Born in Chelsea, Massachusetts, during 1931, DeSalvo was another product of a violent and abusive home. Frank DeSalvo beat his wife and children regularly, and was thrown in jail on two occasions prior to the divorce that split the family in 1944. Fleeing a record of teenage arrests for breaking and entering, Albert joined the army at age 17 and was stationed in Germany. He married a German girl and brought her back to the United States when he was transferred home.

Posted to Fort Dix, New Jersey, DeSalvo was charged with molesting a nine-year-old girl in January 1955, but the child's mother declined to press charges, and so he received an honorable discharge in 1956. At the same time, he experienced sexual problems with his wife, demanding intercourse five or six times a day, regarding her as "frigid" when she turned him down. Matters grew worse with the birth of their first child, in 1958, with the new shortage of cash driving DeSalvo back to a life of petty crime. Arrested twice for breaking and entering, he received suspended sentences each time. During this same period, Massachusetts women began falling prey to the "Measuring Man," a smooth-talking impostor who posed as a talent scout for a modeling agency, wandering door-to-door in an endless search for "new talent." Once inside an apartment, the man would produce a measuring tape and proceed to record the tenant's "vital statistics," often fondling her intimately in the process. Some complained to the police, but many others didn't, and detectives noted the absence of any violent assault, ranking the case near the bottom of their priority list.

On March 17, 1960, Cambridge police arrested DeSalvo on suspicion of burglary, and he swiftly confessed to his role as the "Measuring Man." Charged with assault and battery, lewd conduct, and attempted breaking and entering, he was convicted only on the latter charge, sentenced to two years in prison. Paroled after eleven months, he was driven by sexual frustration to adopt a more aggressive, violent role. As the "Green Man" -- so-called for his green work clothes -- DeSalvo launched a two-year campaign of sexual assaults that claimed victims in Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Hampshire and Rhode Island. Police would later estimate that he had raped at least 300 women, while DeSalvo placed the total closer to 2,000. He once claimed a half-dozen victims in one day, spread over four towns, with two of the rapes unreported prior to his confession.

While police throughout New England sought the "Green Man," Boston homicide detectives were stalking an elusive killer, blamed for the deaths of eleven women between June 1962 and July 1964. In every case, the victims had been raped -- sometimes with foreign objects -- and their bodies laid out nude, as if on display for a pornographic snapshot. Death was always due to strangulation, though the killer sometimes also used a knife. The ligature -- a stocking, pillow case, whatever -- was inevitably left around the victim's neck, tied with an exaggerated, ornamental bow.