Albert desalvo victims body image

Yesterday, authorities announced that incredible advancements in DNA testing technology had allowed them to prove with DeSalvo confessed to the slayings, which occurred between and , but was never prosecuted so the unimaginable crimes went unsolved for 49 years. The string of murders - and the fact a killer was never caught - sparked intense terror in the women of Boston.

These fascinating images, some of which were never published in LIFE, show young ladies sleeping with makeshift weapons to protect themselves, chaining their doors and barricading alley ways to keep out intruders. A woman ensures her door is chained shut after a wave of stranglings in the Boston area sparked terror in the city. In this chilling photograph that never appeared in Life magazine, a girl barricades alley outside apartment with an old door during series of Boston stranglings.

Albert desalvo victims body image: Explore Authentic The Boston Strangler

Lighting a cigarette she could jam into an assailant's eye, a Boston student walks home with hatpin on her sleeve - a deadly stilleto ready for fast thrust. Other spectacularly chilling black and white pictures show Boston mounted police patrolling the area of the strangling and women learning karate in a bid to better defend themselves against an attacker.

This week, authorities are set to exhume DeSalvo's body from the ground, where it has been for 40 years, so they can prove beyond any doubt that he raped and strangled to death Mary Sullivan, 19, in January DNA detectives collected this year from DeSalvo's nephew proved a familial match to the semen sample retrieved from Sullivan nearly 50 years ago.

Sadly, such DNA evidence is unavailable for the other 10 victims but the similar nature in which they were murdered strongly suggests DeSalvo, as per his confession, was responsible for them all. The blue collar worker and Army veteran who was married with children was stabbed to death in Walpole state prison in November , aged 42, while serving a life sentence for an unrelated robbery and sexual assault conviction.