by Susan Kelly
ALBERT: I think it wuz Tobin.
BOTTOMLY: How did you—
ALBERT: Told—I had told her—ah—
BOTTOMLY: Did you use the measuring on her?
ALBERT: No—I did tell her she looked—I tol’ her she looked very pretty or sumpin’—she said a hus—somethin about a husband—
BOTTOMLY: Oh.
ALBERT: Sumpin about a husband—wuz next door or sumpin—wuz comin’ right back or sumpin—and she wuz a little nervous—told her she looked very pretty or sumpin—I don’t know, whether I used da model or nurse or not, but I explained to her that I wuz doin some paintin’ and uh—told her my name was Thompson—and I—moved out very fast with her.
BOTTOMLY: When you heard about the husband, you got outta there.
ALBERT: No, not necessarily becuz—well, maybe—you could if you wanna say that.
The fact that a man named “Thompson” had come to Marcella Lulka’s door claiming that he had to paint her apartment had of course been extensively written up in the newspapers. So had the fact that “Thompson” had made advances to Lulka. Similarly, her ruse—telling the intruder that her husband was asleep in the next room—to get rid of the man had been well publicized.
The “honey-haired” man who identified himself to Lulka as Thompson had worn, according to the eyewitness descriptions of three different people, completely different attire than Albert claimed he had the day of Sophie’s murder: a light gray hooded cloth jacket and green pants for Albert as opposed to “Thompson’s” dark leather jacket and black pants. And one of the witnesses was actually acquainted with the man who posed as the apartment painter—a man who despite the bizarre coincidence that he was nicknamed “Al” clearly wasn’t Al DeSalvo, since the former was black and the latter was white.
Bottomly brought up an interesting point during this interrogation: that discussing the murders of the older women didn’t seem to bother Albert nearly as much as discussing the murders of the younger ones such as twenty-year-old Sophie. “I can’t see hurting no girls, nobody,” Albert said. “What a hell of a feeling to know you really hurt somebody.”61
It was as if he were speaking of the actions of another person. “It kills me, boy,” Albert added.
BOTTOMLY: Uhuh ... Sophie, ah, you didn’t have any sex relations with her either did you? She like Ida Irga?
ALBERT: Ah, on Sophie?
BOTTOMLY: You pulled the napkin off were you just too shocked? What did you do?
ALBERT: I don’t know what it was, but . . .
BOTTOMLY: Do you remember having sex relations with her specifically?
ALBERT: No, she was lying on the floor. Her legs were facing towards the, towards the coffee table. It was a light coffee table, very light.
Whoever had killed Sophie had apparently masturbated just afterward, because the forensic investigator found a seminal stain on the rug near her body. Albert seemed not to know that this had happened. In any case, he told Bottomly that he had left the apartment quickly but discreetly.
BOTTOMLY: You always kept a cool head, though, you never run out.
ALBERT: I never ran.
BOTTOMLY: Never brought attention to yourself.
Eyewitnesses told police that the man they’d seen had been agitated and perspiring heavily.
Albert said he’d passed a few people on the stairs to whom he’d nodded “very politely.”
BOTTOMLY: But you always, ah, ducked your face.
ALBERT: So they couldn’t see my face.
BOTTOMLY: Ya.
Albert then said he hadn’t encountered anyone while leaving the building.
He talked about the length of time it had taken him to enter Sophie’s apartment, kill her, and depart.
ALBERT: As to how fast it was done, I would say it didn’t take no more than, in that apartment, no more than five or ten minutes.
BOTTOMLY: Oh, I see.
ALBERT: That’s how fast . . .
BOTTOMLY: You talk about . . .
ALBERT: This is what I feel, anyhow.
BOTTOMLY: Ya. Course that’s what it seemed like to you.
ALBERT: That’s what I mean, that’s right.
BOTTOMLY: It coulda been a half an hour.
ALBERT: That’s right see? And that’s what ah ...
BOTTOMLY: You just don’t remember, Albert.
This last comment was one of Bottomly’s most revealing.
24
The Confessions of Albert DeSalvo, IV
Albert was no more eager to confess to the slayings of Patricia Bissette, Beverly Samans, Joann Graff, and Mary Sullivan than he was to that of Sophie Clark—or, indeed, to any of the others, despite his initial stated desire to unburden himself and despite his disclaimer that the details of the older women hadn’t affected him the way those of the younger women had.
He couldn’t explain why he had moved nineteen-year-old Mary Sullivan’s body from one bed to another in the room she’d shared with Pamela Parker and Patricia Delmore at 44A Charles Street in Boston. He also blanked on other significant details of that murder. And there was physical evidence left at that crime scene that could not be connected with him.62
On September 9, 1965, Albert and Bottomly discussed at length the fact that one of Albert’s Bridgewater acquaintances was a young man incarcerated there for killing his wife. This man had known Mary Sullivan on Cape Cod—had in fact dated her—and, according to Albert, had referred to Mary with considerable contempt as “a skinny little bitch.” The wife-murderer’s opinion of women in general was low; they were all, he confided to Albert, “no God damn good.”
Albert also told Bottomly that after this young man had found out that Albert had admitted to Mary’s murder, he remarked, “Well, I don’t have to. I don’t have to play a game with you.”
Bottomly asked Albert to place when he had killed twenty-three-year-old Patricia Bissette. Albert thought it was after the death of Sophie Clark, which was true, and after the attack on Erika Wilsing, which wasn’t.
ALBERT: And then, uh, this was Patricia Bissette hadda come next and you know what, how I figger this? This hadda be done Sunday morning. BOTTOMLY: Yuh?
ALBERT: And the date to my knowledge would be around the, uh, twenty-eight or twenty-ninth.
BOTTOMLY: Whatever that Sunday was, the last Sunday in December?
ALBERT: Yeh, becuz, uh, you know something’? we had coffee there. I know that I had my cup with me becuz she drank hers and I don’t like coffee, not that much.
That Pat had offered her killer (or someone) this hospitality had been widely reported in the press, the Globe even stating that “the coffee in one cup had been served black and the other mixed with cream.” It was also noted that one unwashed cup had been found in the living room, the other in the kitchen.
Albert said Patricia had a Christmas tree in her living room and a record player with a broken cover. Again, he had previously viewed the crime scene photos.
Albert’s confession to the murder of twenty-three-year-old Joann Graff of Lawrence was not particularly convincing. Because it had taken place the weekend after the death of John F. Kennedy, it received somewhat less press coverage than it ordinarily might have.
BOTTOMLY: Can you think back now to the Graff place? Did you see a telephone?
ALBERT: No, I didn’t.
BOTTOMLY: You didn’t notice the telephone? ALBERT: No.
BOTTOMLY: Did you take anything from the Graff place?
ALBERT: No.
BOTTOMLY: You didn’t take a wallet?
ALBERT: Possible. It’s possible.
BOTTOMLY: What would you have done with it if you did?
ALBERT: Threw it away.
BOTTOMLY: See what was in it and throw it away?
ALBERT: It’s possible.
BOTTOMLY: Do you specifically remember anything?
ALBERT: What’s that, in the wallet? Or taking it?
BOTTOMLY: Do you even remember taking it?
ALBERT: It’s possibl
e I took it and threw it somewhere.
BOTTOMLY: Mmm. But you’re not positive either way.
ALBERT: No.
Even aided by these extremely leading questions, the Task Force chief was unable to draw the correct responses from Albert. Joann did in fact have a telephone. And her brown leather clutch wallet was missing from the apartment, presumably taken by her killer.
Bottomly persisted. “Now, remember the Anna Slesers case, you got a lot of blood on you which caused you some problems.”
ALBERT: Yes.
BOTTOMLY: Was there any blood in the Graff case.
ALBERT: None, none.
BOTTOMLY: None that you recall?
ALBERT: Graff? None.
According to the Lawrence police report by the officer who had discovered Joann’s body, there was blood on the bedspread and on the victim’s bra, which had been ripped open.
Bottomly asked Albert what had happened when the latter had walked around Joann’s building—as Albert claimed he had, and as had been reported in news accounts—looking for the victim’s apartment.
BOTTOMLY: Okay. Now, ah, you mention that you ah saw this guy up on the, up one floor up and asked where Graff lived.
ALBERT: I recall going into this apartment. Going up and going to the farthest to the left and talking with this man. [This was Kenneth Rowe, who could not later identify Albert.]
BOTTOMLY: Right, and—
ALBERT: I remember talking to him.
BOTTOMLY: I thought you said leter [sic] or maybe earlier you couldn’t remember exactly which you talked to a woman.
ALBERT: Yes.
BOTTOMLY: An older woman and you described her?
ALBERT: The opposite side of her apartment up in the left corner.
BOTTOMLY: Now, how did you represent yourself to that old woman, do you remember?
ALBERT: No, I don’t.
BOTTOMLY: What lines you used with her?
ALBERT: No, I think I may have just talked to her occasionally that’s all. As to what I said to her I don’t recollect.
The Task Force chief was not about to concede defeat so easily.
BOTTOMLY: Did you represent yourself as being in for maintenance or—
ALBERT: I don’t recall.
BOTTOMLY: What if I used the word detective does that help you at all?
ALBERT: No. Never used that word.
BOTTOMLY: You never represented yourself as a detective?
ALBERT: Never used myself as a detective.
It wasn’t the answer the Task Force chief wanted.
Despite repeated requests from Bottomly, Albert didn’t wish to discuss the murder of twenty-six-year-old Beverly Samans in Cambridge. He also made clear the reasons for his reluctance.
ALBERT: I don’t want to talk about her.
BOTTOMLY: Oh, why not?
ALBERT: Not her.
BOTTOMLY: Why not?
ALBERT: I was told not to.
BOTTOMLY: Why?
ALBERT: You know, just on this basis until things are clearer.
BOTTOMLY: You mean on account of Droney? On account of the D.A., there? [John Droney, district attorney of Middlesex County, who did not believe Albert had murdered Beverly Samans] Well, I mean—it’s gonna—the deal we had is you’re supposed to tell about everything you know.
ALBERT: Yeh, but I also was told by Mr. McGrath in front of you and Mr. Bailey until he comes back and he talks to you—Mr. Bailey’s gonna talk to you, he says, when he comes back and Mr. Bottomly is present with him we will discuss that together. He says until you hear from me further, don’t talk about it. He says when Mr. Bottomly and I will get together. He says, unless he says—
BOTTOMLY: Well that’s gonna hold everything up. ALBERT: Huh?
BOTTOMLY: That’s gonna hold everything up. ALBERT: No. Well he told me not to discuss that until that will be the last one he says til he talks to you privately. I gotta do what he tells me cuz you know yourself I’m going all the way. There’s your fourth one right there, the question mark? There’s no question at all there.
BOTTOMLY: The question mark meaning you can’t talk.
Later that same day, August 24, 1965, Albert told Bottomly that he was “blocking out” Beverly’s killing.
BOTTOMLY: You’re doing that on orders, and I think it’s messing some other things up, so I think we ought to—
ALBERT: Till we find out.
BOTTOMLY: Till we get cleared on Samans—to talk.
ALBERT: Ah—possibly you can bring Mr. McGrath—or—
BOTTOMLY : I’ll get in touch with him tomorrow—I’ll tell him the point that we’ve reached—ALBERT: Uh huh.
Albert was ready to confess to the slaying fully on September 9, 1965. Whatever consultations or arrangements with F. Lee Bailey that needed to be made had clearly had been taken care of in one fashion or another.
ALBERT: Tryin’ to think where I wuz that morning, why I wuz there. She let me in. I’m tryin’ to think what I said to her. Uhhh—Jesus Christ—I remember it too clear—on her—(Long pause) (Heavy sighs)
BOTTOMLY: Well you tell it your way.
ALBERT: Do you want to—first sketch out the bath—the uh the apartment—
BOTTOMLY: Just as it comes to you in the story, then sketch it.
ALBERT: All right, uh—the uh—the way she opened the door. Gee I think she had a zipper—she had a zipper on in front of her.
BOTTOMLY: A housecoat on?
ALBERT: I think it was a housecoat or somethin’. I could be wrong on the zipper becuza that’s what I don’t see—I gotta talk about it whether I like it or not.
BOTTOMLY: I see.
ALBERT: She uh—I opened it up—and she went into the bathroom and I went with her and I had—I had gutten a knife from—that’s it—this ties it up now. (Bang) You know somethin‘—I wuz in there doing this job on the side. That’s what happened. I wuz doin’ a home in Belmont. That’s how I gut to be over there in East Cambridge. [Beverly actually lived west of Harvard Square, about two miles from East Cambridge.]
BOTTOMLY: I see.
ALBERT: See—I wuz a—working in a home in Belmont for a woman on the side doin’ extra work.
Albert told the Task Force chief that while he was working in the Belmont house, he went down to the cellar, where he opened some drawers and looked into them.
ALBERT: And this knife wuz in there. There wuz a knife in there. And I took it.
BOTTOMLY: What kind of knife?
ALBERT: It wuz a push button knife.
BOTTOMLY: Switch-blade?
ALBERT: ‘Bout that long—yeah—switch-blade. Very sharp, pointed—never see ’em around here. I never seen one before.
BOTTOMLY: Curved, was it?
ALBERT: This wuz a—an Armenian family, that wuz livin there—an uh—it wuz a—you just pushed the button—p’ tew—
BOTTOMLY: Did it come out this way, or up straight? ALBERT: Think it wuz straight.
BOTTOMLY: Uh huh.
ALBERT: Came straight—you just push the thing, right?
BOTTOMLY: Yuh.
ALBERT: She shot right out.
BOTTOMLY: Shot right out of the handle, huh?
ALBERT: Yuh—pretty sure it shot right out. And uh—that there wuz in there an I put it in my pocket and I had carried it one or two days wit me—
BOTTOMLY: Uh-huh.
ALBERT: Could be three days—and I think—I’m almost positive—on my way from—home—that I shot over that way.
BOTTOMLY: To Cambridge.
Albert claimed that this stolen switchblade was the weapon he had used on Beverly, and that after leaving her apartment he’d driven to Malden (a small city just north of Boston) and thrown the knife in a swamp. This wetland had been filled in with gravel and houses built atop it, Albert said.
The point that the switchblade obviously couldn’t be recovered now was moot; it wasn’t the murder weapon anyway. Beverly had been stabbed to death with one of her own paring knives, which the killer had washe
d and put on the drainboard along with an assortment of other knives, forks, and spoons in an attempt to mislead the Cambridge police. The cleaning job was as inadequate as was the effort to conceal; the knife was still bloodstained.
On September 29, Bottomly asked Albert how he had killed Beverly. In the earlier session, Albert had volunteered that he’d stabbed her ‘three or four times. Maybe five.” Now he was prepared to elaborate. ”I stabbed her twice right underneath the right bust,” he said.
BOTTOMLY: Right underneath it?
ALBERT: Uhmm.
BOTTOMLY: Did you lift it up?
ALBERT: Yes.
BOTTOMLY: Did she still talk?
ALBERT: I don’t know.
BOTTOMLY: Then what did you do?
ALBERT: I kept stabbing her right in the throat.
BOTTOMLY: In her throat. Did blood spurt out? (Long pause) How many times do you think you stabbed her? (Long pause)
George McGrath, who was present at this session, jumped in to break the silence. “Where was the knife, Albert? You said you got it at a painting job in Belmont?”
BOTTOMLY: He explained that in detail already, previously.
MCGRATH: Oh did he, ya.
ALBERT: About 5 or 6 times, 7.
BOTTOMLY: What made you stop?
ALBERT: I don’t know.
BOTTOMLY: Thought she was dead?
ALBERT: I don’t know.
According to the medical examiner’s report, Beverly had been stabbed seventeen, times above, below, in, and on either side of the left breast.63 Her neck also bore four horizontal incised wounds, two on either side.
Albert kept changing the details in his story, perhaps in response to pressure from Bottomly.
