Speaker 1: Please be advised the following episode contains graphic scenes of
Speaker 1: sexual assault and murder. Parental discretion is advised. On the
Speaker 1: morning of Saturday, January fourth, nineteen sixty four, nineteen year
Speaker 1: old Mary Sullivan woke up early on the sofa and smiled.
Speaker 1: Sullivan had arrived in Boston from Cape cod after accepting
Speaker 1: a job at Filene's department store down on Washington Street.
Speaker 1: Being confident and personable, it didn't take her long to
Speaker 1: start making friends, and after a few months, was invited
Speaker 1: by two of her colleagues, Pat and Pam to move
Speaker 1: in with them. Mary didn't mind that with only two
Speaker 1: single beds and one bedroom, the best they could offer
Speaker 1: her was a couch in the living room. She was
Speaker 1: just grateful to be moving in with two people she
Speaker 1: liked and into an area that she'd come to A
Speaker 1: door forty four A. Charles Street was situated on the
Speaker 1: top floor of a three story building, just a stone's
Speaker 1: throw from her favorite pub, a small but lively place
Speaker 1: called The Sevens. The street itself cut a line through
Speaker 1: the vibrant Beacon Hill neighborhood, a picturesque Bohemian mix of
Speaker 1: old moneyed wealth and new immigrant communities complete with cobbled
Speaker 1: stones and ornate gas lamps. Mary's smile that morning was
Speaker 1: one of contentment and new beginnings, not to mention excitement
Speaker 1: of what the new year might bring. While her flatmates
Speaker 1: would be spending a grueling day at the store for
Speaker 1: the first weekend of the January sales, Mary who was
Speaker 1: due to start a new job at a bank on Monday,
Speaker 1: had the week end all to herself. At roughly the
Speaker 1: same time, about seventy miles to the south, at Mary's
Speaker 1: family home in Cape Cod, a letter arrived through the
Speaker 1: door from Mary, addressed to her seventeen year old sister, Diane.
Speaker 1: Of her four siblings, it was Diane who Mary was
Speaker 1: closest to, and the letter was the first Diane had
Speaker 1: heard from Mary since she left for Boston. Diane opened
Speaker 1: it with excitement and was soon buried in her sister's words.
Speaker 1: It was a thrill to hear how much Mary was
Speaker 1: loving life in her newly adopted home, and even more
Speaker 1: so to read Mary's invitation for Diane to come and
Speaker 1: visit her as soon as possible. It was some time
Speaker 1: around six p m. Later that evening back in Boston
Speaker 1: when Pat and Pam returned home from work to find
Speaker 1: the door slightly ajar. Assuming Mary had carelessly left it open,
Speaker 1: The pair pushed on into the apartment, making sure to
Speaker 1: lock the door behind them. Inside, the hall light was
Speaker 1: on while the rest of the apartment were shrouded in darkness.
Speaker 1: Pam was just about to call out for Mary when
Speaker 1: she caught the shape of someone in their bedroom, lying
Speaker 1: propped up on one of the beds. It was Mary,
Speaker 1: sat with her eyes open, staring vacantly into space. Come on,
Speaker 1: we're putting dinner on, said Pam, a little bemused that
Speaker 1: Mary hadn't said hello when they came in. Mary said
Speaker 1: Pam again, stepping into the room, but Mary didn't move.
Speaker 1: Pam flicked on the light, then screamed. Mary Sullivan had
Speaker 1: been strangled to death with a stocking tied tightly around
Speaker 1: her neck. Two other pairs of stockings were also found
Speaker 1: tied tightly around it. Ejaculate was said to have been
Speaker 1: found in her mouth and on her body, while a
Speaker 1: broom was left inserted three inches into her vagina at
Speaker 1: the end of the bed by her right foot. A
Speaker 1: card had been placed that read simply Happy New Year.
Speaker 1: To the police called in to investigate, it was clear
Speaker 1: there was only one culprit. As it happened, Mary was
Speaker 1: the eleventh woman in eighteen months to be found dead
Speaker 1: in similar circumstances in and around the wider Boston area,
Speaker 1: apparent victims of a single vicious serial sex offender and murderer.
Speaker 1: Dubbed the Mad Strangler by the press. In the course
Speaker 1: of those eighteen months, the Boston police had made little
Speaker 1: headway in their efforts to apprehend him. Throughout the city,
Speaker 1: dog pounds struggled to keep up with demand for guard dogs,
Speaker 1: while home security devices were flying off the shelves. So
Speaker 1: lacking was the local faith in law enforcement to put
Speaker 1: an end to the horror. Previous possible victims of the
Speaker 1: so called Mad Strangler ranged in age from twenty to
Speaker 1: eighty five. The fact that Mary Sullivan, the youngest victim,
Speaker 1: was only a teenager, provoked particular fury from the public.
Speaker 1: As a result, recently elected Massachusetts Attorney General Edward Brooke
Speaker 1: stepped in personally to take over the floundering investigation. Within days,
Speaker 1: he set up a dedicated Strangler task force to concentrate
Speaker 1: solely on the case, appointing Assistant Attorney General John Bottomley,
Speaker 1: to oversee the day to day running of it. After
Speaker 1: looking closer at the case history, Brooke was alarmed by
Speaker 1: just how little progress had in fact been made, and
Speaker 1: resolved to leave no stone unturned in his efforts to
Speaker 1: find the perpetrator. Even still, few could have guessed that
Speaker 1: the force would become so desperate they would turn to
Speaker 1: a supposed psychic to help crack the case. Yet incredibly,
Speaker 1: that's exactly what they did. It isn't known precisely who
Speaker 1: suggested it, but not long after the task force was
Speaker 1: set up, the name Peter Herkos began cropping up in
Speaker 1: their regular meetings. Herkos, whose nineteen sixty biographical documentary One
Speaker 1: Step Beyond had catapulted him into the public eye along
Speaker 1: with a series of public performances over the last few years,
Speaker 1: was already somewhat of a celebrity. By the time Brooks's
Speaker 1: team got in touch. There were even rumors that a
Speaker 1: Hollywood biopic was in the pipeline, with Herkos set to
Speaker 1: be played by Glenn Ford. Attorney General Edward Brooke received
Speaker 1: widespread condemnation for allowing a self described psychic anywhere near
Speaker 1: the case. To others, however, who'd been follow her Coss's
Speaker 1: steady rise. There was no harm in trying. After all,
Speaker 1: it wouldn't be the first time he'd apparently helped to
Speaker 1: solve a crime. To her Coss, however, it was simply
Speaker 1: something he'd been born to do. You're listening to Unexplained,
Speaker 1: and I'm Richard McClean smith. Most nights I share a
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Speaker 1: That's o n molecule dot com. On the morning of
Speaker 1: May twenty first, nineteen eleven, another scream echoed through the
Speaker 1: halls of the red bricked terrace house on vondel Strut
Speaker 1: in the center of door Direct, an industrial port town
Speaker 1: just south of Rotterdam in the Netherlands. Inside the bed,
Speaker 1: Propped up on the bed, Apollonia herk screwed her eyes
Speaker 1: up at the pain as another wave of contractions rose
Speaker 1: up from inside her. Gripping her husband Jacobus's hand, she
Speaker 1: let out another guttural cry, straining with everything she had
Speaker 1: until finally the baby's head began to emerge. With one
Speaker 1: final push, the head was free, followed soon after by
Speaker 1: the rest of the baby as it slipped into the
Speaker 1: grateful arms of the midwife. But as Apollonia lay back, exhausted,
Speaker 1: she saw the look of concern on Jacobus's face, and
Speaker 1: then looked down in horror at the wriggling body in
Speaker 1: the midwife's hands, at the strange membranous material completely covering
Speaker 1: its head. The midwife urged Apollonia to stay calm as
Speaker 1: she clawed desperately at the membrane, then shouted for the
Speaker 1: doctor to come and help. Finally, after what seemed like hours,
Speaker 1: the doctor succeeded in uncovering the baby's mouth, and its
Speaker 1: cries soon flooded the room. Peter Cornelis van der Herk
Speaker 1: was borne with his head covered by part of the
Speaker 1: amniotic sac, the vessel in which the fetus develops in
Speaker 1: the womb, surrounded by amniotic fluid. Most commonly, the sac
Speaker 1: breaks open prior to birth. However, for roughly one out
Speaker 1: of eighty thousand births, the baby will be borne either
Speaker 1: still inside the sack or at least partially covered by it.
Speaker 1: Due to the rarity of the phenomena. Sometimes known as
Speaker 1: being born with the veil or with the helm, as
Speaker 1: it is known in the Netherlands, cultures the world over
Speaker 1: have often tended to see it as a sign of
Speaker 1: good luck. Some believe babies born this way are destined
Speaker 1: for greatness, others that they will never drown, and some
Speaker 1: say those born with the veil will be gifted with
Speaker 1: the power of second sight. For the first six months
Speaker 1: of his life, due to the complications of his birth,
Speaker 1: Peter was unable to open his eyes and left effectively
Speaker 1: blind as a result, though this would eventually be resolved
Speaker 1: and Peter's sight restored. Shaking the circumstances of his birth, however,
Speaker 1: would be a different matter altogether. To his siblings, he
Speaker 1: was always somewhat of a strange child, prone to sudden
Speaker 1: bursts of intense emotion, who would run away for days
Speaker 1: on end whenever he got too upset. Sometimes he would
Speaker 1: disappear into the nearby woods, hiding out among the trees
Speaker 1: until he was ready to return. Other times, he would
Speaker 1: take a canoe and head off down one of the
Speaker 1: many rivers waterways that snaked their way around his hometown.
Speaker 1: In nineteen twenty five, at the age of fourteen, Peter
Speaker 1: threw a pot of ink at his teacher and was
Speaker 1: promptly expelled from school. He ran away again soon after,
Speaker 1: except this time he kept on running all the way
Speaker 1: to the docks, where he took the first job he
Speaker 1: could find as a cook's assistant on board a merchant ship.
Speaker 1: After twelve years at sea, Peter returned home in nineteen
Speaker 1: thirty nine and settled down after meeting a woman named
Speaker 1: Bia van der Burgh, with whom he had two children.
Speaker 1: The pair moved close to Peter's old home in Door
Speaker 1: Direct with plans for a life together. The following year,
Speaker 1: the German army invaded the country. By this time, Peter
Speaker 1: was working for his father painting houses. With the German
Speaker 1: government now effectively controlling the Netherlands, much of local production
Speaker 1: and industry was refocused to support the German war effort.
Speaker 1: For Peter and his father, that meant being forced to
Speaker 1: paint the newly occupied government buildings. On July tenth, nineteen
Speaker 1: forty one, a by then thirty year old Herk was
Speaker 1: stood high up a ladder painting the facade of a
Speaker 1: four story building in the Hague, the seat of the
Speaker 1: newly installed Reich Commissariat for the occupied Dutch territories. Peter
Speaker 1: was stretching over to apply some more paint when the
Speaker 1: ladder suddenly gave way beneath him. After a sudden sensation
Speaker 1: of free fall, everything went black. Moments later, he was
Speaker 1: basking in bright, warm sunshine, skipping through rich, verdant fields
Speaker 1: under bright blue skies, when suddenly all color drained away.
Speaker 1: Peter opened his eyes to find himself rounded by the cold,
Speaker 1: sterile walls of a hospital room, unable to move as
Speaker 1: a doctor soon explained, despite cracking his head on the
Speaker 1: pavement from four stories up, he'd somehow survived the fall
Speaker 1: and the subsequent operation to relieve pressure on his brain.
Speaker 1: He'd been unconscious for five days. Peter took a moment
Speaker 1: to adjust to his surroundings, with the light seeming especially bright.
Speaker 1: As he averted his eyes from the window, more light
Speaker 1: seemed to be seeping in from somewhere, followed by a
Speaker 1: strange swirl of sound. It was muffled at first, then
Speaker 1: soon grew into a chaotic cacophony. Peter clasped his head
Speaker 1: in his hands and yelled for the doctor to make
Speaker 1: it stop. And that was when it all began. One morning,
Speaker 1: while he was convalescing, Peter's wife, Beer, came to visit
Speaker 1: him in hospital. Peter later claimed his mind became flooded
Speaker 1: with horrific images of their young son Benny, screaming at home,
Speaker 1: surrounded by roaring flames, he scolded Beer for leaving Benny
Speaker 1: at home. Shocked by Peter's behavior, Beer eventually calmed him down,
Speaker 1: insisting that their son was being well looked after by relatives.
Speaker 1: Later that afternoon, she returned home to find all as well.
Speaker 1: Five days later, while herk was still in hospital, a
Speaker 1: fire broke out at his and Beer's home. After becoming
Speaker 1: trapped by the smoke and flames, Benny had to be
Speaker 1: rescued by emergency services. A few days earlier, something equally
Speaker 1: strange had apparently occurred when a man that Peter didn't
Speaker 1: recognize came into his room to wish him a quick recovery.
Speaker 1: The man had also been convalescing at the hospital and
Speaker 1: had seen Peter come on to the ward. When the
Speaker 1: two men shook hands, Peter claimed later that he was
Speaker 1: suddenly overwhelmed with grief and the utter conviction that the
Speaker 1: stranger would soon lose his life. Two days later, Peter
Speaker 1: saw a picture of the same man, identified as a
Speaker 1: British agent in a newspaper. He had been captured and
Speaker 1: killed by German soldiers, and still the cacophoner's sounds and
Speaker 1: bright lights continued to plague him as though he were
Speaker 1: suffering a perpetual migraine. It had also become apparrot that
Speaker 1: Peter was suffering from severe amnesia, another common consequence of
Speaker 1: a serious head injury. Over time, both the chaos in
Speaker 1: his mind and the amnesia began to improve. After returning home, however,
Speaker 1: Peter's situation only got worse when he was picked up
Speaker 1: by German occupying forces and sent to Camp Foote, a
Speaker 1: concentration camp in southern Netherlands. Not much is known about
Speaker 1: his time at the camp, only that Peter succeeded in
Speaker 1: escaping it and managed to return home when he later
Speaker 1: joined the Dutch underground resistance movement, helping in a series
Speaker 1: of disruptive campaigns blowing up bridges and railroads. It was
Speaker 1: around this time too, that Peter changed his name from
Speaker 1: Herk to Herkos. At the end of the war, Peter
Speaker 1: received a medal from Queen Juliana for his participation in
Speaker 1: the resistance and found work in a coffee house back
Speaker 1: home and or Direct. Though he may have been hoping
Speaker 1: to live the quiet life door Direct was not an
Speaker 1: easy city in which to disappear, and rumors about his
Speaker 1: apparent unusual powers were beginning to run rife. It was
Speaker 1: some time toward the end of nineteen forty five, with
Speaker 1: the country slowly beginning to emerge from the fog of war,
Speaker 1: that Peter and his family were woken by the door
Speaker 1: bell at three am in the morning. Staggering to the door,
Speaker 1: Peter opened it to find a woman standing alone on
Speaker 1: the street, clearly in some distress as she went on
Speaker 1: to explain her husband had gone out a few nights
Speaker 1: before but had failed to return home. Having heard about
Speaker 1: Peter's apparent gift, she wanted to know if he would
Speaker 1: help her find him. Peter looked to the clock in
Speaker 1: the hallway, then back to the woman. Realizing just how
Speaker 1: desperate she was, he told her to go home and
Speaker 1: find an item of her husband's clothing to bring back
Speaker 1: to him. Half an hour later, she returned with her
Speaker 1: husband's jacket. Peter invited her inside to sit with him
Speaker 1: as he took hold of it and ran it through
Speaker 1: his hands, then sat back deep in thought. I see
Speaker 1: a football, he said, Yes, said the woman, her eyes
Speaker 1: lighting up in response as she went on to explain
Speaker 1: her husband was a talented footballer, but had a few
Speaker 1: days ago discovered he was suffering from a degenerative disease
Speaker 1: that would eventually leave him paralyzed. He'd gone out drinking
Speaker 1: to drown his sorrows when he found out. Suddenly, Peter's
Speaker 1: lips turned into a frown. What is it, the woman
Speaker 1: asked anxiously, Your husband is dead, he said flatly, I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: But how she asked As he explained she didn't have
Speaker 1: to take his word for it, but if his vision
Speaker 1: was to be believed, she would find her husband's body
Speaker 1: submerged in an anti tank trench in the outskirts of
Speaker 1: the city. Later that morning, Peter reportedly escorted the woman
Speaker 1: to the nearest police station to deliver his theory about
Speaker 1: what had taken place. Peter is said to have then
Speaker 1: led police to the deep water filled ditch he'd seen
Speaker 1: in his mind, where after a short time looking, they
Speaker 1: found the missing man's cap caught in a nearby bush.
Speaker 1: After several days of dredging the ditch, the man's body
Speaker 1: was found at the bottom of it. As his reputation
Speaker 1: as a possible psychic started to grow around the world,
Speaker 1: Peter Herkos, who became known as the Man with the
Speaker 1: radar eyes and the X ray Brain, began offering his
Speaker 1: services to a number of police departments throughout Europe, to
Speaker 1: various degrees of success. In nineteen fifty six, he was
Speaker 1: contacted by American parapsychologist doctor Andrea Puharich. The early fifties,
Speaker 1: Puharich served as a captain in the Army Medical Corps,
Speaker 1: where at some point he developed a fascination in the
Speaker 1: potential military application of paranormal phenomena. In nineteen fifty five,
Speaker 1: after leaving the Army, he founded the round Table Foundation
Speaker 1: in Glen Cove, Maine, in order to study the possibilities further.
Speaker 1: After reading about Peter's apparent abilities, Puharich was convinced he'd
Speaker 1: found the perfect subject for his experiments and invited him
Speaker 1: to have his unique skills tested under laboratory conditions. Peter,
Speaker 1: who had by then separated from his first wife, Bea,
Speaker 1: took up the invitation and arrived in nineteen fifty six
Speaker 1: to begin the study. In total, he would spend seven
Speaker 1: years visiting Puharich at his foundation to undergo a series
Speaker 1: of unusual tests. Days would often begin with Peter being
Speaker 1: strapped down into a chair and his head covered in
Speaker 1: a mesh of wires and electrodes to monitor his brain
Speaker 1: function as Pooharich put him through his paces. In one test,
Speaker 1: doctor Pooharich bombarded Herkos with strobe lighting, then showed him
Speaker 1: a series of envelopes in which various objects had been placed,
Speaker 1: such as a butterfly or a safety pin, and invited
Speaker 1: him to guess what was in them. According to Pooharich,
Speaker 1: under the strobe lighting, Peter guessed the correct object every
Speaker 1: single time. Intriguingly, according to Pooharich, when no strobe lighting
Speaker 1: was used but Peter was allowed to touch the envelope,
Speaker 1: his success rate was still a remarkably high eighty percent.
Speaker 1: When only allowed to look at the envelope, this dropped
Speaker 1: markedly to forty percent. By then, Peter was attracting the
Speaker 1: attention of other well known parapsychological research, most prominently doctor
Speaker 1: Joseph Ryan, who was responsible for coining the term extrasensory perception. Ryan,
Speaker 1: who ran a laboratory at the prestigious Duke University, was
Speaker 1: arguably the most credible scientist working in the field at
Speaker 1: the time, and made frequent requests to test Peter himself,
Speaker 1: but her Coos refused his offer, claiming later that he'd
Speaker 1: been offended by Ryan's insistence that he sit a lie
Speaker 1: detective test as part of the study. In October nineteen
Speaker 1: fifty eight, Peter, who was then living in Miami, received
Speaker 1: a call from the Miami Police on behalf of its
Speaker 1: head of homicide, Detective Lieutenant Tom Lepp. Detective Leip's team
Speaker 1: had hit a dead end in a murder investigation, and,
Speaker 1: after hearing that her Coos was living in the city,
Speaker 1: decided to reach out to him. Without being told anything
Speaker 1: of the crime. Her Cos was invited to sit inside
Speaker 1: a bloodstained cab and simply tell the police if anything
Speaker 1: came to him. The cab had once belonged to sixty
Speaker 1: three year old Edward Sentner, who, unbeknownst to Peter, had
Speaker 1: been shot dead in it with a point to twenty
Speaker 1: two bullet. A little irked by the whole thing, Peter
Speaker 1: nonetheless got inside the vehicle, then sat back and waited.
Speaker 1: After a short pause, he began to speak. He had
Speaker 1: a vision of a tattoo on a man's right arm.
Speaker 1: Not the victims, the murderers. He was tall and slim too,
Speaker 1: and had a peculiar loping walk. A sailor, perhaps, he said,
Speaker 1: who was often in Detroit and Havana. Then a name
Speaker 1: came to him, Smitty, he said, And there was something else,
Speaker 1: another man set dead in the Florida Keys. The officers
Speaker 1: present turned to each other in confusion, unsure of what
Speaker 1: Peter could possibly be talking about. Clearly they thought it
Speaker 1: had all been one big charade. Then the news came
Speaker 1: in a few days later, a Navy commander named John
Speaker 1: Stewart was found shot to death in an apartment in
Speaker 1: Key Largo. He'd also been shot with a point twenty
Speaker 1: two bullet identical to the bullet used to kill the
Speaker 1: cab driver. As police investigated further, a man was eventually
Speaker 1: identified as a potential suspect for what was now a
Speaker 1: double murder investigation. His name wasn't Smitty exactly, but Charles Smith,
Speaker 1: a merchant seaman who, incredibly, as it turned out, often
Speaker 1: shipped into Cuba and had spent time in prison in Detroit, Michigan.
Speaker 1: About the same time, a restaurant server in Miami contacted
Speaker 1: police to say that she'd overheard a man boasting one
Speaker 1: night about killing two men. After receiving a picture of
Speaker 1: the suspect from Michigan authorities, the police showed it to
Speaker 1: the server. She recognized the man instantly, who it turned out,
Speaker 1: was tall and slim with the tattoo on his arm,
Speaker 1: just as Peter had seemingly predicted. A few weeks later,
Speaker 1: Charles Smith was arrested for his involvement in an armed
Speaker 1: robbery and eventually put on trial for the murders in
Speaker 1: Miami and Key Largo. He was found guilty and sentenced
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Speaker 1: Parker dot com. Forward slash unexplained. It was four years later,
Speaker 1: in nineteen sixty two, on the evening of June fourteenth,
Speaker 1: that Euras Less arrived at his mother, Anna's home at
Speaker 1: seventy seven Gainsborough Street, an apartment block located in the
Speaker 1: Back Bay area of Boston, Massachusetts. Twenty five year old
Speaker 1: Euras knocked on his mother's door, but got no response
Speaker 1: from inside. It was strange that his mother would leave
Speaker 1: him waiting, since it was her that insisted on Eurys
Speaker 1: getting there early that night. Anna had plans to attend
Speaker 1: a memorial service at her church to commemorate her fellow
Speaker 1: Latvians that were deported to Siberia by the government of
Speaker 1: the Soviet Union during the Second World War. She'd asked
Speaker 1: Euras to take her there after knocking again to no avail.
Speaker 1: Euryas headed back down to the pavement to wait for her.
Speaker 1: There thirty minutes later and there was still no sign
Speaker 1: of her. Suddenly concerned, Eurys returned to his mother's apartment.
Speaker 1: Hearing nothing from inside, he pounded on the door as
Speaker 1: hard as he could, but still nobody came. In desperation,
Speaker 1: Eurys threw his shoulder against it, back and forth until
Speaker 1: eventually it flew open with a loud bang. Running inside,
Speaker 1: he almost stumbled into a chair that had been left
Speaker 1: out oddly in the middle of the hall. He called
Speaker 1: out again for his mother, but still there was no reply.
Speaker 1: The place was in complete darkness, except for a soft
Speaker 1: chink of light emanating from the kitchen. Eurys made a
Speaker 1: quick sweep of the living room, then headed into the bedroom,
Speaker 1: where he found the dresser drawers had been left open,
Speaker 1: something his mother would never have done if she'd left
Speaker 1: the property. He headed back out into the hall and
Speaker 1: turned towards the light at the far end. With his
Speaker 1: heart pounding in his chest, he headed on toward the
Speaker 1: kitchen and then he saw her. Fifty five year old
Speaker 1: Anna Slesser's body was found lying outstretched on a runner
Speaker 1: on the kitchen floor, naked save for a blue taffeta
Speaker 1: housecoat left open at the front. Her left leg was
Speaker 1: lying stretched out, while the right was bent at the
Speaker 1: knee and positioned at almost a right angle to the other,
Speaker 1: leaving her completely exposed. The blue cord from her housecoat
Speaker 1: had been tied tightly around her neck, the ends of
Speaker 1: it seemingly left turned up to resemble a bow. Forensics
Speaker 1: later determined that she'd been sexually assaulted with an object.
Speaker 1: Anna Slesser's would become the first in a series of
Speaker 1: similarly horrific crimes over the next eighteen months. Nina Nichols,
Speaker 1: Helen Blake, Ida Erger, Jane Sullivan, Sophie Clark, Patricia Bissett,
Speaker 1: Mary Anne Browne, Marie Corbyn, and Joanne Graff would be found.
Speaker 1: Most were raped or sexually assaulted and then strangled to death,
Speaker 1: and all were believed to be potential victims of a
Speaker 1: single vicious sex offender and murderer operating close to or
Speaker 1: within the Boston area. On January fourth, nineteen sixty four,
Speaker 1: Mary Sullivan became the eleventh woman suspected of being sexually
Speaker 1: assaulted and murdered by the same perpetrator, by then being
Speaker 1: referred to in the press as the mad Strangler. Two
Speaker 1: weeks later, Peter Hercos received the call from Assistant Attorney
Speaker 1: General of Massachusetts John Bottomley. As Bottomley explained, the police
Speaker 1: was struggling with the investigation and wanted to know if
Speaker 1: he would be interested in trying to help. Herkos was
Speaker 1: reluctant to get involved at first, having been asked to
Speaker 1: assist in another brutal and high profile murder case in
Speaker 1: Virginia back in nineteen sixty involving a couple and their
Speaker 1: two young children. Though Peter had apparently made a number
Speaker 1: of startlingly accurate predictions, he'd failed to identify the correct
Speaker 1: murderer and was publicly ridiculed for it in the press.
Speaker 1: But Bottomley persisted, and eventually Herkos caved in. On January
Speaker 1: twenty ninth, Peter Herkos landed in Providence, Rhode Island, to
Speaker 1: see what he could do. You'd been listening to Unexplained
Speaker 1: Season five, episode eighteen, Learning to See Part one. The
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