Though Albert DeSalvo confessed to murdering 13 women in the early 1960s, some believe that the "Boston Strangler" was really multiple serial killers.
On July 8, 1962, readers of the Sunday edition of the Boston Herald opened their papers to a shocking headline: “Mad Strangler Kills Four Women in Boston.”
The article warned that a “mad strangler is loose in Boston” who has “slain four women during the past month.” Several women in the greater Boston area called the police in a panic, saying a man claiming to be “The Strangler” had called their homes to tell them “You will be next.”
Boston already had cause to panic. But it couldn’t predict just how bad things would get. The “Mad Strangler” — also dubbed a “Phantom Fiend” and “Phantom Strangler” by the local press — wasn’t done yet. Between June of 1962 and January of 1964, 13 women would turn up dead, allegedly at the hands of the same culprit.
