“Good morning.  Before we begin, please let me introduce Attorney General Martha Coakley and Boston Police Commissioner Ed Davis, our partners in this historic announcement.  Also with us are First Assistant Suffolk District Attorney Patrick Haggan; First Assistant Attorney General Ed Bedrosian, Jr.; Assistant Attorney General and Criminal Bureau Chief John Verner; Sgt. Det. William Doogan of the Boston Police Cold Case Squad; and Don Hayes, Director of the Boston Police Crime Laboratory.

Suffolk County District Attorney Daniel F. Conley (at podium) is joined by (from left) Don Hayes, director of the Boston Police Crime Laboratory; Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley; and Boston Police Commissioner Edward Davis to announce the historic first forensic link between Albert DeSalvo and the Jan. 4, 1964, homicide of Mary Sullivan, the last of 11 murder popularly attributed to the “Boston Strangler.”

“Today, we announce a major development in the investigation into the homicide of 19-year-old Mary Sullivan almost 50 years ago.  Ms. Sullivan was raped and murdered, and her body desecrated, in the bedroom of her Charles Street apartment sometime on the afternoon of Jan. 4, 1964. It was the last of 11 murders that would be attributed to the confessed “Boston Strangler,” Albert Henry DeSalvo.

“For almost five decades, the only link between Albert DeSalvo and Mary Sullivan’s murder was his confession.  That confession has been the subject of skepticism and controversy from almost the moment it was given.  It was not admissible in court, and when DeSalvo was sentenced to life in prison it was for a series of non-fatal sexual assaults and not the Strangler homicides.

“There was no forensic evidence to link Albert DeSalvo to Mary Sullivan’s murder – until today.

“Advances in the sensitivity of DNA testing have allowed us to make a familial match between biological evidence recovered from the crime scene and a suspect in Mary Sullivan’s murder.  That suspect is Albert DeSalvo.  Yesterday, a Suffolk Superior Court judge authorized the exhumation of DeSalvo’s remains for confirmatory testing that we expect will prove DeSalvo’s guilt once and for all.

“I want to make clear that these developments bear only on Mary Sullivan’s murder.  They don’t apply to the 10 other homicides popularly attributed to the Boston Strangler.  Even among experts and law enforcement officials, there is disagreement about whether they were, in fact, committed by the same person.  At this point in time, 50 years removed from those deaths, and without the biological evidence that we had in the Sullivan case, that’s a question we can’t yet answer.  But these developments give us a glimmer of hope that there can one day be finality, if not accountability, for the families of 10 other women murdered so cruelly in Boston, Cambridge, Lawrence, Lynn, and Salem between 1962 and 1963.

“I’ll briefly summarize the evidentiary developments that brought us to this point.

“DNA evidence was undreamt of in the 1960s, but even then investigators believed the killer left biological evidence at the scene of the crime.  Specifically, they recovered seminal fluid from her body and a blanket on which her body was found.

“In the late 1990s, Boston Police criminalists attempted to extract a DNA profile from the stains on the blanket.  At that point, the Crime Lab was unable to extract DNA that was useful for comparison.  Another round of testing took place in 2000 and 2001, when the samples taken from Ms. Sullivan’s body at the time of her autopsy were tested.  Again, efforts to extract a useable DNA profile were unsuccessful.

A chart prepared by Suffolk DA Dan Conley’s office showing the location of biological evidence retrieved from the scene of Mary Sullivan’s murder in her apartment at 44A Charles St., Boston, and slides of additional biological evidence recovered at her 1964 autopsy.

“The nature of these tests was such that each attempt to extract DNA consumed the sample, meaning that it would be unavailable for further testing in the future.  For that very reason, Don Hayes ordered any further testing halted.  Today, we can say beyond any doubt that he showed tremendous foresight.  That decision meant the remaining evidence would be stored under laboratory conditions until the technology advanced and the answers locked within could be released.

“Last year, after a nationally-recognized laboratory reported success in obtaining DNA profiles from decades-old samples, the BPD Crime Lab notified investigators that renewed testing using the latest techniques could likely succeed where earlier attempts had failed.  So last fall, the slides from Ms. Sullivan’s body and the cuttings from the blanket were sent to Orchid Cellmark and Bode Technology, two highly-respected, independent labs.  And unbeknownst to one another, separate technicians at those two separate labs were able to develop DNA profiles from the samples we sent them.

“I want to be clear on this point: The evidence never changed, but our ability to use that evidence has surpassed every hope and expectation of investigators first assigned to the case.

“The stains from the blanket cuttings contained the unique genetic profile of an unknown male.  The samples recovered from Mary Sullivan’s body contained a mixture of two genetic profiles – one belonging to Mary herself, and the other to the same unidentified male whose DNA was extracted from the blanket.  Given the facts and circumstances of this case, there can be no doubt that the male DNA belongs to the individual who raped and murdered Mary Sullivan.

“These results are unprecedented in the history of this case.  For the first time ever, law enforcement has a piece of evidence to test against a suspect.  Because he admitted to killing Mary Sullivan, because he described this attack in detail to his attorney and to investigators, and because certain details of the crime are similar to the sexual assaults for which he was convicted and sentenced to life in prison, we started with Albert DeSalvo.

“Through late last year and the better part of this spring, homicide detectives assigned to the Boston Police Cold Case Squad, along with Suffolk prosecutors and Attorney General Coakley’s office, undertook an exhaustive search for any surviving evidence that might bear DeSalvo’s DNA for comparison.

“They worked with the Department of Correction, which had custody of DeSalvo from his 1967 conviction until the time of his death in prison.  They worked with State Police and the Norfolk DA’s office, which investigated and prosecuted his 1973 homicide at what was then Walpole State Prison.  They worked with the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, which consolidated a county-based medical examiner system decades after DeSalvo’s body was autopsied – all without success.  They obtained a pair of letters DeSalvo sent to prison and parole officials in hopes that DNA could be extracted from the glue beneath the envelope flaps.  Again, those efforts failed.

“But among the recent advances in DNA testing technology is the comparison of Y chromosomes, which are passed down almost unchanged from father to son.  Male descendants of the same father share nearly identical Y chromosomes, which can be compared through testing of biological material.

“Bearing this in mind, and having exhausted every other avenue of inquiry, Boston Police retrieved a water bottle that one of Albert DeSalvo’s nephews drank from and discarded.  That bottle was sent to Orchid Cellmark, where technicians were once again able to develop a DNA profile.  The Y chromosome from that profile was a familial match with the Y chromosome from Mary Sullivan’s killer.  That match implicates Albert DeSalvo and excludes 99.9% of the male population.

“This is good evidence, strong evidence, and reliable evidence, but it’s not sufficient to close this case with certainty.  Many of you have covered what we call CODIS hit cases, in which an unknown suspect is identified when DNA from a crime scene matches that of a known offender in the Combined DNA Index System database.  Even in those cases, where we have an exact match between crime scene evidence and a stored sample, we take an additional sample directly from the offender to confirm the match.

“This case is no different.  To confirm the results we’ve obtained thus far, we need a sample that can be established as Albert DeSalvo’s and that has been maintained with a clear chain of custody under the stringent controls we demand in a homicide investigation.  Toward that end, Suffolk prosecutors, the Attorney General’s office, and Boston Police met with a Superior Court judge yesterday and obtained a warrant authorizing the exhumation of Albert DeSalvo’s remains for further testing.

“As I stated earlier, the exact number of homicides attributable to the Boston Strangler remains controversial.  We don’t claim Albert DeSalvo to be a suspect in all of them.  But we do believe that we stand at the threshold of unprecedented certainty in Mary Sullivan’s murder.

“Finally, although this is an historic moment for the law enforcement agencies involved, I want to recognize the civilians it will most directly affect.  First and foremost are Diane Dodd and Casey Sherman, Mary Sullivan’s sister and nephew respectively.  In many ways, they kept this case alive through their perseverance and commitment to finding the truth.  I also want to acknowledge the DeSalvo family, who did nothing wrong but who found themselves in the shadow of accusations that could never be fully proven or discounted.  Police and prosecutors met with representatives of the families today to explain our findings and our next steps.  It was difficult in some ways but, I hope, sets the stage for closure that eluded them for more than twice as long as Mary Sullivan lived. ”

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All defendants are presumed innocent until and unless proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.