The Boston Strangler (10 page)

*
What could not be revealed in their articles was that the actual wounds were nearly all similar lacerations which might have been caused by an instrument such as a speculum, used by gynecologists in examination of their patients, or by some other object.

5

That May of 1963, with the strangling toll at eight, Detective Phil DiNatale of Boston's Station Sixteen had dinner one evening at the home of his uncle and aunt, Dr. and Mrs. Peter DiNatale.

Detective DiNatale, who now worked the 8
P.M.
to 3
A.M.
shift in the Back Bay with his partner Jim Mellon, was one of the city's most skillful back-alley men—so called because he specialized in the back alleys, the dead end streets, the courtyards and backyards of apartment houses. In pitch darkness he knew his way in and out of basements, how to negotiate fire escapes, roofs, and parking lots: such was his knowledge of the Back Bay and of what routes a fleeing man might take that more than once, responding to an alarm of “B and E” man, mugger, or purse snatcher, while other police rushed to the scene, DiNatale raced through a back alley, vaulted a fence, and was standing, waiting in the shadows, for the thief to run into his arms.

A heavyset, earnest man of forty-three, DiNatale followed his calling with the fervor of the truly committed. Save for the time he spent with his family, he devoted every waking hour to his work. He had been one of the fifty detectives chosen to attend the FBI Sex Seminar; by now he considered the Strangler his personal enemy. “I can see him,” he'd tell his colleagues; “he's sitting there, sneering at me, challenging me. ‘Just try and catch me,' he's saying.” Although Phil might talk of other matters to persons outside the department, the Strangler was rarely out of his thoughts.

Now, over coffee, his aunt turned to him.

“Phil, you're still on the strangulation cases, aren't you?”

Phil nodded.

She said, “Well, I think I know someone who knows who the Strangler is.”

Phil stared at her, thinking, How could anyone know who the Strangler is and not once in all these months come forward and tell us? Aloud he said, “Who is it? Can you contact this person?”

Mrs. DiNatale promptly telephoned Mrs. George Stratton, wife of a psychiatrist at Boston State Hospital at Mattapan, a mental institution. Phil could hear the voice on the other end. “I don't know if this man will talk to your nephew, Grace. He tried to help the police once before, but they wouldn't listen—he won't have anything to do with the police anymore.”

Phil said emphatically, “Tell her I'm willing to listen to anything he has to say.”

Ten minutes later the phone rang. It was for Phil. On the wire was the friend and attorney of Paul Gordon, advertising copywriter and student of ESP phenomena. Yes, Mr. Gordon had been treated like “some kind of a nut” the last time he tried to help the police. Detective DiNatale could understand that he didn't particularly relish going through that again.

Phil said, “Look, anyone who can help us we're grateful to. I'll be at work tonight at seven-thirty. If Mr. Gordon could drop in, I'd really appreciate it.”

“Well—” said the lawyer. “All right. He'll be there.” He hung up.

How did his aunt know about this? Phil asked her. She explained that Mrs. Stratton was an old friend. The Strattons knew Gordon's lawyer. Some time ago while they were playing poker, the lawyer spoke to Dr. Stratton about his amazing friend who seemed to know all about the Strangler. Only the other day Mrs. Stratton happened to mention this to Mrs. DiNatale, and so she was now passing it on to him.

That night at seven-thirty Gordon's attorney arrived at Station Sixteen, police headquarters for downtown Boston, and introduced himself to Phil. Gordon, he explained, would be along later. Did DiNatale know anything about extrasensory perception? This was a kind of telepathy, he explained—no magic, no one sitting around burning incense—nothing silly like that. It was a special kind of sensitivity some people possessed—and Gordon had it to a great degree.

At eight o'clock when, as Phil surmised, he had been sufficiently briefed, Paul Gordon himself arrived. He turned out to be a short, heavy-set man with huge shoulders and dark brown eyes. He was partially bald. He appeared to be in his early forties. He spoke with a perceptible lisp, but there was no hesitancy in his words.

“Now, before I begin, I want to make certain things clear,” he said. “I'm not saying I can prove anything I'm going to tell you. All I can say is that I have ideas for which I don't have a normal, usual explanation. They come to me from some well in my mind—at first it seems I'm remembering them—but when I analyze it I realize I don't really know why I'm getting the ideas or how they come to me.”

He smiled. “Now, maybe they don't make sense to me but they might make sense to you, and that's why I'm here.” If he was asked point-blank, he added, he would have to say yes, he did have an idea who the Strangler was and what he looked like.

“Please tell us,” said Phil.

Gordon nodded. “I picture him as fairly tall, bony hands, pale white skin, red, bony knuckles, his eyes hollow-set—I was particularly struck by his eyes. His hair disturbed me a little bit because he has a habit of pushing back a little curl of hair that falls on his forehead. He's got a tooth missing in the upper right front of his mouth.” Gordon spoke easily. “He's in a hospital, as I see him, but I'm not sure if it is a hospital—it could be some kind of home.” He described it, and Phil realized that Gordon was describing Boston State Hospital. “He's not confined, I know that, because I see him walking across a wide expanse of lawn. He can walk about, and he does a lot of sitting on a bench on the grounds.”

The Strangler, Gordon went on, had “many problems. He used to beat up his mother cruelly—she was an idiotic, domineering woman—and his two sisters live unhappy lives. The family comes from Maine or Vermont. He's terribly lonely—when he's in the city I see him sleeping in cellars, but he likes to wander about the streets watching women, wanting to get as close as possible to them.” He paused, and said, with surprising emotion, “You see, the poor fellow is in a continual search for his mother, but he can't find her because she's dead.”

Phil listened without any comment. The three men were seated in the interrogation room where suspects were brought for questioning. Phil sat behind a large wooden desk while the two others sat side by side in front of it.

“How many murders do you think he committed?” Phil asked.

“Oh, not more than four, maybe five,” Gordon replied.

Could Mr. Gordon tell him something about the stranglings? Say, the first one?

“Oh, yes,” said Gordon. “That was Anna Slesers. I picture him standing about on the corner of Huntington and Gainsborough, with a sort of decrepit looking appearance—tan sweater with black and orange border, and brown work pants, and white sneakers. I had no idea why he was there when I first pictured him. It just seemed he was standing there hours at a time.

“Then, as his mental image began to develop, I saw him leaning against a tree in front of the building at 77 Gainsborough Street. An ice cream truck drives up, jangles its bell, and all the kids playing on the street run over to it. He takes this minute to dash into the building, up the stairs, and knock on Anna's door. She opens it; he thinks she's his mother; he goes to her with his arms out, he wants to hug her, to show her how sorry he is that he beat her; and as he goes toward her, she backs up, and resists his advances, and then he can't help it: he chokes her and kills her.” Gordon paused.

“Then what happened?” Phil asked.

Gordon shook his head. “I can't tell you—I don't want to tell you—it's just too brutal.” Then, “You must realize, Mr. DiNatale, that when I tell you this, it's very much an actual event to me, and I think I'm participating in it—I get ill, if you really want to know.”

Phil looked at him. Then he opened the desk drawer and brought out six photographs. They were police photographs of men Phil had seized in the act of mugging people or breaking into buildings and shops in the Back Bay area. All six had turned out to have records as sex offenders, and Phil had kept their photographs. “Mr. Gordon,” he said, “look at these.” He spread them out on the desk. “Is the Strangler any one of these?”

Gordon studied them. He pushed one aside, and examined the others again. Then he sat back and pointed to the photograph he had selected. There was no doubt in his voice. “This is the man I see. Either he's the Strangler or he's his twin brother.”

Phil looked at it. It showed an extremely tall, cadaverous young man in his twenties with hollow cheeks, a curl of black hair over his forehead, a lantern jaw—a man perfectly fitting the description Gordon had given him a few minutes before. On the back of the photograph was the name, Arnold Wallace.

Now, suddenly, Phil remembered. On August 19, 1962—two days before Ida Irga was found—he had collared Arnold Wallace (which is not his true name) breaking into a tea shop on Newbury Street. Brought into the light, Arnold was a frightening spectacle: over six feet two inches, skin the color of clay, a long lean face and enormously long arms that seemed to reach almost to his knees. He was twenty-six, a mental patient at Boston State Hospital. He had been committed by his family, but had ground privileges which meant he could leave his ward and stroll about. He had simply walked off a few days before, and had been prowling about the city, sleeping in the basements of apartment houses. His record had shown him to be “assaultive”—he had punched and beaten his mother—and to “brood about sex.”

Phil had kept his prisoner in jail overnight and next morning took him in a van to court. On the way he tried to question him. It wasn't easy to communicate with Arnold. Sometimes he simply stared at Phil, without a word, no matter how many questions were asked. At other times he responded with a foolish grin—was it only foolish, or was it a little contemptuous?—and uttered a few noncommittal words. He showed interest only when Phil asked, “Arnold, tell me, do you like women? You like girls?”

At this Arnold rubbed his knuckles and nodded. “Oh, yes, I like women. I like them all very much.”

“How about old ladies?”

Arnold's long face grew dreamy. “I like them too. I like to hug and kiss them—”

The court had ordered Arnold returned to the hospital, and Phil had added his photograph to his collection.

But now this man, this astonishing Gordon, had described Arnold Wallace with frightening accuracy—even to his habit of sleeping in cellars—and had done it
before
being shown the photograph.

Phil revealed nothing of what he thought. “Okay,” he said. “How about some of the other stranglings. Sophie Clark, for example?”

He mentioned Sophie Clark because, like Anna Slesers, her murder had taken place in the Back Bay.

“That was different,” said Gordon. “I picture Sophie's killer as a Negro, a big, husky man. He knocked on her door—Sophie knew him, knew his voice—and she opened it, and he just pushed his way past her. That's why there's no broken lock or chain. As he entered, his right leg struck a semicircular glass coffee table.” Gordon spoke as if remembering, and went on to describe the hallway and living room: two sofas, one brown, one black, on one of which Sophie used to sleep; a telephone table and over it two prints hanging on the wall. The kitchen door to the back hallway had been nailed shut.

Phil listened impassively. He had been joined by his colleagues, Jim Mellon and Detective Frank Craemer, while Gordon talked. The detailed information Gordon poured out with such assurance was all but overwhelming. A Negro
was
a suspect in the Sophie Clark murder—a six-foot-three handsome youth of twenty-four, to be called here Lewis Barnett, who considered himself a Don Juan—indeed, boasted that women often paid him for his favors. No one could have gotten into Sophie Clark's double-locked and bolted apartment unless she admitted him. She knew Barnett. He had taken her out at least once. But she was deeply in love with her fiancé back in Englewood, New Jersey, and as she told her roommates, Lew had to count her one of his few failures. He had dropped into the apartment once before; he could have done so this afternoon, forced himself on her, and when she refused him, became so enraged that he strangled her, perhaps even unintentionally.

Aloud, Phil asked, “What did the killer do to Sophie?”

“I don't want to go into that,” Gordon said again. “I told you it makes me sick. I dream about the brutality; I can't sleep nights.” He stopped, a little agitated. “I'll tell you after all this is all over.”

When would that be?

“Oh, real soon.” Gordon grew expansive. “Sooner than you think. When this whole thing is solved, Phil,” he said earnestly, “and the Strangler has reached his climax, when he reaches the top of the world, he'll shout and put his arms out and will tell everybody, ‘I'm the man who did it!'” Gordon jumped to his feet, threw his arms out, and cried, “‘I am the Strangler! I've reached my limit, and this is it! Now, what are you going to do about it?' And when this fellow confesses,” Gordon went on excitedly, “it's going to be like a big carpet rolled out in front of you and all the answers will be so simple you'll kick yourself for months at a time that you couldn't see it!”

He sat down and everyone stared at him.

Gordon himself broke the silence. “I have to get home, I have work to do,” he said. “I was just thinking about those two girls attacked the other night. If you fellows could take me where it happened, I might be of some help.”

About three weeks earlier, on April 9, two co-eds at Northeastern University, returning separately to their dormitory, were attacked, one after the other, a few streets apart, not far from the Anna Slesers apartment by a man they described as very tall and “dirty, dirty, dirty,” as though he had just “come out of a coal bin.” The girls had been seized from behind, their scarves had been tightened about their necks, and they had been thrown violently to the ground. The man attempted to rape them, but their screams drove him away. Each girl had noticed a missing front tooth.