American serial killer who murdered at least 11 and as many as 13 women in the Boston area between 1962 and 1964.
The killer's first victim, a 55-year-old woman, was sexually assaulted and strangled in her apartment on June 14, 1962. During the following months, several other elderly women were murdered in similar circumstances, though subsequent victims included young women. In 1965 Albert DeSalvo, an inmate at a state mental hospital, confessed to the murders. Although never charged with the killings because no physical evidence tied him to the murder scenes, he was convicted on separate counts of sexual assault and sentenced to life imprisonment. DeSalvo's guilt remains controversial, in part because his confessions demonstrated ignorance of many aspects of the crimes. DNA tests in 2001 confirmed that it was all but impossible that DeSalvo was guilty of the last of the murders, though it was one of the crimes to which he had confessed.