Current convicted Alabama man pleads guilty to 1980 Back Bay hotel murder

BOSTON — On Wednesday, an Alabama man admitted to strangling a sex worker at a Boston hotel back in 1980.

Steven Fike, 65, pleaded guilty to manslaughter. Fike had already been serving a life sentence for a 1982 rape and murder, and will be serving an additional 13-15 years on his sentence.

According to Assistant District Attorney John Verner, on March 18, 1980, Boston police responded to the Diplomat Hotel and found 19-year-old Wendy Dansereau dead on the floor of room 506.

Verner stated that the room showed signs of struggle; Dansereau had a red scarf around her neck with ligature marks under the scarf, and her clothes were found scattered around the room.

Preliminary investigations determined that Dansereau had entered the hotel earlier with a customer, while the medical examiner collected oral, anal and vaginal samples during the autopsy.

For years, the case went unsolved until 2011. Investigators entered the sample evidence into the national Combined DNA Index System (CODIS) and obtained a match between a vaginal sperm sample and DNA from Fike after his conviction in Alabama. Partially smoked cigarettes from the hotel room also matched Fike’s DNA.

When interviewed by Boston homicide detectives in April 2018, Fike repeatedly denied having been in the city, even when he was confronted with evidence that his DNA matched the one found in Dansereau.

Verner stated that Fike placed himself in Keene, New Hampshire, around the time of Dansereau’s murder. However, police reports from Keene show that Fike committed a petty larceny about 12 hours before Dansereau entered the Diplomat Hotel with a customer.

“After 45 years, and thanks to advances in DNA science, the collection of evidence by Alabama authorities, and the perseverance of investigators here, Wendy Dansereau’s family at last has an answer about who was responsible for her tragic death,” Suffolk District Attorney Hayden said.

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