Boston Authorities have secured a search warrant to exhume the body of Albert DeSalvo, better known as the Boston Strangler, the man who who confessed to a slew of killings in the 1960s. The search warrant seeks to link him to the rape and killing of one woman -19-year-old Mary Sullivan- who was believed to be his final victim, Fox News reported.
Sullivan was raped and killed in her Boston bedroom in 1964, and the the only link between DeSalvo and her murder -until today-was his confession, which was subject of controversy at the time since they did have hard evidence at the time.
These days, advances in DNA testing provide authorities with a 'familial match' between evidence collected from the crime scene and DeSalvo. The case will be closed once his body is exhumed, and Sullivan is the only victim for which DNA evidence is available, news reports said.
A married man with children and also an army veteran, DeSalvo confessed to the 11 'Boston Strangler' murders, as well as two others. However, he was never convicted of the killings, rather he was sentenced to life in prison for a host of armed robberies and sexual assaults.
DeSalvo was ultimately stabbed to death in a Massachusetts maximum security prison in Walpole in 1973. Before he was killed, he recanted his confession.
Officials stressed that the DNA evidence links DeSalvo only to Sullivan's killing and that no DNA evidence is believed to exist for the other Boston Strangler slayings. DeSalvo killed a total of 13 women over two years. They were all single women between 19 and 85. All were sexually assaulted then strangled in their apartments.
Author and journalist Sebastian Junger's book "A Death in Belmont" chronicles the fears felt by Boston women at the time of the Boston Strangler's murders
