'Boston Strangler' | Ep. 1: The Women

March 27, 2023·33 min·3 clips

Even after 13 murders and a confession, almost all Boston Strangler cases are still considered unsolved today.

The episode begins before the legend. Rebecca Jarvis opens with the strange, hard fact that 13 murders, a confession, and decades of attention still left most of these cases unresolved. Anna Sletzers was living alone in Boston after emigrating from Latvia. She was divorced, worked as a seamstress, and was expecting her son that evening. Then the story widens into a city trying to understand a pattern it could not name. Police checked known sex offenders and men released from mental institutions. An emergency number opened for residents. The warning became blunt and repetitive: women should not open the door to strangers. Ida Erga lived alone too. The Boston Globe described her as 75, on the top floor of a five-story building in the West End. Summer made that advice harder. Her door and skylight were open, ordinary details that suddenly felt loaded. Jane Sullivan worked nights. She was 67, a nurse, and police said two killings happened within 24 hours. Boston began changing around the fear. WBZ reported women carrying heavy ashtrays and other objects they could throw. Karate and jiu-jitsu classes filled up. Still, police had no answer. After five murders in three months, the Globe warned that a homicidal maniac might be loose. The episode keeps its focus on the women, not the mythology. The tension comes from small domestic facts, official uncertainty, and a city learning to move through daily life one warning at a time.

As heard by us

A grim, measured opener that returns the Boston Strangler story to the women and the unanswered questions around their deaths.

Boston Strangler opens by pulling the story back from the infamous nickname and into the lives of the women killed in Boston in 1962. Anna Sletzers's quiet Thursday, her work as a seamstress, and the memorial service she expected to attend give the case a human weight before the…

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Why you'd press play

You want the Boston Strangler case told as a citywide warning, not a stunt.

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