'Boston Strangler,' starring Keira Knightley as a Milton reporter, to debut on Hulu

“Boston Strangler,” a true-crime drama about the two trailblazing South Shore female reporters who broke the story of the infamous serial killer, will debut March 17 on Hulu, 20th Century Studios announced Tuesday.

Written and directed by Matt Ruskin (“Crown Heights”), the movie started filming last December at locations in Boston and surrounding towns, including the old Foster Elementary School in Braintree. Other shooting locations were Belmont, Roxbury, Roslindale, Jamaica Plain, Lynn, Lowell, Wellesley and Malden. Filming wrapped last March.

“Boston Strangler” centers on how the late Milton journalist Loretta McLaughlin (Keira Knightley, “Pirates of the Caribbean”) and her fellow Boston Record American reporter, Scituate native Jean (Cole) Harris, challenged the sexism of the early 1960s in covering the story. They were the first reporters to connect the murders to one suspect now known as the Boston Strangler.  Despite derision and ridicule from investigators, the two worked tirelessly to pursue the story and keep women informed.

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Thirteen Boston-area women, ages 19 to 67, were sexually assaulted and killed between 1962 and 1964, crimes that terrorized the region and grabbed national headlines. All the victims were strangled with articles of their own clothing; one also was stabbed repeatedly.

In 1967, Albert DeSalvo – who confessed to the crimes but was never charged – was convicted on unrelated armed robbery and sexual assault charges. He was sentenced to life, but was stabbed to death in 1973 at the state prison in Walpole.

An ABC News companion podcast about the Boston Strangler case will debut ahead of the film’s release. Former Boston Globe reporter Dick Lehr will host the three-part series, which will be available for free on all major podcast platforms.

Trailblazing female reporters from Milton and Scituate

McLaughlin, a longtime Braintree and Milton resident, died in 2018 at age 90. She received the Abigail Adams Tribute award for 1995. The award, given by the Massachusetts Women's Political Caucus, honors outstanding Massachusetts female leaders who have made significant contributions to the political, economic and social rights for women. She had a long career in journalism, starting as a beat reporter covering Massachusetts politics for State House News Service. She also covered the 1950s Brinks robbery and was a medical reporter for the Boston Herald.

McLaughlin retired from journalism as the Globe’s editorial page editor. She wrote the Globe’s endorsements of William Weld for governor of Massachusetts, Bill Clinton for president of the United States and Thomas Menino for mayor of Boston.

Jean Cole Harris died in 2015 at age 89. She grew up in Scituate, one of six children of the town’s fire chief, Howard Cole, and his wife, Margaret. She began a long career in newspapers as a “copy boy” for the Boston Daily Record in 1944. From 1972 until her retirement in 1981, she wrote for the Boston Herald American. Much of her work involved investigative reporting, twice exposing deficiencies in the state’s nursing homes after going undercover as a nurse’s aide. She also helped chronicle the criminal elements operating in downtown Boston, coining the term “the Combat Zone.”

Kingston's Chris Cooper co-stars

Kingston’s Chris Cooper co-stars in the movie. He won an Academy Award in 2003 as best supporting actor for his work in "Adaptation." He was nominated for a Tony Award in 2017 for “A Doll’s House, Part 2.” Other film work includes "Seabiscuit," "Capote," "American Beauty," “A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood” and “The Bourne Identity.”

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In a 2019 interview with The Patriot Ledger, Cooper said he loved filming “Little Women,” “The Company Men” and Ben Affleck’s “The Town” in Massachusetts where it's "get in the car and go to work." The actor lives in Kingston with his wife, Marianne Leone, a writer and actress.

Keira Knightley leads 'Boston Strangler'

British actress Keira Knightley is a two-time Oscar nominee for "The Imitation Game" and "Pride and Prejudice." Her most recent projects were 2021's horror-comedy "Silent Night," and she voiced the title character in the animated biopic "Charlotte."

"Boston Strangler" is not Knightley's first time portraying a trailblazing woman. She played a British whistleblower in “Official Secrets," cryptoanalyst Joan Clarke in "The Imitation Game," British historian and activist Sally Alexander in "Misbehaviour" and French author Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette in "Colette."

Rounding out the cast of "Boston Strangler" are Boston native Alessandro Nivola (“Many Saints of Newark”), Rory Cochrane (“Hostiles”) and Morgan Spector ("The Gilded Age").  David Dastmalchian (“Suicide Squad”) reportedly plays DeSalvo.

“Boston Strangler” is rated R for some violent content and language.

Boston true-crime craze

“Boston Strangler” is the latest in a series of film projects focusing on high-profile Boston crimes, including “Black Mass,” about notorious gangster James “Whitey” Bulger; “Patriots Day,” about the Boston Marathon bombings; and the Netflix documentary “This Is a Robbery,” about the Gardner art museum heist.

The Boston Strangler has long been the subject of movies and books. Tony Curtis played DeSalvo in a 1968 movie that also featured Henry Fonda and George Kennedy. Marshfield author Casey Sherman, a nephew of victim Mary Sullivan, wrote “A Rose for Mary,” a 2003 book about the case. Sullivan, 19, had moved from Whitman to Boston just three days before she became the final victim.

This article originally appeared on The Patriot Ledger: Boston Strangler starring Keira Knightley as Milton reporter hits Hulu