Sebastian Junger Investigates The Boston Strangler

Posted on April 29, 2006

Sebastian Junger, best known for The Perfect Storm, has a new book out about the Boston Strangler called A Death in Belmont. Junger is very familiar with the story of the Boston Strangler because Albert DeSalvo, the man who confessed to the killings, was a workman for the Junger family when Junger was only a child.

An Oregonain article explains a photograph of Junger in the book. The book shows a photo of Junger less than 1 year old sitting on his mother's lap. There are two workman behind Junger and his mother including Albert DeSalvo, the man who confessed to being the Boston Strangler.

Junger writes in the book, "and whereas I have an infant's expression of puzzled amazement, Al wears an odd smirk. His dark hair is greased up in a pompadour, and he is clean-shaven but unmistakably rough looking, and he has placed across his stomach one enormous, outstretched hand. The hand is visible only because my mother is leaning forward to look at me. The hand is at the exact center of the photograph, as if it were the true subject around which the rest of us have been arranged."

A neighbor of Junger's named Bessie Goldberg was murdered during the same time period as the Boston Strangler killing. An African-American man named Roy Smith was convicted for the murder but Junger questions this conviction and raises the idea the the murderer could have been Albert DeSalvo.

Being a writer it would have been nearly impossible for Junger not to have eventually told this story.