The Boston Stranglers (9 page)

From Charles Gaughan's office at Bridgewater, Bailey writes, he went back to Boston and agonized over Albert's position as a pawn in Bottomly's power play. Attorney General Brooke had not accepted Bailey's phone calls. Was it possible, the lawyer mused, that Brooke too wanted to take credit for solving the stranglings? To further his own political aspirations? And could the same be said of Boston's Democratic mayor, John Collins? Collins would be the big winner if his police department rather than the attorney general's office got the laurels for cracking the Strangler case.

Bailey filed the legal papers necessary to overturn Brooke's ban on the lawyer's access to his client George Nassar. He did not file a similar petition with respect to Albert, he states, although he prepared the appropriate papers. By telegram, he notified Albert at Bridgewater of these recent developments—and cautioned him to watch out for those who might attempt to trick or manipulate him into unguarded speech.

Brooke also was eager to protect Albert's rights, reasoning that if the man were incompetent to stand trial, he might be equally incapable of picking his own lawyer. The attorney general therefore determined that a guardian be appointed to oversee Albert's affairs. He explained this to Bailey at a meeting in the attorney general's office. Bailey in his turn argued that the notion of the state choosing counsel for even an insane defendant violated the essence of the adversarial system. He and Brooke agreed to take the matter to court.

Bailey retained his own attorney to represent him in the upcoming battle with Brooke. It was Paul Smith, George Nassar's original counsel for the Irvin Hilton slaying.
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“Word of a possible break in the Strangler case had leaked out,” Bailey writes in
The Defense Never Rests
, “and the Suffolk County Courthouse was filled with newsmen as I picked my way over cables and past cameras to the courtroom door.”
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Ames Robey remembers this event well: “I almost couldn't get off the elevator. There were even representatives from Reuters and Tass. Every network, every Boston newspaper—the place was a
madhouse.
I managed to get off and wend my way to the courtroom door. Just as I was about to go into the courtroom, Bailey grabbed me. Dragged me into the little lawyers' anteroom there and said, ‘Ames, you've got to say he [Albert] is competent.' Why would I have to say that? Because Lee had filed a charge against me for malpractice because I'd done a lumbar puncture on a [Bridgewater] patient we suspected of having syphilis, oh, some months before, and the patient claimed he was having headaches. Well, after a spinal tap, almost everyone has headaches if they don't lie flat and you remove some pressure. You're very likely to have a headache for three hours. And Bailey said, ‘If you don't [find Albert competent], it will cost you everything.' I said, ‘Lee.' He, by the way, had me by both lapels. I'm much taller than Lee. I said, ‘Lee, let go of me or I'll back out of this room sobbing as I go. Don't ever threaten me again, Mr. Bailey.' He dropped me like a hot rock.”

The inadvertent ringmaster of this media circus, Judge Arthur Whittemore, ruled that two state-appointed psychiatrists would decide the issue of Albert's competence.

Afterward Bailey phoned his own expert on mental health issues, Dr. Robert Ross Mezer, hypnoanalyst William Joseph Bryan III, and attorney Melvin Belli for advice and consultation.

 

 

Bailey has consistently and vigorously maintained that he originated and carried out the plan that Albert be allowed to confess to the stranglings in return for a grant of immunity from prosecution and an assurance of being given good psychiatric treatment at a decent facility. But certain records appear to contradict Bailey. In a memo to Brooke dated April 27, 1965, Bottomly mentions having proposed the same idea earlier to the attorney general. And was Bailey the major figure in all the negotiations and legal maneuverings on Albert's behalf as he presents himself as being in The Defense Never Rests? Or did Jon Asgeirsson, whom Bailey relegates to the background in his book, play a much more active role in these events? Very possibly the latter. At any rate, it was from Asgeirsson rather than Bailey that Bottomly sought approval of the idea he'd outlined to Brooke:

If Asgeirsson was unhappy with his co-counsel (if that is indeed the role Bailey played), he apparently wasn't the only one. Bottomly noted to Brooke that Asgeirsson “advised that the members of DeSalvo's family, particularly Joseph, were becoming increasingly disenchanted with Bailey.”

In the course of this meeting, Asgeirsson and Bottomly also took up the matter of Albert's guardianship. The Task Force chief proposed that Charles Gaughan, Superintendent of Bridgewater, assume that position. Asgeirsson objected and counterproposed Joseph DeSalvo. He and Bottomly then agreed to confer with Joseph about the matter along with William Cowin, the assistant attorney general delegated to handle the filing of any guardianship petition.

On May 4, Bottomly penned another memo to Brooke in which he referred to his continuant conversations with Asgeirsson about Albert's fate within the judicial system. Bailey was not party to these talks—clearly very crucial ones—either.

On May 5, Brooke met with the district attorneys of Essex, Middlesex, and Suffolk counties to discuss how the investigation of Albert's alleged involvement in the stranglings ought to be pursued. If Bailey attended that meeting, there is no reference to his presence.

 

 

Although Bottomly was working with Asgeirsson on his own plan to have Albert indicted for at least one of the thirteen murders, he did not then believe that Asgeirsson's client was the Boston Strangler. “On that assumption,” he remarked to Brooke, “I am strictly from Missouri.”

 

 

On May 6, according to
The Defense Never Rests
, Bailey and the attorney general's office reached a decision concerning the matter of Albert's guardianship. The man chosen to assume it was George McGrath, a former corrections commissioner for the Commonwealth. Bailey was entirely satisfied with the choice; he thought highly of McGrath.
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But was he the architect of McGrath's appointment, as his book suggests? A message from William Cowin to Bottomly, dated May 6, 1965, gives a slightly different version not only of how the guardianship agreement was struck, but of who the principals in it were:

According to Cowin, then, not only was Bailey not in the attorney general's office engineering the guardianship agreement, he wasn't even in town.

 

 

In June of 1965 Bailey had to defend George Nassar, who was then being tried for the murder of Irvin Hilton. When the trial was well under way, Bailey says, Lieutenant Andrew Tuney (“a tall, handsome man”) of the Strangler Task Force came to him to inquire about the possibility of interviewing Albert about the thirteen murders. Bailey consented, provided that George McGrath be present during the interrogation and that anything Albert said remain inadmissible as evidence. Tuney accepted the deal. John Donovan would be his co-interviewer.
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Whatever arrangement Bailey had made with Tuney, however, was anticipated by an agreement Bottomly had long since struck with Asgeirsson. As Bottomly wrote Brooke on May 4, “I have indicated to Asgeirsson that [Albert‘s] interrogators would be me, Lt. Tuney and the head of the homicide bureau of the community when that particular crime was the subject of interrogation. Tapes would be made of the interrogations, transcriptions would then be prepared. The ‘evidence' [note Bottomly's quote marks here] could then be thoroughly evaluated and compared with other information.”

Interestingly, Bottomly was as of April 27 considering John Donovan as cointerrogator. A week later he seems to have changed his mind.

Meanwhile, Bailey was pursuing his own course. From
The Defense Never Rests:
“George McGrath and I met with Tuney and John Donovan to work out the arrangements for DeSalvo's interrogation. Tuney would question DeSalvo with McGrath present. DeSalvo would waive neither his right against self-incrimination nor his right to have counsel present. Whatever information the detectives obtained could only be used to help doctors involved in the case make their evaluations. The Boston Strangler would confess to police, but the confession would be inadmissible as legal evidence.”

This meeting took place, according to Bailey, shortly after June 26, 1965.
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On that same day, in Essex Superior Court in Salem, George Nassar was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to die in the electric chair. Bailey vowed to appeal.

Whatever plans Bailey made concerning the interrogation of Albert went sadly awry. Ultimately it was Bottomly who, unaccompanied by Andrew Tuney, John Donovan, or any homicide detectives from Boston, Cambridge, Lawrence, Lynn, or Salem, took on that responsibility. The Task Force chief began his questioning in August and concluded it on September 29, 1965. George McGrath was present during some of these sessions. If anyone else was, his presence is not officially noted on the transcripts of the interrogation tapes.

 

 

Albert's confession to the murders of Anna Slesers, Nina Nichols, Helen Blake, Ida Irga, Jane Sullivan, Sophie Clark, Patricia Bissette, Mary Brown, Beverly Samans, Evelyn Corbin, Joann Graff, and Mary Sullivan
²⁴
having been obtained, the problem now arose of what to do with this man. Certainly the self-proclaimed Strangler couldn't be released to prey on more women. Bailey thought it might be possible to have Albert tried but found not guilty by reason of insanity. But he foresaw problems with such a course of action. If, for example, the prosecutor at Albert's trial failed to call Ames Robey as a witness, Robey “might be on the major networks within hours, yelling ‘fix.' ” And Bailey was afraid for his own reputation, too, if despite all his efforts a jury found Albert guilty and
sane:
“I had an excellent change of being known as a lawyer who'd taken a perfectly protected client and steered him into the electric chair.“
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He also fretted that some of his colleagues might label him a publicity seeker.

All that autumn of 1965 and winter and early spring of 1966 he and Brooke debated the next step, Bailey says. The former attorney general today recalls these discussions as having been more than heated and verging on the acrimonious.

“Oh, my goodness,” Brooke laughs. “I had known F. Lee Bailey earlier. If you know what his personality is like, you know it was rocky. It was a tough negotiation; it didn't come off very easily.”