Boston strangler's identity proved following positive DNA test result 50 years on

A US lab has matched the DNA recovered from the body of a woman killed 50 years ago suspected to be assaulted and strangled by the Boston serial killer, Albert DeSalvo.

The evidence was taken after Mary Sullivan, 19, who was brutally killed on January 4, 1964 in her Charles Street apartment in Boston, the CNN reports.

The Boston Strangler had allegedly killed 11 women between the ages of 19 and 85 from 1962 to 1964.

DeSalvo, a blue collar worker and Army veteran, had confessed to the crimes while serving time for separate crimes, but he was never prosecuted.

Instead, he was sentenced to life in prison for a series of armed robberies and sexual assaults and was stabbed to death behind bars in 1973.

US authorities had exhumed DeSalvo's body for DNA testing after a familial match was found from his nephew's bottle with the genetic material preserved from Sullivan's murder.