In the summer of 1962, toward the start of the killing spree, “an editor disputed the worth of a series on the four dead women, noting that they were ‘nobodies,’” McLaughlin later recalled. The new film charts the women’s attempts to report on the escalating crimes while navigating sexism in the workplace and police recalcitrance prompted by the depth of their reporting. The pair’s investigations for the Boston Record American (a forebearer of the Boston Herald) offered scrupulous insights on the murders and advanced the theory that the crimes were the work of a single killer, whom they dubbed the “Boston Strangler.” Premiering on Hulu and Disney+ on March 17, Boston Strangler stars Keira Knightley and Carrie Coon as reporters Loretta McLaughlin and Jean Cole, respectively. The speculation surrounding the serial killer is now getting the Hollywood treatment, with a particular focus on two women journalists who doggedly reported on the murders of single women across the Boston area. According to these critics, one killer may have been responsible for some of the murders, but copycats likely capitalized on the terror, too, drawing on detailed newspaper coverage of the crimes to replicate the strangler’s M.O. Even in the local police department, some refused to believe the killings that haunted Boston in the early 1960s were the work of a lone individual.

Skeptics both then and now claimed the man who had confessed to the crimes, Albert DeSalvo, couldn’t have committed all 13 of the murders attributed to him. Even after his capture, confession and incarceration, the identity of the “ Boston Strangler” remained contested.

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