 elders.
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 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. But... It is a deep 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 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. Amorbid Podcast. Send us a Gmail. morbidpodcast at gmail.com join the facebook group morbid colon a true crime podcast check out the website that elena so lovely designed morbidpodcast.com donate to the patreon 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.
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. Thank you.
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