Body of alleged Boston Strangler, Albert DeSalvo, to be exhumed for DNA tests

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Investigators will exhume the body of Albert DeSalvo to conduct forensic tests that could, once and for all, determine whether he was the notorious Boston Strangler.

Suffolk County District Attorney Daniel Conley announced that DNA taken from the body of the final strangler victim, Mary Sullivan, and a water bottle used by DeSalvo's nephew showed a "familial match."

The exhumation in Peabody, Mass. this week will allow investigators to definitively confirm the results, which Conley said already amounted to a 99.9% match.

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"Today's development may mean we have solved one of the most notorious cases in Boston's history," said Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley.

"One last step remains ... to make a direct match with Albert DeSalvo's body."

The Boston Strangler allegedly killed 11 women between the ages of 19 and 85 between 1962 and 1964. Most of the victims were strangled and sexually assaulted in their apartments.

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DeSalvo, a blue collar worker and Army veteran, confessed to the crimes while serving time for separate crimes, but he was never prosecuted.

Instead, he was sentenced to life in prison for a series of armed robberies and sexual assaults and was stabbed to death behind bars in 1973.

Doubts have lingered about whether DeSalvo was behind all the killings, as he claimed.

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Cops hailed the development as an example of their relentlessness in closing one of the most notorious cases in Boston's history. Using cutting-edge technology cold case cops got the match between DNA on the water bottle and some found on Sullivan's body, as well as semen and a blanket taken from the crime scene and preserved for 49 years.

Relatives of Sullivan said they hoped the break in the case would lead to a sense of closure - at last.

"Mary was 19 years old, the joy of her Irish Catholic family. She was from Cape Cod. She moved up to Boston four days before she was killed," said Casey Sherman, Sullivan's nephew.

Sherman added that his grandfather was notified of her murder by a news reporter. "He said, 'Is Mary in the hospital?' The reporter said 'No, your daughter is in the morgue.'"