A Murder in Belmont

Two weeks ago, the New York Times had a review of Sebastian Junger's new book, "A Death in Belmont," reviewed by Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz.

You may remember Sebastian Junger's book, "The Perfect Storm," about the storm that sank the trawler, the Andrea Gail, in 1991, off the coast of Gloucester, Mass.

Or, you may have seen the movie of the same name.

Sebastian Junger grew up in Belmont, Mass., in the 1960s. A handyman had been hired to work at the Junger's home during this time, when Sebastian was an infant.

During this same period, a Belmont woman, Bessie Goldberg, who lived only blocks from the Junger's home, was brutally raped and murdered.

Roy Smith was arrested and tried for the murder of Bessie Goldberg.

On one occasion, Sebastian's mother was at home alone with the handyman hired at the Junger home.

I quote the passage in Junger's book, quoted by Dershowitz' New York Times' book review:

Junger's mother is speaking:

I heard him come in, and two or three minutes later I heard him call me. So I opened the door to the cellar, and I saw him down there at the foot of the stairs and he was looking at me. And he was looking in a way that is almost indescribable. He had this intense look in his eyes, a strange kind of burning in his eyes, as if he was almost trying to hypnotize me. As if by sheer force of will he could draw me down into that basement."

Junger then adds his own words:

"Clearly he wanted to get her down into the basement, and clearly if she did that things could go very wrong. My mother told him that she was busy, and then she closed the basement door and shot the bolt."

It was during the next few years that the city of Boston would be plagued by The Boston Strangler, usually believed to be Albert DeSalvo.

Who was the handyman who'd been hired at the Junger household?

Albert DeSalvo.

Junger himself believes that DeSalvo likely murdered Goldberg, and likely would have killed his mother, too, had she gone into the basement that day.

Dershowitz writes an intriguing review of the book,
"A Death in Belmont."

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/16/books/review/16dershowitz.html?ex=1146283200&en=c9247fe9207410a6&ei=5070