Music Student at B.U. Throttled by Strangler In Apt. Near Square

The body of a 26-year-old Cambridge woman has found last night after she had been raped and strangled in her apartment a few blocks from Harvard Square.

Beverly F. Samans, 26, a music teacher, apparently had not been seen since Sunday evening. She reportedly had been dead at least two days before her body was discovered about 8 p.m. yesterday in her first floor apartment at 4 University Road.

She had been strangled with a stocking. Her hands were tied behind her back with another stocking and puncture wounds covered her body, leading police to believe she may have been tortured before she was slain.

The woman, a graduate of the New England Conservatory, was studying for her M.Ed. at Boston University. She did volunteer work in hospitals--like most of the strangler's previous victims.

It was the ninth strangling to take place in the Metropolitan Boston area within 11 months.