(3 of 3)
Whatever the truth, Bailey has the state in a bind. Unwilling at first to believe DeSalvo, state officials asked him five key questions about the crimes. To protect his client's privilege against selfincrimination, however, Bailey first made the interrogators agree not to use the answers. Thus, when DeSalvo insistently babbled his guilt in the stranglings, the state was still bound by its agreement. It could not use DeSalvo's "unofficial" confession, which is the only evidence against him. Bailey was willing to break the agreement, but only if the state sought an acquittal on grounds of insanity. Not surprisingly, the state refused to permit any seemingly "rigged" trial. And for his part, Bailey says that "I will not permit DeSalvo to make a legal confession." As a result, the strangler case is probably dead.
Quite alive, however, are the charges against DeSalvo for the rapes committed after the stranglings. In those cases, Bailey plans a novel trial tactic: if permitted to do so, he will call psychiatrists to testify that his client is insane, and use DeSalvo's hospital confessions to strangling 13 women as documentation. If Bailey is successful, DeSalvo will merely go back to the hospital. Not only will Bailey win more publicity, but his strategy may actually do the prosecution a service. In effect, the naming of DeSalvo as the strangler would officially "solve" the case and get the state off the hook.
* Boston's 1950 Brinks robbery involved $2,775,395.12, but only $1,218,211.29 was in cash. The world's biggest cash robbery was Britain's 1963 Great Train Robbery ($7,000,000).