Albert Desalvo: An Organized Serial Killer

Albert DeSalvo was born on September 3rd, 1931, in Chelsea, Massachusetts. He was born to Frank and Charlotte DeSalvo. His father Frank DeSalvo, was of Italian descent and was a violent alcoholic. Frank was also very abusive towards his wife and children. At a very young age Frank was said to have taught Albert how to shoplift. Frank beat Albert as well as Charlotte, Albert’s mother. One particular incident involved Frank beating Albert with a lead pipe. From these incidents, the police knew the DeSalvo’s very well, as they had arrested Frank numerous times. The money that Charlotte made as a seamstress fueled Frank’s alcohol addiction. This addiction lead to his inclination to prostitutes, and frequently abused their services. This horrible

This was illustrated through his elusiveness throughout the stranglings. He managed to leave hardly any trace evidence at the crime scenes. This means he would have to had planned a strategy beforehand to ensure he would leave no trace evidence. Also, DeSalvo as mentioned previously, utilized articles of clothing to asphyxiate his victims and manipulate the clothing into bows around their necks to murder them. Even though this links all of the strangling cases together it also reveals that DeSalvo put a strenuous amount of thought into his attacks. Also his signature mark revealed his status as a serial killer as it linked all of his victims together. DeSalvo committed sexual abuse towards his victims in many forms. For instance, DeSalvo would leave his victims in various positions that show different forms of rape, and in some cases murder. DeSalvo was most likely to have committed these crimes as a result of his sadistic desires, most likely derived from his father’s actions. DeSalvo can most likely be defined as a sociopath as his crimes were organized and methodical. The Boston Strangling case verdict was reached when DeSalvo confessed to committing the crimes. Although, the authorities were suspicious of DeSalvo being the criminal, they noted that he was able to recall minute and comprehensive details of all the crimes and some of the details he recalled were not of public knowledge. He was soon convicted and sentenced to life in prison. He escaped with fellow inmates and later was captured and transferred to a maximum security prison, where he was stabbed to death. A few years ago in 2001, the case was reopened and DeSalvo’s body was exhumed to obtain a DNA sample. This DNA sample was tested to determine if the DNA left on Mary Sullivan was a match. This proved to not be a match. This shows some suspicion to the final verdict of the