Albert DeSalvo Albert DeSalvo Albert Henry DeSalvo (September 3, 1931 – November 25, 1973) was a criminal in Boston, Massachusetts, who confessed to being the "Boston Strangler", the murderer of 13 women in the Boston area from 1962 to 1964. DeSalvo was imprisoned, however, for a series of rapes. His murder confession has been disputed, and debate continues as to which crimes DeSalvo actually committed. In July 2013, a DNA match between seminal fluid found at the scene of the rape and murder of Mary Sullivan and DNA obtained from DeSalvo's nephew linked DeSalvo to that crime and excluded 99.9% of the
Serial killer backed by the families of murder victims and "Son of Sam laws" existing in some states that prevent murderers from profiting from the publicity generated by their crimes. Such memorabilia includes the paintings, writings, and poems of these killers. Recently, marketing has capitalized even more upon interest in serial killers with the rise of various merchandise such as trading cards, action figures, and books such as "The Serial Killer Files: The Who, What, Where, How, and Why of the World's Most Terrifying Murderers" by Harold Schechter, and "The A-Z Encyclopedia of Serial Killers" by Schecter and David Everitt. Some serial