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THE TERRIBLE TRUTH ABOUT ADOLF HITLER’S REMAINS

The name “Adolf Hitler” is synonymous with evil. Pure evil. Hitler, or the Fuhrer as he self-titled, ruled Germany as chancellor and dictator from the rise of Nazism in 1933 until his death by suicide in 1945. During that time, millions of civilians and soldiers died and the Motherland was destroyed — a truly atrocious era in human history. Horrific as that time was, today there’s a terrible possibility a new monster could arise from Adolf Hitler’s remains.

From the moment Adolf Hitler expired, rumors circulated about what really happened to the Fuhrer’s body. Many witnesses were at Hitler’s death scene. Most saw his deceased form, and some admitted to help dispose of Hitler’s earthly evidence. Despite sworn statements and hard medical facts, few details were released to the Allies and the western world. That was because Russians did the investigation. Red Army Intelligence officers processed forensics that included autopsying and conclusively identifying Hitler’s cadaver.

Because of a lack of released information, speculation of Hitler’s survival soon started. Concocted conspiracy theories began, and there were sightings of the Fuhrer reported on every continent including a secret submarine base near Antarctica. Nazi hunters followed clues across Europe, in Asia, Africa, America and deep into Argentina. None paid off because the truth was the Russians had Hitler all along.

The truth is also that Hitler’s corpse made a remarkable journey from one hiding spot to another. He was buried and dug-up at least five times over a twenty-five year period. Today, tangible parts of Adolf Hitler still exist, and that leads to a modern biological possibility the Fuhrer could live again. Here’s the terrible truth about Adolf Hitler’s remains.

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Adolf Hitler entered the world in 1889. His birthplace was near Linz which was then part of the Austrian-Hungarian alliance. Hitler moved to Germany in 1913 and worked as an aspiring architect but amounted to no more than a starving artist.

He served in the German Army during World War 1 and rose to a corporal rank. He was injured while running messages and spent most of the First World War on the sidelines. Following Germany’s surrender, Hitler immersed in trade union politics with the German Workers Party and soon got himself in trouble.

Hitler was jailed as a political prisoner after he led a failed coup. His lock-up during 1923 and 1924 gave him time to write Mein Kampf (My Struggle) which was his manifesto outlining his plan to gain dictatorial power in Germany and expand Aryan racial interests. Hitler also met Rudolf Hess who had significant influence in solidifying anti-Jewish hatred in Hitler’s psyche.

By the early 1930s, Adolf Hitler attained sufficient control through the National Socialist Party which were the Nazis. Hitler surrounded himself with particularly nasty men and used brute force to gain and maintain authority. Some were ideological psychopaths such as Heinrich Himmler. Others, like Herman Goering, were crass opportunists.

Hitler managed to establish massive support from the German population which included the Caucasians and excluded other races and cultures, especially the Jews. He formed plans to expand Germany’s empire and gain space for the blond-haired, blue-eyed pure Aryans. But, his 1939 action of annexing Poland started the Second World War and began his undoing.

One of Hitler’s massive mistakes was declaring war on Russia. From a historical point, there was no need to do this for Hitler to execute his manifesto. It seems Hitler went slowly mad and his delusions caused him to fatally overextend his armed forces’ capacity and the world turned on him through an unlikely Russian and western alliance.

By April of 1945, the war was nearly over and Hitler denied it. He was probably insane by this time which is backed-up by accounts of his inner circle who stayed with Hitler in his Berlin bunker until the Russians arrived. There were reports of Hitler collapsing in tearful rages and hysterically ordering non-existent army units into combat action.

On April 30, 1945, Adolf Hitler married his long-time mistress, Eva Braun, in the Fuhrer bunker. After a minor champagne celebration and dictating his last will and testament, Hitler and Braun retired to their chambers and committed joint suicide. Exactly how they did it and what became of their bodies turned into a world-class mystery. Some describe it as a parlor game full of crazy conspiracies.

The best evidence of what really happened to Hitler and Braun comes from two sources. One is eyewitnesses who were in the bunker at the time. The other is scientific material carefully collected by the Russian government. The first information pool has the usual witness fallibilities. The second source has credibility issues due to Russian misinformation, concealment, and cover-ups.

There is absolutely no doubt Adolf Hitler died on April 30, 1945. That is uncontested by any credible opinion. Most accounts have Hitler using the “pistol and poison” method where he ingested prussic acid, or hydrogen cyanide, while putting a handgun in his mouth and pulling the trigger. All accounts indicate Evan Braun was not shot. Rather, she also took a cyanide dose.

Hitler clearly expressed his wish to have their bodies cremated. He’d learned of Italian dictator Benito Mussolini’s public execution where Mussolini’s body was hung by the feet and mutilated by the crowd. Adolf Hitler did not want that happening to him. He specifically instructed his staff to take his body out of the bunker and set in on fire in the garden.

This act is well recorded and supported by now-released evidence. Hitler’s aides poured some sort of petroleum fuel over the Fuhrer and Eva Braun. However, they were unable to create sufficient heat to consume the corpses and the cadavers were only charred.

There were several attempts to increase the inferno, but time ran out. The Russians were on their doorstep and lobbing artillery rounds into the garden and at the bunker. Aides hastily dug a shell crater into a shallow grave and covered up Hitler and Braun’s burnt bodies.

The bunker occupants surrendered and quickly disclosed where Hitler and Braun lay buried. Russian medical experts arrived on May 4, 1945, and exhumed the grave. They took both bodies to a facility at Buch in Berlin and stored them above ground. Two Russian pathologists performed autopsies on May 10, and their report was publicly released under the Nazi War Crimes Disclosure Act in 2000.

Hitler and Braun were superficially scorched to the point of visual non-recognition. However, they were skeletally intact which included their organs being suitable for dissection. Braun showed no bullet wound but did exhibit post-mortem shrapnel damage. One pathologist noted this probably happened as an artillery round exploded while she was on fire. Glass shards and cyanide traces were in her mouth, and they listed Eva Braun’s cause of death as suicide by poison.

Adolf Hitler showed no conclusive sign of disease or any sudden medical event. As rumors always said, Hitler only had one testicle. His brain was biologically unremarkable, but it was traversed by a bullet passage. The pathologists could not identify an entrance wound and theorized it was probably through the mouth. There was also no notable exit wound or bullet slug itself. The report says Hitler’s upper cranial bone was missing, and they assumed it was blown off by the gunshot force.

The pathologists conclusively found glass shards and cyanide traces in the Fuhrer’s mouth. They listed his cause of death as a combination of cyanide poisoning and a gunshot wound to the head. Something else they discovered in Hitler’s mouth was crucial to identifying his body. That was Adolf Hitler’s unmistakable dentition.

Hitler’s teeth were in terrible condition. His upper and lower mandibles were a mess of bridges and crowns with a sprinkling of natural enamel that enclosed tooth pulp. His gums were inflamed, and he had several extraction gaps that weren’t replaced. It was an odontologist’s dream when it came to making a postmortem identification.

The Russian pathology team located Hitler’s dentist and assistant who were thoroughly familiar with every part of the Fuhrer’s mouth. They viewed the dental work from the cadaver and produced Hitler’s complete records. They established there was absolutely no doubt whatsoever these dental works belong to the now-deceased Adolf Hitler.

Joseph Stalin, the Russian dictator, wasn’t so sure. Stalin was paranoid that his nemesis Hitler would come to haunt him by people believing Hitler was alive and hidden or having his body become a future Nazi shrine. Stalin stalled and ordered Hitler’s body temporarily buried with the dental work brought to Moscow for his inspection.

It’s not clear from historical records where Hitler’s body was temporarily interred. It seems he was stored in the Russian-occupied sector of Berlin. Once Stalin was satisfied Hitler was dead, and the dental work was conclusive identification, he began a misinformation campaign to deny this. Stalin’s motives for fooling the west have gone to the grave with him, but Stalin wasn’t finished with Hitler’s body.

On June 3, 1945, Stalin ordered Hitler’s remains exhumed from temporary storage and moved to a highly-secret and secluded spot. This was in the Brandenburg forest area southwest of Berlin. Hitler, and presumably Braun as well, were buried in wooden caskets which were more like shipping crates. They lay undisturbed for several months until Stalin had a change of plans.

For whatever reason, Stalin ordered Hitler dug-up again. On February 21, 1946, Stalin directed that Hitler be put under the ground at a parade square inside a Russian-held military base at Magdeburg, Germany. This spot was southwest of Brandenburg, but in a high-traffic area instead of a remote forest.

Joseph Stalin died in 1953. Russia carried on as the Soviet Union and entered the cold war. By 1970, Russia began turning occupied territory over to the East German government which was communist friendly. That included the Magdeburg base going back into German hands.

Yuri Andropov, who went on to be the Soviet Union leader, was the KGB head in the early 70s. Andropov knew Hitler’s body was under the Magdeburg parade square, and the last thing he wanted was a future German regime breathing life into Hitler’s memory by turning that site into a Neo-Nazi Mecca. Andropov had Hitler exhumed again and finally dealt with.

In the middle of the night on April 3-4, 1970, a secret shovel squad extracted what was left of Adolf Hitler’s bones and burned them. There are conflicting stories about what happened. Andropov is on public record stating the ashes were scattered in the nearby Elbe River. Work-party members state the bones were so dry that they vanished in smoke. And a few reports hint that Adolf Hitler was dumped into the city sewer system.

What finally took place with Hitler’s cadaver may never be known. However, there’s one thing for certain. Adolf Hitler’s teeth remain locked in a Kremlin vault. They’re resting there today.

What’s also certain is Hitler’s natural teeth contain his DNA. Those molecules stay preserved in the pulp. Hitler’s biological profile is encased within the enamel practically forever, and DNA can be cloned. Cloning Adolf Hitler was the plot in the 1978 blockbuster The Boys From Brazil. Back then, it was science fiction. Today, technology of DNA extraction and cloning zygote embryos into a surrogate mother is not sci-fi. It’s very, very, very real.

All it would take is some evil crackpot doctor like Joseph Mengele to steal Hitler’s tooth, saw it open, and start cloning away. That’s the terrible truth about Adolf Hitler’s remains.

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT PERSONAL DNA TESTING

Personal DNA testing is a huge business. Genetic profiling on an individual or home-based level is a multi-million dollar industry that’s tripling each year. As the biological identification process becomes faster, easier and cheaper, more and more people are submitting their spit. What they’re finding can be fascinating—or terrifying—which makes some folks reluctant to try. But, if you’re curious about checking out your molecular makeup, here’s what you need to know about personal DNA testing.

DNA stands for deoxyribonucleic acid. It’s the basic building block of organic life—the blueprint prescribing every bit of non-local as well as tangible information required to make a bee a bee, a bird a bird, and a beluga a beluga. DNA is also what makes you… you.

About 99 percent of your DNA is universal to the living world. You share most of the same biological codes with other carbon-based life forms. As you move closer to your mammalian cousins like the apes or the now-extinct Neanderthals, that 1 percent of your human coding narrows. By the time you reach your individual family level, DNA gets very unique.

Your personal DNA profile is as individual to you as your fingerprints. That’s unless you have an identical or monozygotic twin, in which case you’d have the same genetic blueprint. Or, you might be an exceptionally rare occurrence known as a chimera. In that event, you’d have two different DNA profiles within your cells.

How DNA Operates in Human Cells

Cells allow you to be a living human. Every part of you, from your blood to your bones to your brain, is made of individual cells. There’s no way to count the number of cells in your body as they’re constantly changing. You have more cells as you grow from a toddler to a teen and less cell material when you succeed on your diet.

It’s estimated the human body, like yours, completely recreates itself every month or so. New cells replace your old cells and life goes on until you die. Then your cells stop reproducing, and you begin decomposing which is an entire science of its own.

The amazing thing about your cell regeneration is that, for the most part, they perfectly reproduce. That’s thanks to the specific information encoded in your DNA. Without DNA direction, you’d be like trying to repeatedly rebuild the space station without the plans.

What makes you unique as a human being, rather than an ape, is your chromosomes. These are particular chapters in your DNA playbook and appear as lengths of information in your genome sequence. As humans, we have 22 pairs of chromosomes that direct everything from skin color to disease resistance. It’s problems with information breakdown in chromosomes that are leading causes of birth defects and inherited disorders.

There’s a distinct difference in boys and girls and women and men. That’s because of the 23rd pair of chromosomes that complete our human makeup. All females have two X-chromosomes in their last pair while males have one X chromosome complimented with a single Y-chromosome. Genetically, female chromosome equations get expressed as 22+XX while males are 22+XY.

The numbers associated with the human genome project, and where DNA fits in, are truly staggering. It’s a wonder we function at all. There are four biological building blocks in your DNA which are nucleotide chemical bases—adenine (A), thymine (T), cytosine (C) and guanine (G). You have approximately 3.2 billion pairs of A, T, C and G in your cellular makeup. That’s a total of 6.4 billion letters describing your DNA genome code which contains 6,500 segments known as centimorgans (cM). Multiply this by the trillions of cells in your body…

You actually have two DNA types active in your cells. One is “regular” deoxyribonucleic acid that supplies codes for building physical cell structure. The other is mitochondrial deoxyribonucleic acid (mtDNA). The mitochondrion is a human cell component that creates energy. Each cell contains 16,569 base pairs of mtDNA.

Mitochondrial DNA is Maternal

You get mitochondrial DNA from your mother who got your genetic recipe from your grandmother. It’s a unique biological occurrence that happens on your maternal side and geneticists believe it’s because the pre-fertilized egg that you started from needed an energy source and coding to initially program it. From the point of conception, when your father’s sperm joined your mother’s egg and created you as a zygote before you were an embryo (Google it – zygote is a freshly fertilized egg), your cell nucleus information remained maternally bound.

Mitochondrial DNA has nothing to do with determining chromosomes and whether you turned out male or female. Having two XXs or a Y and an X was a biological crapshoot. It’s a flip of the coin, according to theory, and it’s amazing that after the billions and billions of babies born, they average about 51 percent female and 49 percent male. Go figure who figured the odds.

But your chromosomes, directed by your regular DNA and powered by your mtDNA have everything to do with how you turned out. Some speculate DNA contributes to how you act and feel, as well. Although there’s no scientific proof of DNA contributing to emotions, let alone consciousness, it’s because of DNA that we’re alive and curious. One of the biggest curiosities today is what our DNA profile tells us about who we are and where we came from. Perhaps it’s that knowledge that helps us understand where we’re going.

How Personal DNA Testing Happens

An internet search finds over twenty outlets offering personal DNA profiling services. Some are credible. Some are not. It’s caveat emptor in the profiling business and we’ll cover that in a bit. First, let’s look at how a typical DNA profile happens. It goes like this:

Research the Service and Provider Best Suited to Your Goal

That might be tracing your ancestry, determining parentage, finding relatives, planning a family, identifying genetic risk through inherited deficiencies, determining pharmacological compatibility, developing a lifestyle or any one of a number of motives for why you’d want to see your profile. Be cautious, though, of relying on dubious predictions on optimal diets and such. Experts warn that using DNA tests to extrapolate this type of information is probably pseudoscience.

Order Your Collection Kit Online

Most companies now use sterile swabs for collecting saliva. Good old spit is by far the best-suited substance for DNA typing. Sure, the forensic scientists can isolate DNA from blood, bone marrow, hair follicles, semen samples, vaginal fluid and mucus. But, for obvious reasons, these aren’t best managed for a personal collection.

Collect Your Saliva Sample

Your mouth is full of genetic material. By far the best area of your mouth to swab is your inner cheek or under your tongue where you store the largest amount of buccal swabs. Some companies supply tubes to simply spit into, but the most efficient and accurate collection method is swabbing. At any rate, you can’t go wrong by following the manufacturer’s instructions.

Package Your Sample

Your kit provider will include a vial to seal your swab and prevent contamination. Cross-contamination can ruin a personal DNA test, so make sure you have limited handling and that you keep others some distance from your swabbing. The return envelope or container should be pre-addressed and suitable for regular mail. You might have to buck-up for postage, depending on who’s doing your test.

Register Your Sample

This is extremely important. All DNA testing companies require online registering before they receive your swab. Otherwise, they can’t process it. Again, follow the directions and select your options. Some testing agencies require completed questionnaires. If you have privacy concerns, it’s best to read the fine print or call their customer service line.

Wait for Your Results

You’ll have to wait anywhere from four to eight weeks to receive your DNA profiling results. This depends on the particular company, their backlog and how detailed an analysis you requested. You’ll be digitally notified, likely by email, or you may have to log on to your private portal.

Decipher Your Personal DNA Test

This might be the most difficult part of your whole DNA profile procedure. If you’re simply looking for ancestry information, it might be straightforward. But, if you’ve ordered an in-depth search into your maternal or paternal lineage, there’ll be more to it. That’s certainly so if you’ve requested genetic information pertaining to your health.

Available DNA Testing Services for Individuals

There are three main DNA testing services available for personal profiling. Keep in mind that you’re dealing with a civilian process that’s an interesting information exercise rather than a forensic examination bound by the rules of evidence. Civilian genetic testing agencies will offer one or all of these services:

Autosomal Testing — This is the most basic and popular means of genetic testing. It’s commonly called the family finder. The autosomal method looks at your 22 standard chromosome pairs, not including the ones that determine your sex. The first 22 chromosome pairs are called autosomes. Through autosomal typing, the service aligns you with other profiles already stored in their database and matches you with similar people. As regular DNA changes with generations, autosomal testing only goes back 5-8 generations, unlike the other two services that can profile you between 20 and 100 generations.

mtDNA Testing — Mitochondrial services focus on the X chromosome in your DNA profile. Every human has an X chromosome signature regardless if they’re female or male. mtDNA profiling is precise and this is where geneticists zero-in on abnormalities in your traits and indicate issues that you’d otherwise have no idea about.

Y-DNA Testing — This one’s for boys only. As women don’t have a Y chromosome, they can’t play this game. Y-DNA testing follows the paternal line that’s passed from fathers to sons. However, don’t write-off the girls too quick. They have a way around determining their paternal line. If you’re female, you can simply ask your biological brother for a Y-DNA test and you’ll find all about your dad’s side of the family.

How the Science of Personal DNA Testing Works

There’s nothing simple about DNA testing science. This is a highly-trained, exacting discipline done in expensive laboratory environments. As with other science arenas, DNA testing methods have rapidly improved with technology. Today, scientists can extract the smallest DNA fragment and multiply it as many times as necessary to develop an accurate profile. It’s like cloning.

Once your saliva sample hits the lab, technicians extract your DNA content from the liquid through a centrifuge and plating procedure. What they’re looking for is an area of your genome sequence that displays certain variable number tandem repeats (VNTRs). Within the identified VNTR points are smaller sections called short tandem repeats (STRs) which are microsatellites that really tell the story of who you are, who made you and where you came from.

You’ll find a lot of DNA lingo if you surf the net. Some terms are PCR, RFLP and ALFP but the only notable acronym that applies to personal testing is STR. From STR information, technicians apply a quantitative analysis that provides a statistical interpretation of approximately 20 “loci” core markers. This is as technical as you need to get in order to understand what’s happening with your spit at the shop.

It’s the power of statistical discrimination that’s amazing in STR DNA analysis. You’ll hear DNA technicians speak of statistical probabilities when quantifying the reliability and accuracy of your DNA test. It’s common to hear results like 99.999 percent or one-in-a-billion. No matter how they present your results, you still have to do some interpretation.

Commercial Services for Personal DNA Testing

No doubt you were waiting for this part. Now that you have some idea of what personal DNA testing entails and are taking the plunge into the biological soup-pot that supports you, the question is what services are suitable for you. In other words, what’s the best bang for your biological buck?

Well, this website isn’t associated with commercial DNA testing and receives no referral fee, so there’s every reason to be independently objective. There are plenty of providers and gobs of internet information available, so you’ll have to do a bit of homework. To help you speed the process, here are the highest rated commercial services for personal DNA testing:

Cellular Research Institute (CRI) — This seems to be the Cadillac of DNA testing services, according to Genetics Digest. It also seems to be the only one employing a world-renown, Harvard-educated genetic scientist who trained under Dr. Watson (who is one of the co-discoverers of the DNA double-helix molecule). CRI has an amazing depth of analysis and a widely expanding database. They’re not expensive, though, considering what you get. You can pay $99 for a quick ancestry test and $199 for a basic ancestry & heath profile. The price quickly rises for specialized work.

AncestryDNA — These DNA testers are probably the best known providers. That’s because they’ve been around the longest after starting Ancestry.com. Originally, Ancestry was an online family tree service. They got into the DNA business as a value-added service and are highly reputable. Ancestry is also relatively affordable. Prices start at $129 and go to $299, depending on what service you want.

23and Me — If you’re looking for thorough ancestor reports and some decent health observations, 23andMe is a good choice. They’re fairly new and their marketing really appeals to millennials. So does their price point. 23andMe has an a la carte menu starting at $99.

tellmeGen — If you’re a hypochondriac, you’ll want to pick up a tellmeGen personal DNA testing kit. They do basic autosomal tests, but really shine when drilling down into what’s behind your health concerns (real and imaginary). You’ll pay for it, though, as their entry level test is $169 and it climbs from there.

MyHeritage — For basic, bottom-line DNA testing on a budget watch, get yourself a kit from MyHeritage. You’ll shell out $109 and they’ll be back to you in 3-4 weeks with a really cool pie-chart of what’s going on in your body.

Remember Caveat Emptor

In personal DNA testing—like most things in life—you get what you pay for. Good services cost money and, if you want credible results, you’ll have to buck-up. That’s not to say that many other commercial DNA services aren’t honorable, credible and valuable. A quick internet scan finds agencies like LivingDNA, FamilyTreeDNA, AfricanAncestry and even National Geographic Geno 2.0. They’re probably fine, too.

But you will find some scammers. One online investigator submitted saliva from his golden retriever, Bailey. He got back a computer generated profile that missed Bailey’s species but got her hair color right. The report also profiled Bailey as not suitable for contact sports and suggested she take up golf.

WAS ALBERT DESALVO REALLY THE BOSTON STRANGLER?

The Boston Strangler was America’s first modern serial killer case. From June 1962 until January 1964, someone terrorized the Greater Boston area of Massachusetts with thirteen sexually-motivated murders. Single women of all ages were raped, sexually brutalized and killed inside their apartments. Apparently, they voluntarily let their killer in.

The slaying string suddenly stopped. No one was apprehended, charged or convicted. Today, the Boston Strangler serial murders remain officially unsolved. The files—whatever left of them—sat shelved with other cold cases. Day-by-day, the trail got icier. That’s until modern forensic science revisited the evidence.

Authorities long debated whether Albert DeSalvo was the Boston Strangler. He was a serial sexual predator and certainly capable of strangling women while raping them. In fact, Albert DeSalvo admitted being the Strangler and claimed responsibility for the thirteen cases, plus other homicides. But, DeSalvo also recanted his confession, blamed others and many pieces implicating him didn’t fit.

Boston area detectives didn’t have Albert DeSalvo on their radar during the early investigation. It wasn’t until late 1965 that DeSalvo surfaced after making a jail-house confession to a cellmate who happened to be represented by high-profile lawyer F. Lee Bailey. Bailey took on DeSalvo’s case and tried to broker a deal with Boston Police and the D.A. It was having Albert DeSalvo ruled criminally insane so he could move from the harsh penitentiary to a comfortable hospital.

The police were very cautious about credibility in DeSalvo’s confession. There was absolutely no physical evidence—at the time—to connect Albert DeSalvo to any of the Strangler scenes. DeSalvo was well known for exaggerating and fabricating stories. Further, DeSalvo seemed wrong about some Strangler scene key facts such as times, mechanisms of death and various evidence points. It seemed to investigators that DeSalvo could have got his information from the news, made some up, or possibly heard it in jail from the real killer.

Albert DeSalvo was written off as a braggart and a pathological attention seeker. He was never charged for the Boston Strangler murders and died in prison in 1973 after being shanked by fellow inmates. The Strangler case sat dormant until 2013 when the Boston PD got special cold case funding from the National Justice Institute. With it, they assembled a team and applied DNA analysis from questioned male biological evidence retrieved at one Strangler death scene and compared it with known DNA extracted from DeSalvo’s exhumed body. The results finally settled the question, “Was Albert DeSalvo really the Boston Strangler?

Boston Strangler Case History

The killings associated with the Boston Strangler serial murder case happened over a 19 month period from the summer of 1962 until the winter of 1964. All victims were females alone in apartments who were killed by manual or ligature strangulation. Some were also stabbed. All were sexually violated in some manner, and most had their nylon stockings cinched around their necks. However, there were marked differences in modus operandi (MO) between the killings. There was also a huge age range. The youngest Strangler-attributed victim was 19. The oldest was 85.

Initially, the Strangler case was called the “Silk Stocking Murders”. This label changed when the Boston Sunday Herald ran the July 8, 1962 headline “Mad Strangler Kills Four Women in Boston” after the fourth victim was found. Then, a panic surge swept Boston causing women to arm themselves, buy guard dogs and rig alarms in their homes.

The print, radio and TV media industry didn’t help calm peoples’ fears. They sensationalized the Boston Strangler case as Boston’s crime of the century. Interest intensified as the Strangler’s body count grew. Through good investigative journalism and helpful leaks from police officers, much of the Strangler key-fact evidence got published.

Normally, this critical information—only known to the true killer and the principal investigators—would be held back in strictest confidence. Not so with many of the individual Strangler murders. Descriptions of exact ligatures, body posings in lurid sexual positions and notes allegedly left by the killer appeared in newspapers and on the air.

Another challenge was the multi-jurisdictional overlap in the Greater Boston police departments. Strangler victims surfaced in Cambridge, Salem, Lynn and Lawrence as well as central Boston. This was the sixties and way before modern communication links in law enforcement. The media had better information channels than the cops and were making case links that seasoned detectives doubted.

The sixties weren’t sophisticated times as forensics and informatics go. But, the Boston detectives were no strangers to murders and were well-equipped with gut sense. The wide gap in victim ages, race, social class, crime scene modus operandi and event spacing puzzled the initial investigators. There were so many different patterns that it was hard to believe that, behaviorally, the crimes were committed by one person.

Many officers still believe that today. They feel that more than one killer was at work in the Boston area during that period and to seasoned officers, that makes sense. However, there was one obvious common denominator in all thirteen murders. Not a single scene had any sign of forced entry. Somehow, the killer had to have been let in.

The Boston Strangler Victims

Initially, the Boston Strangler victim list held fifteen names. After a time, two cases were solved and found to be independent perpetrators. The police also proved these assailants were not connected to the unsolved cases they cautiously suspected were the Strangler’s work. Here is the list of victims historically associated with the Boston Strangler.

1. Anna Slesers – age 56. Found: June 14, 1962 at 77 Gainsborough St., Back Bay, Boston MA. MO: Sexually assaulted with unspecified foreign object. Non-fatally strangled with a belt then fatally strangled with bathrobe cord tied in a bow around neck.

2. Mary Mullen – age 85. Found: June 28, 1962 at 1435 Commonwealth Ave., Boston MA. MO: Sexual assault in progress but died of heart attack during strangulation attempt.

3. Nina Nichols – age 68. Found: June 30, 1962 at 1940 Commonwealth Ave., Boston MA. MO: Sexually assaulted with a wine bottle. Fatal ligature strangulation with one nylon stocking. Two more postmortem nylon stockings tied around neck in a bow.

4. Helen Blake – age 65. Found: June 30, 1962 at 73 Newhall St., Lynn MA. MO: Raped and fatally strangled with nylon stockings. Another nylon and bra tied around neck postmortem.

5. Ida Irga – age 75. Found: August 19, 1962 at 7 Grove St., Beacon Hill, Boston MA. MO: Raped and manually strangled. Pillowcase around neck postmortem.

6. Jane Sullivan – age 67. Found: August 21, 1962 at 435 Columbia Rd., Dorchester, South Boston, MA. MO: Raped and fatally strangled with nylon stockings.

7. Sophie Clark – age 20. Found: December 5, 1962 at 315 Huntington Ave., Back Bay, Boston MA. MO: Raped and fatally strangled with nylon stockings. Petticoat wrapped around neck postmortem.

8. Patricia Bissette – age 23. Found: December 31, 1962 at 515 Park Drive, Back Bay, Boston MA. MO: Raped and fatally strangled with interwoven nylon stockings. Blouse also tied around neck postmortem.

9. Mary Brown – age 69. Found: March 6, 1963 at 319 Park Ave., Lawrence MA. MO: Raped, bludgeoned with a pipe, stabbed in breasts with fork and manually strangled. No ligature involved.

10. Beverly Samans – age 23. Found: May 6, 1963 at 4 University Rd., Cambridge MA. MO: Raped, stabbed four times in neck, twenty-two times in torso. Two scarves and one nylon stocking tied around neck postmortem.

11. Evelyn Corben – age 58. Found: September 6, 1963 at 224 Lafayette St., Salem MA. MO: Raped, forced to perform oral sex and fatally strangled with two nylon stockings.

12. Joann Graff – age 23. Found: 23 November, 1963 at 54 Essex St., Lawrence MA. MO: Raped, beaten and fatally strangled with nylon stockings. Black leotard wrapped around neck postmortem.

13. Mary Sullivan – age 19. Found January 4, 1964 at 44-A Charles St., Boston MA. MO: Sexually assaulted with broom handle, forced to perform oral sex, fatally strangled with nylon stocking. Two scarves tied around neck postmortem. Posed on bed with back against wall, legs spread and hand-written sign placed at feet reading “Happy New Year”.

How Albert DeSalvo Surfaced

Hindsight is a marvelous thing. Many police and forensic investigators wish they were issued it when they started their careers. Hindsight may be 20/20, but that’s not the real world in active, fluid police and forensic worlds.

Analyzing modus operandi, or method of operation, is also a marvelous thing. In hindsight, the Boston Strangler’s MOs appear glaringly obvious. But, it’s just not that clear for field investigators on the ground. These professionals had to do the best with what they had at the time. Usually that’s a name and they didn’t have Albert DeSalvo’s as a murder suspect.

Looking back, Albert DeSalvo was proficiently active across the crime spectrum. DeSalvo was a con-man duping people on scams. He boosted cars and broke into businesses. DeSalvo dealt drugs and fenced goods. But what Albert DeSalvo was really good at was scamming innocent people into letting him enter their homes.

Before the Boston Strangler case started, Boston police were baffled by sexual predators called the “Measuring Man” and the “Green Man”. They appeared to be two different entities because of two different MOs. Both behaviors were far from how the Boston Strangler operated.

The Measuring Man started his Boston business in 1960. He was a clean, well-dressed and cheery man who randomly appeared at single ladies apartment doors, confidently portraying himself as a modeling agency rep. The ruse was the lady had been recommended by her anonymous friend to be a model. The Measuring Man was asked in, took critical bust, waist and hip sizes and was never seen again.

The Green Man was more aggressive. He appeared at single women’s apartments dressed in green work clothes. His ruse was repairs, and he was let in to do his job. That turned out to be raping women, but leaving them alive. Most gave a very good description and one victim later led the police to Albert DeSalvo.

Boston police arrested Albert DeSalvo for the Green Man rapes on October 27, 1964. This was eight months after the last Boston Strangler murder. Based on DeSalvos description and distinct Green Man MO, they charged him with multiple counts of rape and related sexual assaults. DeSalvo was held in custody and remanded for a psychiatric assessment. It was the same place and time holding George Nassar.

Albert DeSalvo Meets George Nassar

George Nassar was a violent Boston area criminal. Nassar was also in psychiatric remand for cold-bloodedly killing a gas station attendant during a robbery. He was already convicted of a previous murder. They wrote the penal code for guys like George Nassar, and he’d already checked off most of the boxes.

Somehow, Albert DeSalvo and George Nassar were cell mates. No one except Nassar knows how the conversation started. He’s still alive, but not talking. However, back then, the increasingly high-profile American defense attorney F. Lee Bailey represented George Nassar. Though Nassar and Bailey—Albert DeSalvo confessed to being the Boston Strangler.

This toxic mix of masterful manipulators gave Boston police investigators the willies. Nassar was known as a cruel murderer with sexual deviancy. Bailey was an up-and-coming publicity hound. And Albert DeSalvo had absolutely no priors for anything indicating murder.

F. Lee Bailey (later famous for clients like Sam Sheppard, Patty Hearst and OJ Simpson) recorded 50 hours of interviews with DeSalvo producing 20,000 transcript pages. Bailey remained the middle man and the police never talked to DeSalvo directly.

Boston and other PD detectives carefully analyzed Albert DeSalvo’s statements. They concluded that DeSalvo got may details wrong about the crime scenes, particularly times of death that contradicted autopsy evidence. They also concluded details DeSalvo got right—certain key fact information—could well have come from another capable criminal like George Nassar.

DeSalvo suddenly recanted his confession. Police suspected a ruse between Nassar and DeSalvo to split a reward and prefer facilities. DeSalvo was already facing life imprisonment and Nassar had an appeal shot. Police also mistrusted F. Lee Baily and for a good reason, given Bailey’s track record. Eventually, Bailey goes home. DeSalvo dies. Nassar does life. And the Boston Strangler serial killings go unsolved.

Mary Sullivan and Albert DeSalvo’s Families Join Forces

This might sound like an unlikely joint venture, but the families of Mary Sullivan—13th on the Strangler list—and Albert DeSalvo joined forces to exonerate him. Both families had agendas. DeSalvo’s family wanted his name cleared as the Boston Strangler and Sullivan’s family long suspected a copycat—an associate of Mary Sullivan’s roommate.

The Sullivans and DeSalvos did a private investigation in 2000. The Boston police and other law enforcement agencies weren’t involved. Because both families had next-of-kin and executor powers, they convinced the medical examiner to exhume Mary Sullivan and Albert DeSalvo’s bodies for DNA examination.

Their goal was to isolate the killer’s DNA profile on Mary Sullivan’s remains and a known DNA profile from DeSalvo’s remains. Theoretically, this would link or exonerate the two. This was despite Mary Sullivan decomposing for 36 years and Albert DeSalvo rotting for 27.

They exhumed Mary Sullivan on October 13/14, 2000 from her grave in Hyannis MA. The forensic report of her disinterment and forensic examination is fascinating for the forensically inclined. Foreign DNA signatures developed on what was left of Sullivan’s underwear, pubic hair and head hair. They produced two separate donor profiles through degraded mitochondrial DNA profiling. The question was, “Were they contributed by Albert DeSalvo?

The DeSalvo family authorized the Medical Examiner to exhume Albert’s body. The private team isolated suitable material and developed a unique DNA profile for Albert DeSalvo. When compared, the foreign DNA on Mary Sullivan clearly wasn’t contributed by Albert DeSalvo. Albert DeSalvo seemed innocent.

For the next 13 years, both families and many others were convinced Albert DeSalvo didn’t murder Mary Sullivan. That wasn’t so with the Boston police who still held the original semen swabs and slides from Mary Sullivan’s autopsy. They were waiting for forensic science to catch up so degraded DNA could be positively processed.

Boston Police Examine Strangler DNA in 2013

Boston and other police departments had no involvement in the 2000 private exhumations and DNA analysis. Neither did the Medical Examiner’s office or District Attorney. They let a privately-funded—and expensive—venture play out and let the private conclusions stand for what they were worth.

The authorities are no fools. They analyzed the private process flaws and waited till technology advanced. By 2013, forensic DNA analysis had three decades under its belt and was far more precise on old, degraded serology swabs and slides like those still retained from Mary Sullivan’s autopsy in 1964.

Two forensic labs worked tandemly to profile mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) from the foreign, or questioned, semen samples taken at Sullivan’s postmortem. They produced a clear biolgical picture of her killer. Now, the forensic team needed a known sample from suspects.

For years, Albert DeSalvo was the leading Boston Strangler suspect. Certainly, individual investigators had their personal opinions. But, the preponderance of evidence pointed to DeSalvo and the overall modus operandi pointed to all thirteen murders being related.

Now the Boston police and the forensic team needed a known sample from their prime suspect—Albert DeSalvo. The problem was, DeSalvo was dead. Unlike the NOK/family loop that allowed exhumation, the cops had to convince a judge to issue a search warrant.

Again, the authorities are no fools. They needed a live link to the dead for an indicative DNA donor. That lay in a living male relative of Albert DeSalvo and, by now, the cooperative ones had dropped off. The closest living DeSalvo was a nephew. He wasn’t cooperating.

So, the Boston PD did a sting where they surveilled the nephew till he discarded a plastic water bottle. From that, the forensics team developed a Y-Chromosome DNA profile that showed that someone from the DeSalvo male lineage was 99.9% likely to be Sullivan’s foreign sperm donor. This powerful biological indicator provided grounds for a second Albert DeSalvo exhumation, authorized by a court warrant. Direct nuclear DNA from Albert DeSalvo was crucial to precisely proving or disproving the connection.

On July 10, 2013 Boston police and their forensic team once again dug up Albert DeSalvo and extracted DNA from his femur and three teeth. Nine days later, the Boston PD chief, the local DA and the Massachusetts Attorney General jointly announced that Albert DeSalvo’s DNA matched Mary Sullivan’s sperm donor with odds of one in 220 billion.

It follows that if Albert DeSalvo’s semen DNA match conclusively links him as Sulivan’s killer, then the intricate MO—the nylon stocking nexus—connects DeSalvo to all thirteen killings. That evidence combination is the holy grail in a serial killer investigation and there is no doubt—no reasonable doubt—that Albert DeSalvo really was the Boston Strangler.