Search for the Strangler (18 page)

This was coming from one of the staunchest proponents of DeSalvo’s guilt, the man who, along with F. Lee Bailey, had sold
the public the idea that DeSalvo was the strangler. Now, forty years later, Brooke was saying he was not sure? “If you had
doubts, you should’ve voiced them back then instead of leaving me with this big mess now!” I yelled at the television monitor
when I first viewed the videotape of the interview.

Still, I realized that my goal was not to point a finger at former public officials. What I wanted to do was work with the
current administration to find my aunt’s killer. Over the next months, Assistant Attorney General Leone and I continued what
I thought were positive conversations about the case. Not your stereotypical glad-handing, baby-kissing politician, Leone,
a former marine, never seemed comfortable around other people. In me this quality engendered trust. I believed Leone and I
were both committed to finding the answers to the decades-old murder mystery.

The mounting pressures of the investigation were nothing compared to the pressures at home. Laura was pregnant with our first
child. But our immediate joy turned to concern when an ultrasound test revealed that my wife had an ovarian tumor. Telling
us that surgery was the only option, the gynecologist said he was confident our baby could survive the procedure, but he could
offer no guarantee.

In February 2000, Laura, two months pregnant, went in for surgery, and all my attention shifted from the Boston Strangler
case to the health of my wife and our unborn child. While Laura was in the operating room, I prayed as I’d never prayed before,
staring up to the heavens and imploring God to please keep Laura and the baby safe. Two hours after the procedure began, the
surgeon met me in the waiting room and told me Laura’s tumor had been successfully removed and that she was doing fine. However,
it was still too early to tell if our baby had survived. In the recovery room I held Laura’s hand while she slept. Tears filling
my eyes, I leaned over my wife’s belly. “You have a brave mommy who loves you very much,” I whispered to my unborn child.

The next morning, Laura and I waited silently in her hospital room for the doctor. Did we still have our baby? When he arrived,
he checked Laura’s vital signs and then placed the stethoscope on her stomach. The baby’s tiny heart was beating strongly.
Laura and I looked at each other, smiling. Then I looked up at the ceiling and said, “Thank you.”

During the next few weeks, I cared for my wife at home with the help of my mom and mother-in-law. At the same time, I was
finalizing plans for a meeting in the attorney general’s office in which I also wanted the Boston Police Department to participate.
(Before the case had been taken over by the state, the police homicide squad had been in charge of investigating Mary’s murder.)
Two days before the meeting, I finally received a call back from the police official in charge of the homicide division and
also head of the cold case squad. When I asked him if he could attend the meeting, he said, “No, we won’t be there. And if
I were you, I’d stay away from this case.”

“Why is that?” I asked, dumbfounded.

“Casey, this case is a lot bigger than just a bunch of strangled women.”

“Lieutenant, I know it’s bigger. But what are you trying to tell me?” I was angry now. There was a pause on the other end
of the phone. The official now seemed to realize that he had let a few indiscreet words slip out. He said, “We don’t want
to set a precedent here. It’s not the purpose of the cold case squad to go back and reinvestigate unsolved murders.”

My pale Irish cheeks were flushed red now. “Then what is the purpose of the cold case squad, and how much of my tax dollars
are going into it if you’re sitting around playing cards all day?”

The police official ignored my outburst. He said, “We just don’t think it’s in the best interest of the families involved,
that’s all.”

I reminded him that he was talking with a member of one of the families and that we demanded justice, but that didn’t change
his mind about participating in the meeting. I was left wondering what the Boston Police Department was so afraid of.

Gerry Leone had set the meeting for March 13, 2000. I had told him that my mother and I would be there, along with members
of Albert DeSalvo’s family. Hearing from the families was important, but I believed that we also needed input from one of
the people who had worked on the case. I dialed Jim Mellon’s number.

“Mr. Mellon, can I call you to duty one more time?” I asked after telling him about the meeting.

“You’ve certainly stirred up quite a storm,” Mellon said. “You go public, and they’ll come after you.” Mellon did not need
to explain who “they” were.

“Why are they so worried about this case, Jim?”

Mellon paused before answering. “Son, this isn’t just about the Boston Strangler. Oh, sure, it’s the biggest case of them
all. But what about the would-be Albert DeSalvos out there? The suspects who were pressured to confess to a crime they didn’t
commit. The state has a finger in the dike right now, but once they pull that finger out, the flooding begins.”

It was a colorful way of saying that if we showed that authorities had gotten the wrong guy in the biggest murder case in
New England history, it could call into question thousands of other cases the state claimed had been solved.

“Can I count on you to be there?” I asked Mellon.

“Oh sure,” he laughed, “us against the state. I like those odds. Plus it will get me out of the house for the afternoon.”

Now that I had gotten Jim Mellon’s promise to attend the meeting, I needed to make sure that the public was aware of the event.
I pitched the idea to my news director, and he decided to allow a reporter, Ted Wayman, to cover the story. No matter what
the outcome of the meeting was, at least our viewers would know that an attempt to reopen this case had been made by the families.

On the day of the Strangler Summit, I met Jim Mellon at a South Shore parking lot and drove him into the city. He wore his
traditional Irish scally cap and walking sneakers for climbing the steep hills around Boston’s Government Center. My mother
sat in the back of my Chevy Blazer, fidgeting with her bracelet.

The Massachusetts attorney general’s office is located at One Ashburton Place, behind the statehouse. That day, the streets
were lined with parked cars and the lots filled to capacity, so I was forced to park downhill about a quarter mile away, and
Mellon’s walking shoes gave him little help as he slowly made his way up the steep sidewalks of Beacon Hill. Finally, I offered
to retrieve the car and drop him off in front of the building, but he declined, determined to make it on his own. Breathing
hard at the start, he caught a second wind, and we made it to the attorney general’s office with time to spare. During our
walk, the retired policeman enlivened the conversation with stories about patrolling the city at the time of the Boston Strangler.
It felt good to have him back on the case.

Before the meeting started, I told my television crew that no cameras would be allowed inside the attorney general’s office,
but we would be available for comment after the meeting. Then Gerry Leone’s secretary showed us into a conference room; the
DeSalvos arrived shortly after. It was the first time my mother had ever come face to face with a relative of the alleged
Boston Strangler. Though obviously uncomfortable, she nonetheless managed a gracious hello. Pulling her aside, I told her
everything was going to be okay and reminded her that the DeSalvos were innocent victims, too.

After several more minutes, Gerry Leone finally arrived, alone.

“Isn’t the Attorney General going to be here?” I asked.

“Tom’s really busy and usually doesn’t attend these kind of meetings,” Leone replied. I introduced the family members to Leone
and announced that I had also brought along a special guest, the man who had investigated my aunt’s murder in 1964. After
a quick nod to Jim Mellon, Leone asked me to state our case briefly. Clearly, he was trying to indicate that he was pressed
for time. I reminded Leone that Albert DeSalvo never had been charged with my aunt’s murder or any of the other killings attributed
to the Boston Strangler. I also discussed the lack of physical evidence against DeSalvo. Jim Mellon added that he and his
colleagues on the Boston Strangler Task Force knew that DeSalvo was not “the guy.”

“Do you have any new evidence?” Leone asked, apparently unmoved by our presentation.

“There is no new evidence,” I replied. “It’s all there in the old evidence. You read the case files, Gerry. There was a prime
suspect in Mary’s murder, and his name is not Albert DeSalvo. I know where this suspect is. What’s it going to take to capture
the real killer?”

“Murder investigations are not really something we do here in the attorney general’s office,” Leone said, deflecting the question.

“Your office took jurisdiction over this case after my aunt was killed,” I reminded him. “It’s your responsibility to see
it through!”

“Well, right now the Boston Police Department says it has no more physical evidence from the murder of Mary Sullivan. Boston
says the case is no longer a priority. We defer to them. There’s really nothing we can do for you here,” Leone replied.

“I was told by a Boston police official just yesterday to stay away from this case. I was told that it was a lot bigger than
a bunch of strangled women. Is there something that no one wants us to find out here?” I fired back.

“There’s no conspiracy going on here,” Leone answered. “And besides, does anyone really believe DeSalvo was the strangler
anymore?”

My mother’s eyes lit up at Leone’s comment. “What do you mean, does anybody believe it? Everyone still thinks he did it, and
my government allowed it to happen,” Mom said, pointing to Leone.

Richard DeSalvo and his son Tim jumped in, telling Leone about the harassment they had endured for decades. Richard also said
he would like to know who had killed his brother. “I think someone did it to shut him up, and the prison guards were involved,”
he said.

Leone was not swayed. He claimed his hands were tied because the Boston Police Department had no interest in revisiting this
case. Then we were shown out of the conference room.

“They don’t want to touch it,” Mellon said to me in the hallway. But if Leone thought we would just go away, he was dead wrong.
Waiting for us down the hall were Ted Wayman and Dick Ade, a WBZ photographer.

“What happened in there, Diane?” Wayman asked my mother, the camera rolling.

“He said there was no evidence left to find my sister’s killer. I’ve only got one question, where did all the evidence go?”
she asked in disbelief.

She knew that the crime lab had confirmed to me that it had a dozen boxes of physical materials taken from the crime scenes.
Either Leone knew this, or someone wasn’t telling him the truth.

I told Wayman we would revisit the case ourselves. I also floated the idea of exhuming my aunt’s body and the body of Albert
DeSalvo to see if there was any DNA that would exonerate or incriminate DeSalvo. At this time, I did not know much about forensic
science or how to begin such a project. I was bluffing to see how the authorities would respond.

The attorney general’s office offered only a brief written statement on the meeting. “At this time we do not anticipate any
further role for this office in the matter,” it said. Meanwhile, the Boston police spokeswoman, Margot Hill, told the
Herald
she sympathized with the families. “We feel for them,” she said, “and we share in their frustration, but we don’t have a
probative sample of DNA to go forward.”

On the drive back to the South Shore, Mellon did his best to keep Mom’s spirits up. But I felt defeated. The state with all
its resources claimed it could not help us. When I dropped Mellon off at his car, we spoke for a few minutes.

“Sorry I wasted your time, Jim,” I said.

“Don’t give up, son,” he replied. “If I’ve learned one thing in my life, it’s that you can’t give up on something you believe
in. You’re doing the right thing here. You’ve got to force their hand, Casey. You’ve got to keep giving them hell, son,” Mellon
said before he climbed into his car and drove away.

That evening, I grabbed an ice-cold bottle of Dos Equis and collapsed on the living room couch, trying to unwind from my long
day and deal with my doubts about the future of the case. Laura, regaining strength after her surgery, joined me in the living
room. I took the remote control and flipped through the television channels, finally settling on a Discovery Channel documentary
about the forensic reinvestigation of the Jesse James case. The notorious outlaw had reportedly been gunned down in 1882 by
a member of his own gang, but in later years several men came forward claiming to be James. Had Jesse James faked his own
death? That’s what his descendants wanted to know. In 1995, a forensic team led by a George Washington University law professor
named James Starrs exhumed the body buried under Jesse James’s tombstone in Kearney, Missouri. By comparing hair samples from
the gunslinger’s great-granddaughter to those taken from the remains, Starrs and his team determined with 99.7 percent certainty
that the body was that of Jesse James.

Professor Starrs was featured heavily in the television program. “Why don’t you call this guy?” Laura asked. “I bet he could
help you. You have a high profile case, too. I’m sure he’d be interested.” How could it hurt? I decided. The next morning,
I called Professor Starrs.

James Starrs, the son of an English professor and an art teacher, grew up near New York City and early on developed a love
for Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s master sleuth, Sherlock Holmes. After earning a law degree from St. John’s University, Starrs
began his teaching career at George Washington University in 1964, the year of my aunt’s murder. In the late 1960s, Starrs
was asked to lead a new forensic science master’s program at the university. As a result, he became a real-life equivalent
to his literary hero, Sherlock Holmes.