Sebastian Junger’s A Death in Belmont is more than a true-crime account of the Boston Strangler murders — it is a deeply researched meditation on violence, race, fear, and justice in a turbulent time in America. Junger teases apart the tangled threads of a notorious serial murder investigation within the larger context of the 1960s, showing how the murder of President John F. Kennedy and the unraveling of public trust shaped the pursuit of a killer who terrified Boston for years. The result is a compelling, disturbing, and ultimately convincing narrative about guilt, identity, and darkness in American life.
Junger does not simply recount the crimes chronologically. Instead, he puts them in their historical moment — a time when America was reeling from shocking acts of violence. The assassination of JFK in November 1963 is not treated as a separate event but as a backdrop to the story of the Boston Strangler.
Both cases — one a political assassination that shattered a nation’s confidence, the other a series of brutal murders that terrorized an entire city — represent a moment when Americans began to feel that the world around them had become unstable and frightening. Nuclear war came close to reality just the year before. Junger uses that national mood to deepen his exploration of how fear and suspicion shape the pursuit of justice.
At the heart of the book is the murder of Bessie Goldberg, a Belmont housewife strangled in her own home in March 1963. Goldberg had hired a Black handyman named Roy Smith to clean their house that very day. Hours later, Goldberg was found dead. Smith was arrested, tried, and convicted of her murder. He always maintained his innocence and died in prison.
Junger’s connection to the case is deeply personal. He grew up in Belmont about a mile from the Goldberg's home. He was a toddler at the time of the Goldberg murder. His parents hired a contractor to build a studio onto their home. On the day Bessie Goldberg was killed, one member of the crew was working in Junger's home. That worker, Albert DeSalvo, a small-time criminal and sexual predator, eventually confessed to being the Strangler, but not to Goldberg’s murder.
Junger use of this proximity, the murderer walked through his family’s living room, keeps the book personal and tense throughout his investigation into what really happened. He examines the broader series of murders attributed to the Boston Strangler, a name that came to embody fear itself in 1960s Massachusetts. Between 1962 and 1964, thirteen women (fourteen including Goldberg) were murdered in their homes, often sexually assaulted and strangled. The omission of Goldberg by DeSalvo has long fueled debate about whether DeSalvo was truly responsible for all the killings.
Junger treats this question with rigor and nuance. He reviews the evidence against DeSalvo and explores the skepticism that many investigators and journalists still harbor. There was no physical evidence tying DeSalvo to several of the murders, and his confessions contained factual errors. Yet Junger is unpersuaded by the doubts. He assembles the available evidence, the patterns in the killings, and the psychological profile of the man himself. The portrait that emerges is of a compulsive predator whose behavior fits the known facts of the crimes — including, Junger argues, the murder of Bessie Goldberg.
What makes A Death in Belmont so persuasive is its balance of forensic detail and broader social analysis. Junger delves deeply into the investigative techniques of the time — primitive by today’s standards — and the public pressure to deliver justice quickly. He also does not shy away from the racism of the Goldberg case: Roy Smith, a Black man in a white suburb, was an easy target for a fearful public and a prosecution eager for a conviction. Junger’s handling of this subject is unsparing, showing that racial bias contributed to a miscarriage of justice. In one of the very sad moments in the book, Roy Smith is convicted of murder on November 23, 1963, the day after Kennedy was assassinated.
Yet Junger’s central conclusion is that Albert DeSalvo was almost certainly the Boston Strangler, and the weight of evidence suggests he also killed Bessie Goldberg, even if he never admitted it. The fact that Smith was convicted of Goldberg’s murder while DeSalvo confessed highlights flaws in the justice system. It also reflects the chaos and confusion of an era when trust in authority, shaken by Kennedy’s assassination and other national traumas, was collapsing.
In the end, A Death in Belmont is not just the story of a murder case; it is a story about America at a time of national crisis. Junger shows how public fear, racial prejudice, and institutional failure can converge to distort justice. He also captures the way national events, like the assassination of a president, seep into local tragedies, shaping how they are understood and remembered.
This is a meticulously researched and deeply unsettling book. I found myself persuaded by Junger’s case: Albert DeSalvo was the Boston Strangler, and Bessie Goldberg was one of his victims. A Death in Belmont is a chilling reminder that evil often hides in plain sight. I was nine years old when I first heard reports of the Boston Strangler on the radio. Belmont is nine miles from Stoneham where I grew up.
I loved this book. It deepened my admiration for Sebastian Junger’s work — an admiration that began after I met him at the Hannah Arendt Conference in October 2024 and has grown with each of his books I’ve read since. A Death in Belmont shows how deeply he can connect historical fact, personal story, and moral complexity.
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