The Boston Strangler (42 page)

Dr. Bryan stopped reading and looked at DeSalvo. “That's where it stops. P-r-e—that word stops in the middle.” He put DeSalvo into a hypnotic state again, and again he ordered him to visualize himself tearing off the pages of the calendar from March 21, 1965, back to that Sunday, September 8, 1963, the day Evelyn Corbin was strangled.

“You went into the apartment. You rang a bell. The door buzzed—” The hypnotist reconstructed the account in DeSalvo's dream, sentence by sentence. “You tell her, ‘Don't scream, I won't hurt you.' But the way you say it is the way you said it yesterday. The way you say it on September eighth, 1963, and the way you said it in the dream are all the same. You say it real lightly: ‘Don't scream. I won't hurt you.' Yes. Yes. That's what you said to Judy. She said, ‘Okay, Daddy.' Isn't that what she said? You're not really in September of 1963. You're all the way back with Judy. This dream isn't about Evelyn Corbin.
This dream is about Judy
. Every bit of it. Isn't it? Isn't it? Isn't it? Isn't that true?
And all the other women are identified with Judy
. Every time you're doing it over and over again. Isn't that so? Isn't that so?”

DeSalvo wept.

Dr. Bryan: “Why are you crying? Please stop. Quickly!”

DeSalvo breathed the word. “Judy.”

Dr. Bryan: “Judy is going to be all right.
But you have to hurt her before you can help her
. ‘Don't scream. I won't hurt you,' and she said, ‘Okay.'”

DeSalvo: “No.”

Dr. Bryan: “What did she say?”

DeSalvo: “She can't talk. She's only a baby.”

Dr. Bryan: “She can't talk, she's only a baby. In other words, if these women were really going to be identified with Judy, the way they should be, they couldn't talk. Is that it?”

He paused. “How could you keep them from talking? Come on, how could you stop them from talking.” A pause. “
Strangle them!
That's true, isn't it? Isn't it? That's why the stranglings.” He emphasized each word. “It was after that that you used the thumbs to press the thighs. Isn't that so? Now of course she couldn't talk.” His voice dropped almost to a whisper. “She says, ‘I'm not well. Please don't hurt me.' You say, ‘Okay,' and you take a pillow on the bed and put her knees at the foot of the bed, all right, tie her hands up. You tied Judy's hands up.” His voice burst out, he shouted, “DeSalvo, come on! Have you ever tied Judy's hands up so she wouldn't bother you while you were working on her?”

DeSalvo said no. Judy's hands scratched him, but he did not tie her hands.

The hypnotist sent DeSalvo into a deeper state. “Al, the reason why you didn't finish that dream when you said ‘and pressed'—that's p-r-e, that stands for
pressed
, doesn't it? Isn't there an s-s-e-d on the end of that?
Pressed
your thumbs against their thighs? Isn't that true? That's the rest of the dream, isn't it?”

Was it not the truth that DeSalvo identified each of his victims with his crippled daughter, and each strangling was a reenactment of his attempt to cure his daughter? Step by step the hypnotist led DeSalvo on. Wasn't the real truth that DeSalvo secretly wished to strangle Judy, to eliminate her because she came between Irmgard and himself, because she took away Irmgard's love and attention from him? Sitting knee to knee with DeSalvo, Dr. Bryan, leaning forward, cupped one enormous hand about the back of Albert's head, drawing him to him until their faces were a few inches apart, and then brought his mouth to Albert's ear, whispering, “Each time you strangled, it was because you were killing Judy, wasn't it? Wasn't it? You were killing Judy …”

DeSalvo cried out passionately, “You're a liar!” and unexpectedly, his eyes still closed, his two hands, fingers outstretched as if to throttle, shot out directly at the hypnotist's throat. Dr. Bryan, with astonishing speed, ducked back and his hands came down hard on Albert's shoulders. “Sleep!” he commanded. “Sleep!”

Albert's arms fell to his sides and he sat in his chair, chin on chest, eyes still closed, limp.

The others in the room began to breathe again.

Dr. Bryan tried a different tack. “Now, Al, I'm going to ask you a question and I want you to give me the very first answer that pops into your head. The first answer. You don't think of it, you just give the answer immediately. Can you give us any more important information today? Quickly.
Quickly!
Come on, come on!”

DeSalvo: “Yes.”

Dr. Bryan: “What is it then? What is it?”

DeSalvo: “Irmgard.”

Dr. Bryan: “What about Irmgard? Tell me about her?” He paused. “What about Irmgard's neck? Is that important?”

DeSalvo: “She don't like nobody touching or going near her neck at all. Not even to touch it. She'd faint.”

Dr. Bryan (with excitement): “She'd faint if you touched her neck, eh? Al, you'd like to have her faint, wouldn't you?”

DeSalvo: “No.”

Dr. Bryan: “Isn't that why you touched her neck?”

DeSalvo: “Never.”

Dr. Bryan: “You knew that if you touched her neck, she'd faint. That's right. You didn't want her to faint. You wanted to kill her altogether—”

DeSalvo struggled in his chair.

Dr. Bryan: “Sleep! Deep, deep, relax. Deeper and deeper.… Was Irmgard in on this? Come on, Al! Did Irmgard help you strangle these women? In what way is she in on this?”

DeSalvo (weakly): “I don't know.”

Again and again the hypnotist hammered on this theme. Did DeSalvo want to strangle his wife? No, he said without emotion now. “I just wanted her to be nice and gentle.”

A few minutes later the session was over.

Slowly, the hypnotist brought DeSalvo awake.

That night DeSalvo, given pen and paper, laboriously wrote to his wife. He did not know that his letters to her would pile up, unopened and unread. They had had the one hysterical telephone conversation a few days before and now he tried to express how he felt.

Hi, Irm,

I hope this letter finds you and the children well. As for myself, I'm okay and even though I have a lot of trouble I am still concerned mostly about you and how you feel about me. I don't blame you for my troubles or blame anyone else. But you will admit that if you treated me different like you told me all those years we lost, the love I had been searching for, that we first had when we were married. Yes, Irm I stole them.
But why
. Think Irm. What happened when Judy was born and we found out she may never walk. How you cried Al please no more babies. Irm from that day on you changed. All your love went to Judy. You were frigid and cold to me, and you can't denie this. That's why we were always fighting about sex, because you was afraid to have a baby. Because you thought it would be born abnormal. Irm I even asked doctors what was wrong with our sex life and they all said—until you have another baby, and it is born normal will you then be free to love again.

Irm they were right, the doctors. Remember how much you were worried after Michael was born, how many times you went to doctor Karp and when Michael was born the first thing you asked doctor Karp was is he normal, and you went every week to his office til you were sure he was okay. Irm then you came to me and gave me love I had been starving for—it was to late. More than four years you made me suffer, from the time Judy was born till Michael was born.

I went to jail. Why Irm. Even Hilda knew. She told you. But you didn't believe or want to. I didnt no how to make you love me. I found out to late why you were to frigid. Because you were afraid to have a baby, but I was in jail and this is what hurts me now. When I came out I believed in you and thought you kind and good. But later I found out different. Instead of you saying Al lets start out clean now, forget the past no matter what and think of the future,—no not you Irm. My suffering a whole year in jail was not enough for you. All alone in one room while you were free outside doing what you wanted.

You knew how much I loved you. But when I came out the first thing you said was you waisted one year. And if I hurt you again you would leave me with the children. And you said I would have to prove myself to you. But you forget about the four years witch put me in jail because of you—in witch you made me suffer. Yet because I loved you I didn't leave you. You gave me no love. To prove I'm right, when we went to Germany, two months, look how cold you were. Love is a two-way affair not one Irm, not just when you want it.

Irm I'm not saying this is all your fault. Because I am the one who did wrong. But I had reason I loved you. After I came out of jail—despite everything I tried to do—you denied me my rights as a husband you constantly told me I had to prove myself and in short you tried to make my life a hell wether you knew it or not. I am really and sincerely sorry for what I have done and I will have to pay for it with years of my life. But apparently that is still not enough for you. You tell me not to write or if I write not to express in any way my love for you. So that even in this critical time when I need you most of all you are still making me feel hopeless and if I cant turn to you, I have no hope, no ambition.… You can't no how awful it is to wait for letters that do not come, or to love someone and be laugh at for that love. As for myself I will all ways feel the same in regards to my love for you and I can only hope that some day, you may realize, the extent of my love and feelings for you … I will close for now wishing the best for you and the children. P.S. Give my love to my Judy and Michael—there Daddy always.

I will love you forever always

Love,

Al

He turned the letter upside down and filled the space that remained on the last page with another postscript, a bitter postscript:

Only untill things started changing, us going out weekends, having everything you wanted, house fixed up, all the money coming in, did you change and start showing a little love for me. Our last two months together you made me feel for the first time like a man. You gave me love I never dreamed you had to give. But why—only because you had just about everything you dreamed of. If you really loved me as you said you did, you would love me now. But you closed the house and everything in it. you lost that and everything you dreamed of. all your love was in the house and now you hate me again. When you really love someone, no matter what they do if you really love them you stay by them.

Those who witnessed the hypnoanalysis wondered how much DeSalvo had been led or influenced by Dr. Bryan, so forceful and domineering. If they were to consider this man at all seriously, how significant was his sense of sexual rejection by his wife and how significant was her apparent fear of being touched about the neck? Again, DeSalvo's references to Evelyn Corbin made it clear that he spoke with knowledge of the apartment, and what might well have taken place there. Semen had been found in her mouth; on the floor next to the bed a tissue had also been found with semen. Had DeSalvo learned that (after all, the newspapers had all but spelled out everything) or had he known it? Or had his suggestibility been so great that—like Daniel Pennacchio—he saw himself enacting what he read, or had been told by Nassar, or perhaps unwittingly, by Bailey's questions?

Yet DeSalvo had given Bailey details about the other murders that had not appeared anywhere, so far as could be determined by members of Bottomly's staff, reading and rereading the published accounts.

At that moment DeSalvo appeared to the police and the Attorney General's office the most likely suspect so far unearthed in the search, although some pointed out that Paul Gordon's knowledge was as baffling as DeSalvo's. In addition, one fact continued to work powerfully against DeSalvo: he exhibited none of the classical traits of the Strangler as analyzed by psychiatrists—the sadistic, impotent male bearing an unendurable rage toward his mother and all women like her.

And one other fact: no witness had been able to identify him.

And hovering over all, a huge question mark: George Nassar.

If only, thought Bottomly, trying to make sense out of this jumble, if only Gertrude Gruen, the one victim believed to have looked upon the Strangler's face and lived to tell the story, could remember her assailant. She had almost made a positive identification of Nassar, but she could not be sure …

Two weeks later, in early April 1965, the Boston Society of Psychiatry and Neurology played host to an international psychiatric convention. Among the distinguished psychiatrists who came from abroad to address the meeting was Dr. William Sargant of St. Thomas Hospital, London—the man who had had such a success with the shell-shocked survivors of Dunkirk nearly a quarter of a century before. Dr. Alexander asked him if he would volunteer to help Gertrude Gruen attempt to recall her assailant's face. The British psychiatrist was challenged by the proposal, but reluctant to accept it. He had not attempted anything of the sort since the war, and the experience would bring back distressing memories. But he went ahead. Bottomly arranged for him to use the facilities of Bournemouth Hospital in Brookline. There, for three successive days, the third, fourth, and fifth of April, 1965, Dr. Sargant worked with Miss Gruen.

To the spectator, these attempts to break through to the memory she had erased so completely were like visits to one of the lesser hells of Dante's
Inferno
.

In a hospital room whose walls were lined with tanks of oxygen and carbon dioxide, Miss Gruen lay in bed. The sickly sweet smell of ether—used by Dr. Sargant—hung over everything. Other physicians—anesthetists, psychiatrists, staff doctors—as well as Bottomly, Lieutenant Tuney, and other detectives, remained behind a screen as witnesses.

Repeatedly, Dr. Sargant dripped ether upon cloths applied to Miss Gruen's face. The tanks whistled and hissed as he adjusted the oxygen and carbon dioxide. During these long sessions, Dr. Sargant used all his skill to make her relive her attack, and in the vividness and terror of that recollection see again the face of her assailant. She lay gasping, struggling for breath, now moaning, now uttering panicstricken … “He is standing there, he is coming nearer, nearer, oh, my God, ohhhhhhhhhhhh!” Through her words the crisp, British accents of the psychiatrist: “There's a knock on the door. A knock on the door. He's coming in … he's coming in … He wants to—what?… He wants to—what?… Hold my hand, take a deep breath, hold my hand … You hear the knock. You open the door. You see his face, his face …”