Boston Strangler Update: DNA Links DeSalvo to Victim

Advances in DNA technology have allowed investigators to link longtime suspect Albert DeSalvo to the last of the 1960s slayings attributed to the Boston Strangler, a prosecutor said Thursday.

The DNA produced a "familial match" with DeSalvo in the rape and murder of Mary Sullivan, Suffolk District Attorney Daniel Conley said. DeSalvo's remains were being exhumed, and Conley said he expected investigators to find an exact match.

Sullivan, 19, was found strangled in her Boston apartment in January 1964. Sullivan, who had moved from her Cape Cod home to Boston just three days before her death, had long been considered the strangler's last victim.

The announcement represented the most definitive evidence yet linking DeSalvo to the case.

Eleven Boston-area women between the ages of 19 and 85 were sexually assaulted and killed between 1962 and 1964, crimes that terrorized the region and made national headlines.

DeSalvo, married with children, a blue collar worker and Army veteran, confessed to the 11 Boston Strangler murders, as well as two others.

Represented by F. Lee Bailey, DeSalvo was never convicted of the Boston Strangler killings. He was sentenced to life in prison for a series of armed robberies and sexual assaults and was stabbed to death in the state's maximum security prison in Walpole in 1973 — but not before he recanted his confession.

Sullivan is the only victim for which DNA evidence is available.

Conley said the "familial match" excludes 99.99 percent of suspects but isn't enough to close the case.