Hulu’s events Boston Strangler Shocking, but doesn’t depict what happened to Loretta McLaughlin and Jean Cole in the credits roll? True crime movie It ends after McLaughlin and Cole finish their work on the case of the infamous Boston Strangler serial killer. The two women were among the first journalists to write the gruesome series of murders in the 1960s, and the name was coined by McLaughlin Boston Strangler.
McLaughlin and Cole worked for the Boston Record American, a tabloid created from the merger of the Boston American and Boston Records in 1961. As seen in Boston StranglerThey covered the murders from about 1962 to 1964. Cole continued to write about Albert DiSalvo, who may or may not have been the real Boston Strangler, until at least 1967. But after the Boston Strangler faded from the public consciousness, how did McLaughlin and Cole Jobs progress?
Jan Cole and Loretta McLaughlin have continued their reporting careers (both are retired)
McLaughlin left the American Boston Record sometime after the events of The Boston Record Boston Strangler. As mentioned at the end of the film, she and James J. McLaughlin divorced, and she eventually married James P. Baker. Intrigued by DeSalvo’s psychology and a surgeon general’s report that linked cancer to smoking, McLaughlin continued to pursue a career related to public health. She became a science writer at Harvard University and executive director of public relations at the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary.
In the 1970s, she returned to journalism as a medical reporter for the Herald American, the result of a merger between Record American and Boston Herald Traveler. She moved to The Boston Globe in 1976 and closely covered the AIDS epidemic in the 1980s, criticizing the federal government’s lack of response to the crisis. In 1982, McLaughlin published The Pill, John Rock, and the Church: A Biography of the Revolution, a book about the pill industry. In 1992, she became only the second woman to serve as editorial page editor for The Boston Globe. She retired in late 1993 and passed away in 2018.
Jane Cole has remained an investigative reporter throughout her career. This included coverage of what she and her fellow American record labels described as “combat zone,” A neighborhood in the city known for its high crime rates. She went on to work for Record American as it became the Herald American (now the Boston Herald). She retired in 1981 and passed away in 2015 Boston Strangler He says, McLaughlin and Cole remained lifelong friends.
Why the stories of Jean Cole and Loretta McLaughlin are so important to the Boston Strangler
althoug Boston Strangler It makes some changes to the true story, it honors the truth of McLaughlin and Cole’s gritty reporting amid sexism. McLaughlin wrote in 1991, “When I first went to a newspaper, a suburban entry point, looking for a job, the editor exclaimed, ‘Look at that portal (to the newsroom).'” No skirt has ever passed this gate, and none will ever pass.” (via Boston Globe).
Boston Strangler It shows how McLaughlin in particular had to work her way up to better stories and higher positions for which she knew she was qualified. Even after she was able to do so, she still faced sexism, including the Boston PD’s refusal to speak to her and the paper’s editors printing her and Jane’s photos as a ruse. Boston Strangler It shows that the McLaughlin and Cole reports were an important but overlooked part of history.
