DNA Test Could Confirm Identity of Boston Strangler

A police captain suggests using DNA testing to determine whether the man known as the Boston Strangler really killed the 13 women he confessed to murdering, the Boston Globe reported Friday.

Kevin Jones, a spokesman for the Boston Police Department, said, however, “At this point, we’re not reopening this case.”

The Boston Globe said Police Capt. Timothy Murray, formerly head of the department’s Cold Case Squad, was pushing to use DNA testing to definitively determine if Albert DeSalvo really committed the murders.

DeSalvo was being held on a series of rape charges in 1965 when he confessed to the killings that kept Boston on edge between 1962 and 1964. The flamboyant killer, who became the subject of several books and a film, usually left a bright ribbon looped around his victim’s neck.

DeSalvo was never charged with the crimes. Rather, he was sentenced to life in prison for the unrelated series of rapes and was stabbed to death while behind bars by another inmate in November 1973. He was 42 at the time of his death.

Among the major obstacles confronting investigators, in addition to the witnesses who have since died and evidence that has disappeared, is their inability to find usable DNA from the crime.

The newspaper reported that detectives have been unable to find key evidence: swabs of sperm samples found on some of the victims.

DeSalvo’s lawyer, F. Lee Bailey, told CNN that “until the DNA is done, I don’t think it’s time to panic or talk of reopening the case.”