Detective in Boston Strangler Case Dies

Phillip J. DiNatale, the chief investigator in the Boston Strangler case, is dead.

DiNatale, who was portrayed by actor George Kennedy in the 1968 film, “The Boston Strangler,” died unexpectedly Sunday at his daughter’s home here. He was 67.

He was a Boston detective in 1963 when assigned to head a “Strangler Bureau,” which investigated the killings of 13 women in the greater Boston area between 1962 and 1964.

He was credited with putting together clues indicating that Albert H. DeSalvo was the Boston Strangler. DeSalvo was never tried for the killings and was killed in prison in 1973. He was serving a sentence for robbery, burglary and sexual assault in Cambridge and Arlington. The cases were not connected to the stranglings.

DiNatale resigned in 1968, after 22 years on the force, to work as a technical adviser to 20th Century Fox on the motion picture. Later that year, DiNatale opened a detective agency in Boston