Albert DeSalvo - Imprisonment and Death

Imprisonment and Death

DeSalvo was sentenced to life in prison in 1967. In February of that year, he escaped with two fellow inmates from Bridgewater State Hospital, triggering a full scale manhunt. A note was found on his bunk addressed to the superintendent. In it, DeSalvo stated he had escaped to focus attention on the conditions in the hospital and his own situation. The day after the escape, he turned himself in to his lawyer in Lynn, Massachusetts. Following the escape, he was transferred to the maximum security prison known at the time as Walpole, where he was found murdered six years later in the infirmary. Robert Wilson, who was associated with the Winter Hill Gang, was tried for the murder of DeSalvo, but the trial ended in a hung jury. No one was ever found guilty of the murder.

In 1971, the Texas legislature unanimously passed a resolution honoring DeSalvo in an April Fool's Day joke made by Waco Representative Tom Moore, Jr.. Moore admitted to the joke — made to prove his colleagues were not putting due diligence into researching legislation they were passing — and withdrew the resolution.