Former Herald reporters Loretta McLaughlin and Jean Cole are being given their due in a new Hulu series on the Boston Strangler.
Keira Knightley plays McLaughlin and Carrie Coon depicts Cole. The two reporters for the Boston Record-American (now just the Herald) helped break the Strangler case in the late 1960s when the Vietnam war was percolating and the city was gripped by the 13 murders of women.
I’m hard at work tracking down relatives, so stay tuned. I’ll succeed — I know they both would want me to — in time for deadline.
Casey Sherman, who lost an aunt to the Boston Strangler, confirmed both reporters were ahead of all others. Former Herald photographer Jim Mahoney, a contributor still, said they were “trailblazers” along with his mother in a time when female reporters had to put up with a lot of harassment.
There’s so much more to this story, but I owe you a noontime “From the Archives” newsletter, so here it goes.
Until then, here are pages from 1967 on the Strangler case:
HERALD, Boston Strangler Guilty, Jan. 19, 1967, p1