by Susan Kelly
Court was adjourned until Christmas Eve.
On December 24, Albert took the stand. And, like Robey before him, he remained there the entire day.
Troy asked Albert if he’d ever discussed the release with Bailey. Albert said he had, but only after he’d signed the document. “I told him that I didn’t know what it was, and I had asked him to disregard that and stop it, I didn’t want it, and he never paid no attention because he has never given me or told me that it has been stopped.”
How, Troy wondered, had Albert’s life been affected since the publication of Frank’s book and the release of the movie?
“Well, every day, like I will be called, ‘Hey, Strangler,’ or people who I used to have as friends, they don’t associate because I am supposed to be the alleged Strangler or the Strangler as they see it now,” Albert said. “And my relatives, nobody who I used to know before don’t write to me any more. My own brothers except for one now [Richard] and my own relatives because of the wide publicity and everything else that they just don’t write to me any more, I just don’t get any more mail, and every time I walk down, I am pointed out by the officers by visitors coming in at certain places and to, like take the ward or the place where visitors come, and they say, ‘There is the Strangler,’ and they point it out, and it is very embarrassing, everywhere you go you are pointed out.”
“Are you called any other names besides ‘the Strangler’?” Troy asked.
“They call you ‘Silky’ or ‘Choker.’ ”
“Do you have any children?”
“I have a daughter and a son.”
“Do you hear from them?”
“No, sir.”
“Do you hear from all of your family?”
“One or two only.”
“Any of your former friends write you?”
“None.”
Troy turned the questioning in a slightly different direction. “Mr. DeSalvo, Mr. Bailey testified that you called him down [to Bridgewater in March of 1965] to find out if the story of your life was saleable. Is there any truth to that?”
Albert seemed puzzled, or confused. “Mr. Bailey—repeat that again, please?”
“Mr. Bailey testified that you called him to Bridgewater to find out if the story of your life was saleable.”
“That is not true.”
“Did you ever ask him at any time if he could sell your life story?”
“No, sir.”
“Did you ever ask anybody to do it for you?”
“No, sir.”
Albert’s cross-examination was initiated by James Lynch, who wanted to establish exactly when Albert’s friends and relatives had stopped communicating with him. He also wanted Albert’s recollection of the date he’d read Gerold Frank’s book. The exchange was brief and sharp.
Facher quizzed Albert about his divorce. He tried to get Albert to admit that the purpose behind selling his story was to get money for the support of his wife and children. Albert replied that as far as he knew he hadn’t yet sold his life story, although doing so might not be a bad idea.
Facher’s last questions to Albert concerned the gift he’d allegedly made and sent to Richard Fleischer. Albert denied having done anything of the sort. “Phil DiNatale made it or gave it to him,” he stated.
“All right,” Facher said, no doubt exasperated by Albert’s recalcitrance.
“I made no wallet,” Albert insisted.
They were the last words he would ever speak in a court of law.
“Is there further evidence?” asked Judge Garrity.
“No, Your Honor,” replied Troy.
“That is the plaintiff’s case?” Garrity inquired.
Said Troy, “It is.”
Lynch had a further witness to call, and asked for a continuance.
Garrity adjourned the proceedings until 2:00 P.M on December 30.
The following Monday Lynch called to the stand Robert Ross Mezer, Bailey’s psychiatric consultant who had last testified at Albert’s Green Man trial. Mezer recited his credentials: a medical degree from Tufts; residences at various hospitals; certification by the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology; and teaching appointments at Harvard, the Massachusetts General Hospital School of Nursing, and BU Law School.
Mezer told the court that he had seen Albert at Bridgewater on February 11, 1966, between 2:00 and 3:30 in the afternoon. The purpose of the visit was to establish whether Albert was capable of getting along without a guardian. He seemed, in Mezer’s opinion, quite able to oversee his own financial affairs, to the extent of cashing the thirty-eight-dollar check he received each month from the Veterans Administration, sending money to his family, and inquiring through his attorney Jon Asgeirsson as to the whereabouts of some missing or delayed Social Security checks.
“I then asked him if he knew what was involved in a guardianship of the person, and he gave me an excellent answer, which I will quote here: Guardian of the person concerns the ability to sign contracts, make confessions, hire people, to get married or divorced, apply for admission to the hospital, to apply for a driver’s license, to make a will, to change counsel, to deal with insurance benefits and beneficiaries, to decide on his own future, and to decide on his visitors. A guardian of the estate, on the other hand, by contrast, he told me, concerns only the ability to handle money.”
“He told you those things you have just testified about, Doctor?” asked Lynch.
“That is directly—a direct quote,” replied Mezer.
It was also a remarkably polished one from a man whose grasp of English grammar was, to say the least, a bit loose.
Garrity interrupted: “Was he reading from something?”
“No, sir,” replied Mezer. “I copied it right down while he was telling me these things.”
“And are you reading from notes you made contemporaneously?” Lynch asked.
“Right here,” said Mezer. “Just as he was talking I was writing.”
“Now,” said Lynch. “Did you reach some opinion, Doctor, as a result of that interview and anything else as to whether or not Mr. DeSalvo at that time was competent to handle his business affairs without a guardian?”
“Yes, sir.”
“What opinion did you reach?”
“I thought he was quite competent to handle his own business affairs without a guardian.”
“Now,” said Lynch. “When did you next see Mr. DeSalvo?”
“I next saw Mr. DeSalvo on June 27, 1966.”
“Where, sir?”
“This was also at the Bridgewater State Hospital.”
“Doctor, based on your observations and conversations with Mr. DeSalvo, do you have an opinion as to whether or not on June 17, 1966, Mr. DeSalvo was competent to sign business instruments provided the contents thereof were explained to him by his attorney?”
“Yes, I have an opinion, sir,” said Mezer.
“What is your opinion?”
“That he was competent to do so.”
“What is the basis of your opinion, Doctor?”
“The basis of my examination of him, on the various dates that I have just talked about.”
“Did Mr. DeSalvo suffer from some mental illness during this period of time that you have talked about?”
“Yes, sir.”
Mezer had diagnosed Albert as a chronic undifferentiated schizophrenic, just as Robey had.
But there was a difference.
Mezer pronounced himself completely satisfied that Albert’s condition, which the doctor himself described as “a serious, major mental illness in which the individual’s ability to get along in society is seriously impaired... characterized by the presence of hallucinations, delusions, [and] violent behavior,” would in no way impede his ability to enter into a complicated business transaction if his attorney explained it to him.
On cross-examination, Troy asked Mezer to review his knowledge of Albert’s financial transactions at Bridgewater.
Mezer, whom Troy had just subjected t
o a lengthy inquisition on the exact nature of schizophrenia, was a little weary. Nevertheless, he repeated his earlier remarks about Albert cashing VA checks and making purchases in the Bridgewater canteen.
“You don’t mean that he handled this himself at all, do you?” Troy asked.
“Mr. Troy—” Mezer began.
“No, Doctor, will you answer my question?” the lawyer thundered.
“Yes, but your yelling at me won’t get me to change.”
“I am raising my voice so everyone can hear,” explained Troy, “because I am a very meek individual in nature.”
“What I said was that he signed his own checks and that he used the money to buy things for himself at the hospital and he sent money to his family, and that he handled these aspects of it himself.”
“Don’t they handle all the funds of an inmate at Bridgewater for him?” Troy asked.
“I have no idea,” Mezer replied.
“You have no idea,” Troy said. “And you want to leave your testimony that Albert handled these checks himself and the money himself, right?”
“That is just precisely the way I would like to leave it,” said Mezer.
“Okay,” said Troy. “You gave great weight, did you not, to the statement of Albert DeSalvo when he said ‘to engage in contracts, to make wills, to get a driver’s license, to get married,’ you gave great weight in your consideration of competency to that statement he made, did you not?”
“I gave it weight to the point that it showed that he knew what was involved in the various guardianships, yes, sir.”
Troy moved in for the kill. “And every time you spoke with Albert DeSalvo, why, he spouted long phrases like that to you, didn’t he?”
Lynch objected. Garrity overruled him.
“Doctor?” Troy prodded.
“No, sir,” Mezer said.
“In fact,” Troy went on relentlessly, “he never did it before, did he?”
“What is that again?” Mezer asked.
“He never gave you a statement like that containing such depth about anything, did he?”
“I think he did at other times,” Mezer said.
“When?” Troy inquired. “Check your notes if you want to.”
“At times we discussed different criminal charges,” Mezer said, “and he had a very excellent knowledge of criminal charges and the penalties that were involved.”
Troy struck with his broadsword. “Almost like they were memorized?”
“Yes, sir,” said Mezer.
In January the matter of Albert DeSalvo versus Twentieth Century-Fox and the Walter Reade Organization was decided.
Judge Garrity found for the defendants Fox and Reade.
Troy requested an appeal.
His request was denied.
18
Endgame
Meanwhile, Bailey was having problems of his own with the judicial system of New Jersey. He had undertaken the defense of a publishing executive named Harold Matzner, who was accused of murdering Judith Kavanaugh, the wife of one of his employees, and Gabriel DeFranco, a minor underworld figure. Bailey felt that Matzner was being railroaded by the prosecution, whom he accused of bribing and threatening witnesses.
On April 28, 1968, Bailey wrote a letter to New Jersey Governor Richard Hughes outlining his complaints, with copies to United States Attorney General Ramsey Clark, New Jersey Attorney General Arthur Sills, the president of the New Jersey Bar Association, and the state’s United States senators and congressmen. Because of a misunderstanding on his secretary’s part, Bailey says in The Defense Never Rests, copies also went to every one of New Jersey’s state legislators.52
Two days later it was also printed in the newspapers. As a result of this publicity, the New Jersey Supreme Court gave notice that it intended to remove Bailey from the Matzner case unless he could furnish it sufficient reason not to.
Bailey claimed before Judge Gordon Brown that he had nothing to do with the letter being given to the press; Judge Brown found nonetheless that Bailey had overstepped the boundaries of his professional sphere and in fact had demonstrated a “shocking contempt” for the code to which New Jersey lawyers were supposed to adhere—that of not attempting to try a case anywhere but in the courtroom.
Bailey was indeed removed as counsel to Harold Matzner. Ultimately, he was suspended from the practice of law in New Jersey for one year.
In 1969, Tom Troy dropped Albert as his client. Relations between them had grown strained after the failed lawsuit against Twentieth Century-Fox and Walter Reade; Troy had begun to find Albert’s nonstop demands wearisome and irritating. “He was constantly asking me for money, and I told him I wasn’t a banker,” Troy says today. “I was a lawyer and if he didn’t like it, he could place his lips upon my posterior.”
Bailey says that the trouble he ran into in New Jersey inspired the Boston Bar Association to take a fresh look at his conduct in Massachusetts. In September 1969 it filed a complaint against him with the Supreme Judicial Court of the Commonwealth. Two of the charges against him were the same as those that had been leveled in 1967—his appearance on The Tonight Show to talk about the Coppolino case and the radio interview he’d done with Paul Benzaquin on the Plymouth mail robbery. The Boston Bar Association was also disturbed by the letter he’d written to the governor of New Jersey, Bailey says.
Perhaps unbeknownst to Bailey, a second party was gearing up to launch a formal complaint against him. That party was his former client Albert DeSalvo.
On Christmas Eve, 1969, Albert sent a letter (clearly written by someone else) to the Grievance Committee of the State Bar Association. In it he claimed that “since 1965—the beginning of my representation by Mr. Bailey—I have been unethically served by Mr. Bailey to such an extent that I have been seriously disadvantaged... In substance my charges are that Mr. Bailey knowingly involved me in contracts and litigations which essentially served his own interests and completely distorted or abandoned my own.”
Five days later, Albert followed this with a four-page document in which he enumerated in detail his charges against Bailey. They were very much similar to the claims he’d made in U.S. District Court the previous year: that Bailey had refused to let him read the release to Gerold Frank, that the lawyer had not given Jon Asgeirsson or Albert’s brother Joseph the chance to look it over, and that Bailey had misled him as to the contents and duration of the release. In addition, wrote Albert, “Bailey never established a guardianship for me that would have put competent people in charge of my personal, legal and medical affairs, when he knew perfectly well that I was not competent to handle my own affairs when they involved such complex issues.” And, “Bailey made promises which he knew he couldn’t or wouldn’t keep and cited a legal fact or procedure what was not true.” Albert said that Bailey had assured him that if a movie were to be made of Frank’s book, a separate contract between Albert and the filmmaker would be forthcoming. “The truth was that the Frank ‘release’ empowered Frank to do this himself in spite of what I may wish.”
Albert was entirely correct in believing that he had already signed away his movie rights. On file in the U.S. District Court in Boston is a document dated September 2, 1967, in which Gerold Frank notified Twentieth Century-Fox that he was granting to it the permission he obtained from Albert DeSalvo for his name and biography to be used in the film version of Frank’s book. Fox had optioned The Boston Strangler for $15,000 and bought the property for an additional $185,000. That option money was then turned over to “Robert McKay” by the William Morris Agency, Frank’s representatives.
In the letter to the Bar Association Albert stated that Bailey had promised him a civil commitment if the verdict in the Green Man trial went against him. “He lost the case and the question of civil committment [sic] is a dream.” And Albert bitterly accused Bailey of appealing his case to the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts purely for form’s sake, and with no expectation of winning a reversal of the conviction.
Fr
ederick Norton, the secretary of the Boston Bar Association, suggested that Albert be more specific in describing his complaint against Bailey. On January 11, 1970, Albert replied to Norton—clearly with literary help from his friend, George Nassar—providing this account of the circumstances of the signing of the release:
I told [Bailey] I wanted my brother present to look everything over and I asked him why my brother wasn’t here. He said that he would explain the release to my brother and I later. When I asked why I couldn’t read them now he said that he didn’t want anyone to know about the signing at this time because it was illegal; he said we could get into trouble. Even the guard outside the door couldn’t know what I was signing or that I was signing anything. And Lee told me I shouldn’t say anything specific to McGrath when he came into the room to witness the signing. Lee said he would definitely show my brother the release next week and that I would have time to see it with him and Lee. But now I had to sign right away because Gerald [sic] Frank was waiting outside in a car and was impatient. Lee told me he had a hard time convincing Frank to go along with the release. Lee explained that Frank had already written his book and he could publish it without me. Therefore when Frank agreed to have me sign a release for fifteen per cent of the profits “He’s doing you a favor.”
Lee reminded me that the Parade magazine article about me being the Boston strangler had shown that I was now public domain. Therefore if I didn’t take this opportunity with Frank now I would lose out completely.
I told him I wanted to be sure of what Frank was putting into the book about me. Lee said that nothing would be put into the book that would be detrimental to me. He promised he would get the book and show it to me and my brothers and that if we didn’t want something in it he would have it taken out, that definitely the book wouldn’t be published until it was shown to me and my brothers. “Trust me,” Lee said. “I’m your attorney.”
He explained how hard he had worked to get the release. He said he had to go out of his way to fly to New York to bring Frank here, that Frank was so uninterested Lee had to run after him. When I said that I wanted to look the papers over until next week Lee said that if I didn’t sign them now Frank might go ahead without us: “You wait until next week and you may not get anything.”
