Search for the Strangler (23 page)

Leone did not offer his hand to me as we entered the small conference room; he merely guided us toward the empty chairs. Next
to Leone sat a young woman who did not introduce herself. We all assumed she was Leone’s aide.

“We’re here to make a deal,” Dan announced. “You seem to have something we want, and we seem to have something you want.”

Elaine broke in. “We will suspend our lawsuit today if we can have an assurance that any forensic testing done in this case
will be done aboveboard and not under a veil of secrecy.”

“What do you mean by that?” Leone asked.

“Professor Jim Starrs has sent you a letter,” Elaine advised. Before Leone could say he hadn’t received it, Elaine slid a
copy of it under his palm. “Professor Starrs is offering any and all information he and his team discover in their forensic
reinvestigation of Mary Sullivan’s murder. Now in response, Diane and Casey would like Starrs to be involved in any DNA testing
done in your state labs,” Elaine said.

Leone sat back in his seat, staring at the four of us. “Now, Elaine, this is a homicide investigation, and we do not solicit
any outside help. It could jeopardize the case.”

Now it was Dan’s turn. “We’re not asking that Starrs
do
the actual testing. We’re asking that he be allowed to observe. You know, the guy’s done this type of work before. He may
actually be able to help you. He’d even sign a confidentiality agreement so as to not tell the families what you’ve found.”

“Any DNA testing done in the Mary Sullivan case will be done by state investigators. And if we need the information Starrs
and his team come up with, we’ll get it,” Leone warned.

The legal sparring continued for several more minutes. Finally, my mother had had enough. “We come up here again and again,
and you still tell us no. The best people in the world are working on Mary’s murder, and you say that you don’t need their
help,” she said, her voice cracking.

Leone told her involving outsiders in a state investigation simply wasn’t the way things were done.

I reached out for my mother’s hand, but my eyes were focused on Leone’s. “So that’s it, then,” I stated. “We’ll continue with
our private and successful investigation, and you can continue to do whatever it is that you do here.”

“Looks like we’ll see you in court, Gerry,” Dan added with a smile as we all got up to leave.

Then my mother turned to the woman who had been sitting quietly next to Leone for the entire meeting. “I’m sorry, miss, but
who are you?” Mom asked.

“I’m your victim’s advocate. I work as your liaison with the attorney general’s office. I’m working for you,” the woman replied.

“Then what the hell are you doing sitting next to him?” Mom asked, pointing toward Leone. Before the woman could answer, we
were out in the hallway, walking toward the elevator.

* * *

“All rise!” the bailiff ordered as Chief U.S. District Judge William G. Young entered the courtroom on February 21, 2001.
My mother and I watched from a crowded gallery. Behind us, Dan Sharp stood alone at one table, while five lawyers representing
the state of Massachusetts and the Boston Police Department stood at the other. Judge Young was hearing our motion to block
the state from conducting further DNA tests on evidence found at Mary’s crime scene. The Sharps had recently discovered that
the attorney general was in possession of six semen samples taken from Mary’s body. Her killer, it turned out, had ejaculated
on her chest, not inside her vagina, the way DeSalvo had claimed. The samples, which had been placed on slides in 1964, were
reportedly hidden away in a vault at the state medical examiner’s office. The morning of the court hearing, Tom Reilly had
told reporters that DNA testing in the Sullivan case had been “nonproductive” up to this point. “We are continuing our efforts
to analyze that evidence to see if it can be probed. Whether or not it will be, I can’t answer that,” Reilly told the
Boston Herald.

Our worst fears had been realized. Tom Reilly was burning the evidence—literally. In the process of DNA testing, scientists
must burn the material to obtain a genetic sequence. As a result, once a DNA sample is tested, it can never be tested again.
We were not worried that Reilly’s DNA testing would place Albert DeSalvo at the scene of the crime but that the test results
would come back conveniently “inconclusive.”

“The defendants are in the process of destroying evidence even as we speak,” Dan warned the judge. Judge Young then called
Tom Reilly’s legal representative, Judith Kalman, to the floor. “It’s been thirty-six years,” Judge Young began. “Why can’t
you share the evidence you have? What could it hurt?”

Kalman told Young that Mary Sullivan’s murder was an open and active case and that any sharing of the evidence would jeopardize
a future prosecution. But how “open and active” was the state’s case? What Judge Young did not know was that the attorney
general’s office had yet to question any key witnesses in the case. I knew my mother and I had not been consulted, and Jim
Mellon was still sitting in his seaside home, waiting for a phone call.

Despite the plea from the Sharps, the judge refused to halt the state’s DNA testing, but he did get the state to promise to
leave enough DNA evidence for the families to conduct an independent test should we win our case. Judge Young, who appeared
particularly concerned with the intense media coverage the case was getting, also slapped a gag order on the lawyers and Jim
Starrs. Starrs and his team were in Seattle that day for a conference of forensic scientists, where Starrs had promised a
progress report on the team’s work in the case. In fact, Elaine Sharp had flown to the West Coast to get Starrs’s information
firsthand. Not surprisingly, the judge’s order did not sit well with the professor. “Science needs to be conducted out in
the open,” Starrs argued. But there would be no progress report that night. The families, however, were not bound by the judge’s
gag order. I was going to remain on top of this case, pushing and prodding Tom Reilly into doing the right thing.

Judge Young gave one final order that day: he ordered both sides to be back in court the next week so that he could hear the
state’s request to dismiss our lawsuit. Judge Young, who taught at Harvard Law School, scheduled the hearing for February
27, 2001, inside a lecture hall on the Cambridge campus.

Word that the Boston Strangler case was to be argued on campus spread quickly among Harvard students, and the lecture hall
was packed when my mother and I arrived. Richard DeSalvo and members of his family also attended the hearing. While the Sharps
were preparing their oral argument, Elaine slipped me a copy of Gerry Leone’s affidavit about his work in this case. “Take
a look, and tell me what you think,” she suggested. I sat down next to Mom, wiped my eyeglasses clean, and began reading.

Leone had written: “On November 19, 1999, I was first notified by First Assistant Attorney General Dean Richlin that he had
received a general inquiry regarding the Boston Strangler and whether we had any intention of opening the investigation into
those crimes. As a result of that inquiry, throughout the next several months, I gathered all information and materials regarding
the cases that were attributed to the Boston Strangler. . . . I became acquainted with the facts of the cases and the then
present status of each case. . . . In March 2000, some four months after beginning my search for information, I was first
contacted by a person who identified himself as a member of the Mary Sullivan family, Casey Sherman.”

Contrary to Leone’s affidavit, there had been no “general inquiry” into the Boston Strangler case in November 1999. I had
had a direct conversation with the attorney general himself shortly after the WBZ report on Michael DeSalvo aired on November
7, 1999. Leone also got the date of our “first contact” wrong. I had had several discussions with Leone about my aunt’s murder
dating back to November 1999. The attorney general’s office was trying to convince Judge Young that it had been spearheading
a probe long before I got involved and that, therefore, the families had no right to evidence or information about the case.

During oral arguments of the motion to dismiss, the Sharps pointed out, as they had done the week before, that there was no
“open or active” criminal investigation into Mary’s murder and argued that the evidence should therefore be immediately turned
over to the families. Once again, the state argued that any sharing of the evidence would taint any future prosecution. Seeming
annoyed, the judge ordered Leone and the Sharps to negotiate some kind of compromise. The parties went out into the hallway,
where they tried to strike a deal. By then I had finished reading Leone’s affidavit, and I rushed out into the hallway. “Elaine,
I need to speak with you,” I said, interrupting Leone in mid-sentence. “What’s up?” Elaine asked. “Don’t believe a word Leone
is saying right now. He doesn’t want to share the evidence. Something very strange is going on here.” I pointed out the inaccuracies
in Leone’s affidavit. “Let’s nail him!” I said under my breath. Elaine glanced back at Leone, who seemed to be nervous. “Hold
that thought,” she replied.

At that point, the judge came out in the hall and ordered everyone back in the courtroom, where he asked the attorneys if
the negotiation had been successful. It had not. Leone still would not budge on our request to share the semen slides. The
state had six in its possession; we were asking for only one sample. Back in the courtroom, the state’s lawyers once again
asked the judge to dismiss our claim, but Judge Young refused to do so. That our lawsuit remained alive came as a pleasant
surprise for the Sharps, who had worried about the judge’s reputation as a government ally. “Now, that’s called kickin’ their
ass!” Dan Sharp whispered to me as we left the courtroom.

On the courthouse steps, I pulled Elaine aside to discuss the Leone affidavit. “We should point out the inaccuracies in Leone’s
affidavit,” I urged. Elaine clearly had other ideas. “This is much like a poker game,” she said. “With that affidavit, we
now have a full house. The trick here is not to cash out too early. Let the pot build a while. Let’s use that information
when we really need it.”

It seemed to me that the time to use the information was right now, but I took Elaine’s advice, though I believed we were
missing a great opportunity to show the world how duplicitous the attorney general’s office was.

Iwas always more comfortable behind the camera than in front, but this case needed a spokesman, and the Sharps had chosen
me for the job. The public now knew who I was and, more important, how to reach me. Calls flooded the newsroom. I wanted to
take every one, no matter how ridiculous, because I couldn’t know which one might lead me in the right direction. Most times,
I’d field phone calls from drunks with outlandish stories about the “real Boston Strangler.” One caller insisted the killer
was Senator Ted Kennedy. “Think about it,” he slurred. “The Kennedys are responsible for everything.”

After calls like this one, I’d have a good laugh and return to the work of producing a TV newscast. But one phone call would
change everything. “I don’t know if I should be talking to you, but I thought I’d give it a try,” the caller said. I hugged
the phone receiver to my chin and braced myself for yet another pointless conversation. “I work with a guy who may be involved
in your aunt’s murder.”

“Where are you calling from?” I asked.

“New Hampshire,” said the caller. “I work in a bar, and for New Year’s our boss took all of the employees out to dinner. The
guy I work with brought his wife along. During the course of the evening, the wife started to drink, and then she started
to talk. She told me that he was worried about something in his past, something that has to do with the Boston Strangler case.
So that’s why I called you.”

“What’s his name?” I asked.

He replied, “His name is Preston Moss.”

I told the caller that Moss once was considered the prime suspect in my aunt’s murder. “He’s always been a real weird guy,”
the caller told me. “When he first came to New Hampshire, he claimed he was a fighter pilot in Vietnam, and that he rescued
POWs. I’ve known him for about twenty years, but I never really hung around with him.” Having researched Moss’s background,
I knew he’d never served in the military. Still, many people lie about their backgrounds. This didn’t mean Moss was a killer.
I needed more.

“I’d like to help you; just tell me how,” the caller offered.

I told him that by forging a bond with Moss, he might help me find the truth in this case. “Be a friend to Preston,” I advised,
“and maybe he’ll open up about his past.”

The caller said he would try. “You know,” he told me, “every year, all the folks who work at the bar would head down to Boston
to catch a Sox game or to see the Bruins. Every year, the only one who would never go was Preston. Now I understand why.”

Immediately after this conversation, I phoned Elaine Sharp and told her about it. Ever the attorney, she pointed out what
we had and what we didn’t have against Moss. “Right now, we have opportunity and access. He failed two polygraph exams, so
let’s assume he stole the keys to get inside Mary’s apartment. This theory is also backed up by the fact that there was no
forced entry. We have Jim Mellon, who is positive Moss is the guy. Now we have Moss’s colleague, who describes a very bizarre
conversation with the suspect’s wife. But what we still don’t have is a motive,” she said.

I had been trying to piece together a motive for several months. The caller had told me that Moss had a reputation for being
fiercely jealous. Moss’s girlfriend at the time, Pat Delmore, had received several letters from a young man in the army stationed
in Texas. Those letters were on the list of items taken by the police from Mary’s apartment. They also found a receipt for
a bus ticket to Texas dated January 1, 1964. So the soldier had possibly visited Delmore just days before the murder.