‘Those people are the unsung heroes’: the women who tried to unmask the Boston Strangler

Loretta McLaughlin and Jean Cole investigating one of the murders credited to The Boston Strangler. Photograph: courtesy of Kevin Cole

It is a scene familiar from many a newspaper film including All the President’s Men. Reporter is on to a big story; hardbitten editor is sceptical; reporter must use graft and guile to win editor over.

The collision plays out again in the new movie Boston Strangler. The editor is played by a suitably tough and hard-to-impress Chris Cooper. The reporter is played by British actor Keira Knightley, armed with a piercing question: “How many women have to die before it’s a story?”