Almost 50 years after the death of Mary Sullivan police believe that they finally have evidence that directly connects Albert DeSalvo, the self-confessed Boston Strangler, to the murder, according to the Boston Globe.
Suffolk District Attorney Daniel Conley has requested that DeSalvo's body be exhumed for further forensic testing so they can be positive of the connection. DNA found in seminal fluid at the crime scene provided a familial match, according to the Boston Globe.
"At this point in time, 50 years removed from those deaths and without the biological evidence that we have in the Sullivan case, that is a question we cannot answer," Conley said when asked if they could prove DeSalvo committed all 11 of the murders attributed to him. "But these developments give us a glimmer of hope that there can be one day finality, if not accountability, for the families of the ten other women murdered so cruelly in Boston, Cambridge, Lawrence, Lynn and Salem."
Sullivan, 19, was found in her Charles Street apartment strangled to death in January 1964 only three days after having moved to Boston. Sullivan's nephew, Casey Sherman, wrote a book in 2003 proclaiming that he believed DeSalvo did not kill Sullivan, according to USA Today.
"We are not there yet," Sherman told the Boston Globe. "Once the exhumation is done and there is a definitive answer, yes or no. But we are getting there...It's taken 49 years for police to say they legitimately got their man."
Under a deal brokered by his attorney F. Lee Bailey DeSalvo, who confessed to all of the murders, was never tried for any of the crimes. At the time of the confession DeSalvo was already serving a life sentence for rape and other crimes at Massachusetts Correctional Institution - Walpole. It was at that facility that DeSalvo was stabbed to death by another inmate in 1973, according to The New York Times.
"It was a very challenging case," Bailey told USA Today. "My thought was if we can get through the legal thicket and get this guy examined by a team of the best specialists in the country, we might learn something about serial killers so we could spot them before others get killed."
"The ability to provide closure to a family after 50 years is just a remarkable thing," Boston Police Commissioner Edward Davis said.
Officials stressed that there is no DNA evidence available that would allow them to test if DeSalvo is connected to any of the other murders that he confessed to, according to USA Today.
