Primary Sources

One of the difficulties in writing about Boston's crime scene is that reality often outruns fiction. I hear crime stories all the time that I would not dare invent because readers would find them farfetched. That is good news for crime writers, perhaps; bad news for Bostonians, certainly. And it means that a lot of true stories wind up on the cutting-room floor.

So in this section I will occasionally post material about Boston's crime world in the days of the Strangler. Most of this material I came across in my research for THE STRANGLER. But some, no doubt, will be new. If anyone out there has original documents or photos or other unpublished or hard-to-find materials on this topic, send it along and I'll post it for all to read.

Comment:  A Cop's Perspective on THE STRANGLER, by John Daley

One of the great pleasures of researching THE STRANGLER was meeting Jack Daley, a Boston P.D. captain, now retired, who in 40 years on the job did most everything a cop can do, from beat cop to homicide detective. It is safe to say that the novel would look very different if not for Jack's many smart, generous contributions. Here he gives a quick review of the book.

Report:  "Everything Secret Degenerates: The FBI's Use of Murderers as Informants"  Excerpt (PDF)  |  Complete Report (PDF)

Bostonians who read THE STRANGLER, if they have even a passing knowledge of the city's underworld, may find the character Vinnie "The Animal" Gargano unsettlingly familiar. While the character has no direct inspiration in fact, it would not be too far a stretch to see similarities with the infamous Joe "The Animal" Barboza, one of Boston's most vicious killers. In this excerpt — from a Congressional report titled "Everything Secret Degenerates: The FBI's Use of Murderers as Informants [in Boston]" — you can read the story of how Barboza "flipped" and became a cooperating witness in a notorious 1968 murder prosecution in which six innocent men were convicted and sentenced to life in prison. Believed to be the first man ever to enter the federal witness protection program, in 1976 Barboza was gunned down on a San Francisco sidewalk. In 1992, Boston gangster Joe Russo pleaded guilty to the murder.

These documents are in PDF format.
To read them, you will need the Adobe Reader, available for free.