What happened to Jean Cole and Loretta McLaughlin after The Boston Strangler?
The events of Hulu Boston strangler are shocking but it doesn’t show what happened to Loretta McLaughlin and Jean Cole in the credits? The real crime thriller ends shortly after McLaughlin and Cole complete their work on the case of the infamous Boston Strangler serial killer. The two women were among the first journalists to cover the gruesome series of murders in the 1960s, and McLaughlin coined the name “Boston strangler.”
McLaughlin and Cole worked for Boston Record American, a tabloid newspaper formed from the 1961 merger of Boston American and Boston Record. As shown in Boston stranglerThey covered the murders from about 1962 to 1964. Cole continued to write about Albert DeSalvo, who may have been the real Boston Strangler, or not Cole’s career advancement, until at least 1967.
Jean Cole & Loretta McLaughlin continued their reporter careers (& both retired)
McLaughlin left the Boston Record American sometime after the events of Boston strangler. As mentioned at the end of the film, she and James J. McLaughlin divorced and eventually married James P. Becker. Fascinated by DeSalvo’s psychology and the Surgeon General’s report linking 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.
She returned to journalism in the 1970s as a medical reporter for the Herald American, the result of a merger between Record American and The Boston Herald Traveler. She joined the Boston Globe in 1976 and covered extensively the AIDS epidemic of the 1980s, criticizing the federal government’s lack of response to the crisis. In 1982, McLaughlin published The Pill, John Rock, and the Church: The Biography of a Revolution, a book about the development of the birth control pill. In 1992, she became only the second woman to serve as editor of the Boston Globe editorial page. She retired in late 1993 and died in 2018.
Jean Cole remained an investigative reporter throughout her career. That included reporting on what she and her fellow Record American colleagues referred to as The “battle zone,” a neighborhood in the city known for its high crime rate. She continued to work at the Record American, which became the Herald American (now the Boston Herald). She retired in 1981 and died in 2015. As Boston strangler States, McLaughlin and Cole remained lifelong friends.
Why the stories of Jean Cole and Loretta McLaughlin are so important in the Boston Strangler film
Although Boston strangler Making some changes to the true story, it honors the truth of McLaughlin and Cole’s unabashed reporting amid sexism. McLaughlin wrote in 1991: “When I first went to a newspaper, a suburban entry point, looking for a job, the editor growled, ‘Look at this gate (to the newsroom). No rock has ever passed through that gate, and none ever will.’” (above Boston globe).
Boston strangler shows how McLaughlin in particular had to push herself into better stories and higher positions that she knew she was qualified for. Even when she was able to, she still faced sexism, including the Boston PD refusing to speak to her and newspaper editors printing her and Jean’s photos as a stunt. Boston strangler shows that McLaughlin and Cole’s reporting was an important but overlooked part of the story.
https://screenrant.com/boston-strangler-jean-loretta-what-happened-after/ What happened to Jean Cole and Loretta McLaughlin after The Boston Strangler?
