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The Boston Stranger: An Unheard Confession returns to a case that never stopped raising questions. The two-hour special focuses on 16 hours of long-lost confession tapes tied to Albert DeSalvo, the man who said he was the Boston Strangler. The recording shows mistakes, training and reflections. It also revives the debate over whether a single killer was ever tried.
Fear gripped Boston in the early 1960s when women were found assaulted and strangled in their homes. The media dubbed the unknown assailant the Boston Stranger. Decades later, the story still divides viewers, historians and law enforcement.
Who was the Boston Strangler? Details explored a The Boston Stranger: An Unheard Confession
From 1962 to 1964, at least 11 women in Boston area were killed in a similar manner, often with a ligature left at the scene. The victims were very old. Some lived alone. Several had no signs of forced entry. The pattern looked linked, but didn't fit into a clean profile.
Albert de Salvo he confessed in 1965 while incarcerated on unrelated charges. He was never convicted of the murders, only of earlier assaults, and was killed in prison in 1973. He was reportedly supposed to retract his confession the night before he died.
Years later, DNA linked DeSalvo to the murder of Mary Sullivan, the youngest victim often featured in the latest series. According to the Encyclopaedia Britannica, this DNA match led authorities to say that DeSalvo “very likely” committed the other murders, though the debate continues, with some still suspecting more than one perpetrator.
Researchers, lawyers and journalists argued for a long time about the gaps in the confession. Details are missing or wrong. Some survivors said the attacker they remembered did not match DeSalvo. The record contains many of these disputes. The new film Oxygen leans into these disputes, playing the tapes and asking whether the confession helped close a case that evidence alone couldn't.
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New claims a The Boston Stranger: An Unheard Confession
The documentary The Boston Stranger: An Unheard Confession includes 16 hours of rediscovered audio. In the tapes, DeSalvo allegedly struggles with the details of the crime scene and at times seems guided to certain answers. A lawyer on tape suggests that police did not have enough evidence to put him without admissions.
Casey Sherman, Mary Sullivan's nephew, shows up and questions the official story. He reportedly believes the tapes point to a clean settlement and wants the public to hear what was kept off the air for years.
The Boston Stranger: An Unheard Confession he also revisits the weather in Boston during the murders. He explains how the nickname spread, how the leads multiplied, and how pressure mounted to name a suspect. Viewers are given the context of the era, in addition to current comments from the families and those related to the original investigation.
where to look The Boston Stranger: An Unheard Confession
Oxygen True Crime has premiered The Boston Stranger: An Unheard Confession on Sunday, October 26, 2025. Repeats continue throughout the week. The list below reflects a national grid and local lists may differ.
Times marked with * fall on the previous day in this time zone. Times and dates may vary by TV provider.
Edited by Preethika Vijayakumar
