During the stiflingly hot summer of 1962, little attention was paid to a series of murders committed in Boston, Massachusetts, within weeks of one another. The killer struck in broad daylight.
His victims were all women who lived alone, his most macabre calling card the fact that after strangling them with everyday items such as stockings, he would leave the ligature tied around the victim’s neck in an ornamental bow.
But one reporter noticed the details that seemed to connect the crimes. Loretta McLaughlin convinced her editor at the Record American newspaper to run a four-part series, sparking the hunt for one of the 20th century’s most infamous criminals – the Boston Strangler.
‘An editor disputed the worth of a series on the four dead women, noting that they were “nobodies”,’ Loretta later wrote.
‘But that was it exactly, I felt. Why should anyone murder four obscure women? That was what made them so interesting… sisters in anonymity, like all of us.’
Loretta McLaughlin, played by Keira Knightley, convinced her editor at the Record American newspaper to run a four-part series
How Loretta broke the story of the notorious killer is now the subject of a new film, Boston Strangler. It stars Keira Knightley as Loretta, who not only cut through sexist workplace attitudes of the time but also pursued the truth at great personal cost.
She enlisted the help of fellow reporter Jean Cole (The Gilded Age’s Carrie Coon) and the film, produced by Ridley Scott, tells the story from their perspective.
‘This is a horrific story of the brutality of the male psyche and how disturbed and awful it can be, told through the eyes of two women,’ says Keira. ‘It’s a tricky story to tell, because there are many different twists and turns.’
When we first see Loretta she’s testing kitchen appliances for the paper’s lifestyle section.
‘She wants to be doing big stories but she isn’t allowed,’ says Keira. ‘She feels the frustration of not doing what you want to do.’
Yet after uncovering similarities between three of the murders, Loretta starts to explore whether they were perpetrated by one man.
Her investigation doesn’t go smoothly. When her editor Jack Maclaine (American Beauty’s Chris Cooper) is lambasted by the police commissioner for spreading fear with headlines like ‘Mad Strangler Loose’, Loretta is sent back to the lifestyle desk.
And to illustrate the sexism of the time, photos of Loretta and Jean are published alongside their reports to show the ‘girl reporters’ at work (both women were in their 30s and married with kids), which leads to them receiving death threats.
Albert DeSalvo was sent to Bridgewater State Hospital, a facility for the criminally insane, for psychiatric observation, where he made the shocking confession that he was the Boston Strangler (pictured in 1967)
It all takes a heavy toll. While her husband James (Morgan Spector) is at first supportive, as a mother of three in the early 60s Loretta is still expected to put her family before her career. The real James and Loretta divorced.
The murder count rose to 13 over two years. Police were no closer to solving the case until, in October 1964, a young woman was sexually assaulted in her home by a man posing as a detective.
From her description, police identified him as Albert DeSalvo. His photo was published, and more women accused him of assault. DeSalvo (played in the film by David Dastmalchian) would pose as a maintenance man or modelling scout and knock on doors to hunt for women.
He was sent to Bridgewater State Hospital, a facility for the criminally insane, for psychiatric observation, where he made the shocking confession that he was the Boston Strangler.
There was no physical evidence tying him to the murders, and in 1967 DeSalvo was sentenced to life in prison for other crimes.
In 1973 he was found stabbed to death in the prison infirmary. Meanwhile, inconsistencies had started to emerge.
The 13 victims were from a broad ethnic and age range, and the details differed, suggesting there may have been more than one killer.
DeSalvo had befriended convicted murderer George Nassar – a Strangler suspect – at Bridgewater, and it’s speculated that the pair schemed to split the reward money if one confessed.
In 2013, DNA evidence linked DeSalvo to Mary Sullivan, thought to be the Strangler’s last victim, but no one has ever been charged with the killings.
The film highlights the risks Loretta and Jean took to uncover the truth.
As director Matt Ruskin says, ‘They were working to keep women informed at a time when the police department was coming up short, and juggling the rest of their lives while doing so.’
Boston Strangler is available from Friday on Disney+.
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