Criminology - The Alphabet Murders

Episode Date: August 16, 2020

Between 1971 and 1973, Rochester, New York, was shocked to its core when three little girls were brutally raped and murdered. Residents there noted that the first name and surname of each girl started with the same initial, and the killings became known as "The Alphabet Murders" or "The Double Initial Murders." Join Mike and Morf as they discuss this case that has baffled the public and law enforcement for close to 50 years. Carmen Colon, Wanda Walkowicz, and Michelle Maenza were killed in the early 1970s but they have not been forgotten. The authorities have had a few suspects in the murders over the years but, so far, no one has paid for the deaths of these three little girls. Can police finally solve this case using new DNA technology? You can support the show at patreon.com/criminology An Emash Digital Production Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

If you love chilling mysteries, unsolved cases, and a touch of mom-style humor, moms and mysteries is the podcast you've been searching for. Hey guys, I'm Mandy. And I'm Melissa. Join us every Tuesday for moms and mysteries, your gateway to gripping, well-researched true crime stories. Each week, we deep dive into a variety of mind-boggling cases as we shed light on everything from heist to whodunit.

We're your go-to podcast for Mysteries with a Motherly Touch. Subscribe now to moms and mysteries wherever you get your podcast. Hey criminology podcast listeners. This is Patrick Hines from True Crime Obsessed Podcast. If you're looking for a new podcast to binge, let me tell you about my new show, Obsessed with Disappeared. It's a true crime comedy podcast hosted by me and my best friend of 20 years, Broadway diva Ellen Marsh.

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Criminology is a true crime podcast that may contain discussion about violent or disturbing topics. Listener discretion is advised. Hello everyone and welcome to episode 123 of the criminology podcast. I'm Mike Ferguson. And this is Mike Morford. Mr. Morford,

how are you doing? I'm doing good. I'm staying busy, staying out of trouble. How about you? Yeah. Same here. We're getting my daughter ready to go back to school.

so we're packing a lot of things up. I can't believe a year has gone by since she first went to college. And you remember me talking about how tough that was. I feel like it's going to be that way again because number one, she's leaving. But number two, because of COVID, she's been at home essentially this entire year. Yeah, the time really flies by. And especially when you've got kids getting older and going off and making you feel old. We're thinking about moving, so we're renovating our house a little bit, doing some painting, which I dread that.

But hey, you got to do it. Keep busy. You got to do it, man. That's the thing. You got to stay busy. You got to stay safe. All that good stuff. More if we continue to have some amazing Patreon support.

So let's give some shoutouts. We had Evan, Megan Atherton, Lacey Valentine, Monica Cates, Nell Murphy, Brandon Carroll, and Don a hill. So that's a lot of great new support. We really appreciate it. Yeah, every week when you read those names off, I'm amazed by how many people support the show. That means a lot. And if there's anyone out there that's thinking about supporting criminology on Patreon, you can do so by going to patreon.com slash criminology. And don't forget about Stitcher Premium. We still get a lot of emails and messages about our older episodes, namely the Zodiac, the Golden State Killer, Ted Bundy, you know, things like that. All of that's available on Stitcher Premium and they have a free 30 day trial

that many people take advantage of, used to get caught up. So it's out there, take advantage of it. All right, Morf, let's jump right in. Between 1971 and 1973, Rochester, New York was shocked to its core when three little girls were brutally raped and murdered. Residents there noticed that the first name and surname of each girl started with the same initial and the killings became known as the alphabet murders or the double initial murders. It's not known if the victims were chosen deliberately based on their initials or if it was some kind of coincidence. But I will say this. I think many people believe that's one heck of a coincidence that a killer just has a happened to pick victims whose first and last name started with the same letter.

Yeah, that's a really bizarre element to this case. The fact that there may be some connection, but what that connection is and how they might be able to find victims with the names like that is one of the pieces of the puzzle. Several suspects emerged, but the murders remain unsolved decades later. The killings began on one chilly afternoon in November 1971 with the murder of Carmen Colon. Carmen Colon was born in Puerto Rico in 1961 to Justin Eano and Giermina Cologne. Around 1966, the family moved to Rochester, New York. Sometime later, Carmen's parents divorced, and Carmen moved in with her grandparents,

Felix and Candida Cologne, at 746 Brown Street in Rochester. On Tuesday, November 16, 1971, Guillermo visited the Brown Street home and sent 10-year-old Carmen to Jack's drugstore to pick up a prescription for her. The pharmacy was only two blocks away. Some reports say it was actually her grandmother that sent Carmen to Jack's.

But either way, the little girl was excited to go to the store. Carmen was wearing a red cardigan sweater with a black collar, green pants, light blue socks, white sneakers, and a full-length red coat when she left the house. Carmen's grandfather, Felix, followed her down the street to see that she safely arrived at the pharmacy, and then he walked back home. Usually, an adult accompanied Carmen to the drugstore, but this was the first time she went alone. Carmen arrived at Jack's drugstore at approximately 4.30 p.m.

and handed the pharmacist her mother's prescription bottle and Medicaid card when the pharmacist, Jack Corbin told her it would take a while to fill the prescription, Carmen left the pill bottle, an insurance card on the counter, and left the store. One witness would later state that they saw Carmen getting into a car parked near the pharmacy, but no details have ever come out about the make, model, or color of this vehicle. When Carmen didn't return home, one of her uncles searched the neighborhood for her, but he didn't find her. At 7.50 p.m., the family reported her missing to the police. Two days later, at around 4.30 p.m. on November 18th, two teenage boys, 15-year-old Mark Allen of

Churchill, and 13-year-old James Gillen of Clifton, were riding their bicycles along Stern's Road, just south of Jenkins Road outside Churchville. That's when they found Carmen's body in a ditch uncovered. The boys initially thought it was a broken doll. As they looked closer, they knew that they were looking at a dead girl and raced to get help. Monroe County deputies arrived at the scene shortly after. Carmen was clad only in a purple sweater, blue socks, and white tennis shoes. The coat and pants she was wearing the days she disappeared were missing. There were marks near her throat, and Carmen had numerous fingernail scratches on her entire body.

Carmen's uncle's Angelo and Julio Cologne were called on to identify her body. Monroe County investigators searched the area into the night, but they didn't find any clues. During an extensive search in the days following, authorities found Carmen's coat, a short distance away from where the boys found her body. Her pants and underclothes, however, were missing. Dr. John Edlin, Monroe County Medical Examiner, performed the autopsy on Carmen. He determined that Carmen had suffered a skull fracture. and died from manual strangulation. The killer was facing Carmen when he strangled her.

She had also been raped. Investigators said she was raped and killed at another location. Somewhere other than where her body was ultimately found, the attack on the little girl was an extremely brutal one. And news of Carmen's murder began to spread throughout Rochester. The day after Carmen's body was. found. Three male witnesses came forward to share a frightening story. They told authorities they each had seen a young girl matching Carmen's description, running half-naked on Interstate 490 West,

which was also called the Western Expressway. The location is about a mile or two east of the Churchville exit in the town of Riga. The sighting occurred during rush hour at approximately 5.30 p.m. on November 16th, about one hour after Carmen left the pharmacy. The girl was nude from the waist down and frantically waving her arms at vehicles as if signaling for help. She was carrying a pair of green pants in one hand. One of the witnesses saw a car, believed to be a dark Ford Pino hatchback, reversing toward the little girl. Sadly, and shockingly, not a single person stopped to help the little girl, and it's presumed

that she was taken away by the driver of the car that was seen backing up towards her. The location where the witnesses saw this incident is only a few miles from where Carmen body was found. Authorities believed that she was murdered soon after the sighting took place. The witnesses later said that they failed to help because they drove by at such high speeds. They just couldn't stop in time. And some others felt that another driver behind them would stop and helped a little girl. But no one did.

When one of the witnesses a few days later found out that a body had, been found. He knew right away that it was the girl he had seen running on the highway and he regretted his decision to keep driving. Witnesses didn't want their names revealed for fear of backlash from the community. And more if I think this is, you know, one, just one part of the story that jumped out to both you and I. You know, you have a number of people. This is not just one person driving by. This is a number of motorists driving by seeing a half naked little girl. And we're talking little girl. There's no way that this girl could have been mistaken for anything other than a child.

She needs help. She's waving. She's trying to signal people and no one stops. Now, obviously, these people later on are going to regret that decision. I get that in certain situations you're driving down the highway and okay, somebody has a flat tire. Do you stop? Do you not stop? You have to make that decision based on safety, based on does the person have a cell phone in their hand? To me, that's a completely different decision than seeing a very young girl half naked running for her life. I know you and I have talked a lot about cases in which witnesses see people, women, a lot of times, grown women sometimes, that are asking for help, running, screaming, and we're always perplexed as to why no one stops and offers to help them.

And here, this is the same thing only with a child. That's, I think everyone would try and go out of their way to help a child in distress like that. And obviously we can't go back in time and put a cell phone in one of those drivers' hands because they didn't exist back then. But I think at the very least, today I would hope that anyone that saw someone like that would at the very least call 911 and say I just passed this area and there was a little girl running for help, even if they didn't stop. At least you'd have that kind of way to alert someone. Well, to me, that's the very least. I just can't imagine myself passing this little girl and saying, ah,

somebody else will help her. Or I'll call. I'll call as we keep going. I mean, that's very tough for me to think that, that I would do that. I get that there are other situations that may be dangerous. People have to take their,

their own safety into account. I don't know. I don't know more. If this one just really struck me as tough. because there were a number of people that could have potentially saved this girl's life. Residents of Rochester and Beyond were enraged after discovering that at least 100 motorists, including the three witnesses who had come forward, saw Carmen running and pleading for help on the highway. Not one motorist stopped the helper.

Cliff Carpenter wrote in the Democrat and Chronicle Rochester's newspaper that, quote, it would have been fundamental involvement, personal involvement, if a motorist had stopped, even in packed and fast-moving traffic to find out why a naked little girl is running along a roadside. But nobody did. Police hoped others would come forward with information, particularly with a description of the car seen going in reverse towards Carmen. But no one else came forward. And I think Cliff Carpenter hit it, you know, right on the head.

Exactly what you and I just talked about. After Carmen Colon's murder, the Gannett-Rochester newspaper put up a secret witness hotline for people to call in tips or they could send them in through the U.S. mail. Several calls and letters came in very quickly. The Monroe County Sheriff's Department also received more than 200 calls. Within days after Carmen's body was found, one witness said that he saw a small girl, being grabbed by the arm and forced into a car without a very big struggle, but the description of the car and of the driver were very vague.

Police later revealed that on November 21, 1971, two days after Carmen's body was found, a note written in pencil was found on a men's bathroom door on the sixth floor of a downtown Rochester building. The note read, I killed a 10-year-old girl, who will be next? No further information about the note was released by police. On November 29th, a farmer found Carmen's green pants crumpled and frozen in a Riga field, about 200 feet from Route 490 West. This was near a rest area, a mile east of Churchill.

The discovery of the pants confirmed the police that it was Carmen Cologne running on the highway and that her killer was driving the car scene reversing towards her. Her underclothes have never been found. In early March 1972, a group called the Citizens for a Decent Community had five large billboards erected alongside major expressways in the Rochester area. Each billboard measured 30 feet by 12 feet and asked the simple question, do you know who killed Carmen Colon? Each billboard contained an eight feet high photo of Carmen, and it offered a $6,000 reward and gave the

secret witness hotline phone number and postal address. The Rochester Outdoor Advertising Company donated the use of the billboards for a month in Carmen's case. But the billboards didn't lead to any breaks in the case. And eventually, the shock and horror of. of Carmen Colon's murder faded, sadly, as it does in just about every case that we talk about. More if I mean, you know, eventually an unsolved case is going to go cold. You can't have that same momentum that you have in the beginning of the case.

You just can't carry it on forever. It's not possible. But just 15 months after Carmen was killed, the Rochester community suffered another tragedy. That's when a young girl named Wanda Walkowitz was murdered. Wanda Wachowitz was born in Rochester on August 4, 1961, to Richard and Joyce Walkowitz. In 1967, her father passed away at the age of 30 from a heart attack, leaving Joyce to raise Wanda and her two sisters, Rita and Michelle, on her own. Wanda was a happy, freckled-faced, blue-eyed redhead, who was described as relatively intelligent, and she liked to take charge.

She was a leader, not a follower, according to her friends. 11-year-old Wanda and her sisters lived with her mother, Joyce, and her common-law husband, Peyton Rainey Jr., at 132.5 Avenue D. in Rochester. On Monday, April 2, 1973, Joyce sent Wanda to the Hillside Delicatessen at 2.13 Conkey Avenue. This wasn't far from her home. Wanda purchased a bag of groceries that contained dog and cat food, tuna fish, two quarts of milk, bread, cupcakes, soup, and a package of pamper's for her youngest sister, two-year-old Michelle.

When Wanda left the deli, she walked north towards her home, a few people in the neighborhood saw Wanda struggling to carry this bag of groceries. Three of Wanda's classmates saw her, bracing the grocery bag against a fence in order to improve her grip. As she did this, a brown car drove past her. Wanda's 10-year-old sister Rita went to the deli around 6.45 p.m. Because Wanda had not returned home. Rita bought more groceries and charged them to her mother's account.

But she didn't see Wanda in the store. And when she got home, Rita told her mom that there had been, no sight of Wanda. Joyce became worried about her daughter and headed to the deli, arriving there at 8 p.m. Joyce saw no sign of Wanda. And that's when she nervously called police at 815 to report her daughter missing. Joyce became so hysterical about Wanda being missing that later that same evening, she was treated for shock at Rochester General Hospital.

While Joyce was being treated, the police were looking for her daughter. They went to the deli to ask questions about Wanda, and they searched the railroad tracks, Conkey Avenue, Avenues A, B, C&D, Harris Street, and small alleys that ran between houses. They found no sign of Wanda or the bag of groceries she had been seen carrying. The following day at 10.15 a.m., Wanda's body was found near the Webster side of Iron Decoit Bridge, close to a rest area access road off Route 104. It appeared the killer had tossed her body out of the car as he drove by. Wanda's clothes were intact.

There were marks on her neck and body that indicated she had struggled with her attacker. An autopsy later revealed she had been raped and strangled to death from behind with a ligature, most likely a belt. The killer had redressed Wanda before he dumped her body. After finding out her daughter had been brutally murdered, Joyce Walkowitz was treated again at the hospital for shock. Investigators found out that a few days before her murder, a man followed Wanda. In the suburbs of D.C., a woman fails to show up for work and is found brutally murdered.

I wonder what's emergency? We just walked in the door and there's blood in the foyer. For the next two decades, the case remained unsolved until new technology allowed investigators to do what had once been impossible. A new series from ABC Audio in 2020. blood and water. Listen now, wherever you get your podcasts. And her friend on foot, while the pair was out walking near railroad tracks that ran parallel with Conky Avenue, when the girls told their parents, the incident was reported to the police. Unfortunately, the girls didn't get a good look at the man because he hid behind a bush

when they spotted him. The police didn't know if the man was connected to Wanda's murder, but they could not rule out his possible involvement. If you love chilling mysteries, unsolved cases, and a touch of mom-style humor, Moms and Mysteries is the podcast you've been searching for. Hey guys, I'm Mandy. And I'm Melissa. Join us every Tuesday for Moms and Mysteries, your gateway to gripping, well-researched true crime stories.

Each week, we deep dive into a variety of mind-boggling cases as we shed light on everything from Heist to Who Donuts, where you're a go-to podcast for Mysteries with The Motherly Touch. Subscribe now to Moms and Mysteries wherever you get your podcast. Detectives noticed similarities between Wanda's murder and Carmen Cologne's, but doubted there was a connection. Like in Carmen's case, a secret witness hotline was set up for tips, and soon they began rolling in. The first three days after her murder, investigators received about 300 telephone tips. A few of them seemed promising. One witness told detectives that he had seen a child standing alongside the door of a large brown vehicle, talking with the driver.

The witness couldn't see the man's face, but the sighting took place near Wanda's home, and shortly after she left the deli. Another witness who contacted the hotline told authorities, she had observed the man forcing a red-haired girl matching Wanda's description into a light-colored dodged dart on Conkey Avenue, between 5.30 and 6 p.m. This was on April 2nd, the evening of Wanda's disappearance. investigators desperate to nab a child killer arrested a suspect a few days after Wanda's murder. He had been charged with endangering the welfare of a child in a separate incident the year before.

The problem was that there was no evidence linking this man to Wanda's murder and he was pretty quickly released. Time passed, tips dwindled, but the investigation continued. A $9,591 reward was offered for any information leading to the conviction of Wanda's killer. The Rochester community was devastated to lose a second child in such a brutal and shocking way, and parents began to wonder whether or not a dangerous predator was living among them. In July 1973, Wanda's mother, Joyce Walkowitz, gave an interview with the Democrat and Chronicle. Joyce disclosed that she was smoking three packs of cigarettes a day to help her cope with a considerable loss and to calm her shaking hands.

She had dropped 12 pounds and took medication at night to help her sleep and to alleviate the nightmares that came when she was able to sleep. Joyce was convinced that Wanda would not have gotten into a car with a stranger. Joyce discussed the autopsy findings in Wanda's case, saying that Wanda had died within two hours of her last meal. But Joyce said Wanda could never eat. eat when she was upset because of a nervous stomach condition she had. So Joyce believed Wanda might have known her killer and that perhaps she wasn't upset and willingly ate food. Because of this

detail, Joyce became suspicious of everyone, including people she and Wanda personally knew. Joyce still had two children to take care of and knew she had to focus on them and a future without Wanda. But it wasn't easy for her. A few months after Wanda Walkowitz's murder, tragedy struck Rochester again. This time the young victim was an 11-year-old girl named Michelle Mayenza. Michelle Mayenza was born on November 28, 1961, to Christopher and Carolyn Mayenza. The family resided in Rochester, New York. Michelle had two younger sisters, Marie and Christine, and two older brothers, Angelo and Stephen. By September 1973, Michelle's parents had divorced. Michelle's parents had divorced. divorced and she lived with her mother and siblings on a dead-in road at 25 Webster Crescent in

Rochester. That month, Michelle entered School 33 at 500 Webster Avenue after attending Corpus Christi School the previous year. A teacher named Sheldon Sherry described Michelle as an average student and a friendly girl. On Monday, November 26, 1973, Michelle arrived at school. crying. By the time she entered Mr. Sherry's classroom at 9 a.m., she appeared fine. She told her teacher she didn't want to go to school that day because some of her classmates had been bullying her and calling her names. But after a few minutes, Michelle seemed better. When the school day ended at 3 p.m., there was no one waiting to pick Michelle up. Usually, her mother would meet Michelle and her sister, eight-year-old Marie, to take them home. Carolyn Manza was at the school that day, but she was there to pick up

a neighbor's child she had been babysitting. When Marie saw her mom in school picking up this child, she decided to leave with them. Michelle walked home, a distance of roughly half a mile. Along the way, she planned to stop at a nearby shopping center on North Goodman Street to retrieve her purse. Her mom had left there earlier that day. When Michelle failed to return home from school, Carolyn reported her missing to the police. More than 40 city police officers joined in the search for Michelle. They put out Michelle's description as white 5 foot 1, 120 pounds, with collar-length dark brown hair and hazel eyes. Michelle's uncle came forward to say that he had seen her near the shopping center on North Goodman Street and offered her a ride home, but she declined. Her classmates also reported

that they saw Michelle walking alone near Webster Avenue and Ackerman Street between 320 and 3.30 p.m. This was just a few blocks from her home. Michelle was last seen wearing a three-quarter-length purple hooded coat with silver trim, purple slacks with a zigzag pattern, and knee-high black boots. Through the investigation, detectives found a witness who saw Michelle sitting in the front seat of a car on Webster Avenue and Ackerman Street at 3.30 p.m. This would have been just minutes after her classmates spotted her. her, the car was traveling at a high rate of speed, and Michelle appeared to be crying.

About an hour later at 4.30 p.m., a woman was sitting in her car at a burger restaurant called carols, listening to the end of a song on the radio. The witness saw Michelle sitting in the car next to her. A few minutes later, a man with dirty hands returned to the car with a bag of food and a drink. The woman didn't see any signs of trouble and didn't pay too much attention to the man and the young girl parked next to her. She also didn't pay special attention to the car that they were in. At 5.30 p.m., a man was driving on Route 3.50 and Walworth. When he saw a man on the side of the road standing next to a large beige or tan vehicle with its trunk open, he thought the man had a flat tire, so he pulled up next to the car to offer assistance. The man next to the car was holding on to the

wrist of a little girl who looked like Michelle Mayanza. The witness rolled down his window to offer help, but the man gave a menacing look and gesture and pushed the girl behind him and in front of the car's license plates. The man's behavior scared the witness so he drove off. Investigators believe that this witness saw Michelle on her abductor. On November 28th, two days after Michelle was last seen, Eugene Vandalal, fire chief of the Walworth Volunteer Fire Department, found Michelle's body at 10.30 a.m., Michelle was lying face down in a ditch along Eddie Road, about 70 yards east of Mill Road, and about three-tenths of a mile west of Walworth Palmyra Road in Macedon.

The location is about 18 miles from Michelle's home and less than a mile from the siding on Route 350. Michelle was fully clothed. Investigators found her coat less than a mile from where her. her body was found, Michelle's body had marks on her arm, face, and neck. An autopsy showed she had been raped and strangled from behind with a ligature. It also revealed that Michelle's stomach contents contained hamburger and onions, corroborating the burger restaurant witnesses account.

Dr. Edlin could not pinpoint the time of death, but said, changes in the body indicated death could have occurred on the day Michelle disappeared. The police believed immediately that Michelle's killer was the same as Wanda Wachowitz's because of the similarities. Shortly after Michelle's killing, authorities released a composite sketch of the individual seen with the girl on Route 350. The witness worked with the artist through several drawings until he was satisfied that the sketch resembled the man he had seen. Rochester investigators were not convinced that Carmen Cologne's killer was the same person who killed Wanda and Michelle. Carmen was manually strangled from the front, whereas the other two girls were strangled from behind with the ligature.

In the other two cases, the killer had fed the victims, but Carmen had not been fed. Furthermore, white cat hair was found on Wanda and Michelle's bodies, but not on Carmen's. Despite some differences, all three of these murders share. strong similarities. The victims were around the same age and disappeared around the same time a day. They were all raped and strangled. The bodies were all found alongside rural roads. All three girls were walking alone and running errands when they disappeared. And as we've talked about, each victim's last name shared the same initial as her first name, Carmen Cologne, Wanda Walkowitz and Michelle Manza.

Each girl had learning difficulties and each was Roman Catholic. It's also worth noting that each victim was found near a town that began with their initial. Carmen was found near Churchville. Wanda was found near Webster and Michelle was found near Macedon. Investigators were left to sift through what might be co-winded, incidents and what might be a real connection. Because of the double initials in the victim's names, the killings became known as the alphabet murders and the double initial murders. Unfortunately, there have only been a few suspects in the murders. In March 1972,

Rochester investigators traveled to Puerto Rico to interview one man in particular after an organization called Citizens for a Decent Community received a Tip from New York City. informant. The man mysteriously left Rochester shortly after Carmen Colon's murder and reportedly fled to Puerto Rico. He also had a criminal record. When Rochester detectives arrived in San Juan, the man couldn't be found. After they returned to Rochester, the man voluntarily spoke with detectives. It turned out that the man never went to Puerto Rico. He was actually in New York City in Syracuse, and police were able to confirm this. He also voluntarily took and passed a lie detector test and was ruled out as a suspect in the murder. Investigators didn't release the man's identity at the time, but we now know it to be

Carmen's uncle, Miguel Cologne, her father's brother. Just weeks before Carmen's murder, Miguel purchased a car that closely matched the vehicle seen by eyewitnesses on Interstate 490 West, reversing in pursuit of Carmen as she ran half-naked, seeking help. A few sources reported, that investigators had searched Miguel's vehicle after Carmen's murder and found that someone had extensively cleaned the exterior and interior of the car. The trunk had also been washed with a potent cleaning solution. Investigators questioned employees at the dealership. Where Miguel had purchased the vehicle, they said it had not been cleaned with detergent before it was bought. Some sources say that one of Carmen's dolls was found in Miguel's car, but relatives said she often rode in this car.

While Miguel peaked some people's interests, as we mentioned earlier, authorities ruled him out after confirming his whereabouts and giving him a lie to dexter test. The Cologne family has always believed in Miguel's innocence. Unfortunately, in Puerto Rico in 1991, Miguel took his own life in front of police after he shot and wounded his wife and brother. He was 44 years old. So I mentioned it more if, you know, this guy Miguel Colon, he ticks a lot of the boxes for many people as a potential suspect. Okay, authorities ruled him out. But, you know, let's break that down. What was that based on?

My understanding is that it was based on the fact that, you know, at first they thought he had fled to Puerto Rico. They confirmed he didn't. They gave him a lie detector test. He passed. We've talked about this before. In the 1970s, lie detector tests meant a heck of a lot more than they do today. So, you know, I'm looking at those two things and thinking pretty tough to rule somebody

out just based on those two things. Yeah, it really comes down to physical evidence. Science as far as fingerprints, palm prints, DNA. Of course, they didn't know about DNA back then. But short of something like that, definitely eliminating someone, I'm a little bit skeptical about how they conclusively ruled him out. And I think there are still a lot of people that suspect he may have been involved. Well, that's what I was going to say. It's not just you and I that are skeptical that of how he was ruled out or whether or not he should have been ruled out, there are a lot of people that believe to this day that he may have had something to do with Carmen's murder.

Now, the family doesn't, right? We said that. They have always believed in Miguel's innocence. You know, it's just one of those things where it's hard to fully understand how he was taken out of the person of interest category, just based on the information that we had. And we mentioned earlier, too, that the police weren't entirely sold

on Carmen's killer being the same as Wonders or Michelle's. So you have to wonder if that's a possibility here, whether if he was the killer, he could have only killed his niece, but not the other two. On January 1st, 1974, just over a month after the last number, an alphabet or double initial murder.

25-year-old Rochester firefighter Dennis Termini attempted to rape a teenage girl in a garage. Police intervened and he ran. Cops chased him over fences and down the street. When they closed in on him, Termini pulled out a 45 semi-automatic pistol, put it to his head, and shot himself. Investigators learned he had raped another teenager in a garage. Both victims were older than Carmen Wanda and Michelle. However, Termini's car matched the description of vehicles seen in the younger girls' abductions.

In 2007, officials exhumed Termini's body and extracted samples for DNA testing, but they didn't match the evidence found in the double initial murders. Another suspect is Hillside Strangler Kenneth Bianchi. He's been a suspect since 1980. Bianchi has denied involvement in these murders, and he's tried to clear his name a number of of times in the double initial murders. According to the March 2nd, 2009 issue of the Democrat and Chronicle, Bianchi wrote several letters to Rochester authorities and reporters asking that he no longer be referred to as a suspect. Bianchi, who is now 69 years old, became a suspect

because he lived in Rochester in the 1970s and worked as a security guard. Investigators thought it might have been possible that he used his uniform to lure the girls into his car. Bianchi provided evidence to Rochester authorities to prove his innocence and exclude himself as a suspect. He submitted an imprint of his wrist to compare with a partial wrist print found on one of the victims' necks. It didn't match.

Authorities had access to his suspect. DNA profile and determined it did not match physical evidence from one of the killings. Regardless, they said they could not completely rule him out until they were sure someone else committed the murders. Bianchi is incarcerated at Washington State Penitentiary. In the late 1970s, Bianchi and his cousin, Angelo Boono Jr. went on a killing spree in Southern California, raping, torturing, and killing 12 young women. Boono died from a heart attack in 2002 while serving to his death. time at a state prison in California.

The last possible suspect that we're going to talk about was responsible for a series of murders on the West Coast that are eerily similar to the Rochester alphabet murders. In 2011, Reno Nevada authorities arrested 77-year-old Joseph Nassau and charged him with four California murders. He had lived in Rochester, New York in the 1960s. and traveled back there in the early 70s. He committed the California murders between 1977 and 1993. His first victim was Roxene Rogash, who was 18 years old.

Her body was found in Fairfax in Marin County in January, 1977. The second victim was 22-year-old Carmen Colon, the same name as one of the Rochester victims. Her body was found in August 1978 near Port Costa in Contra Costa County. Nesa's third and fourth victims were 38-year-old Pamela Parsons and 31-year-old Tracy Tofoya. Pamela was found dead in Yuba County in September 1993, and Tracy was found dead in August 1994 in Yuba County. Most of Nasa's

victims were known to be sex workers, but because his victims first and last name shared the same initial, Rochester authorities thought he might have been the Rochester double initial killer. However, they found no evidence linking him to the slings in Rochester. Furthermore, Neso had kept the dire of his crimes, and there's no mention of any interaction with the Rochester girls. Nassau is also suspected in the murders of 56-year-old Sharia Patton in 1981 and 31-year-old Sarah Dillon in May 1992. He hasn't been charged in those murders. We reached out to Paul Holes who played a big part in the Contra Costa County case against Joseph Neso,

and he confirmed for us that DNA from Neso did not match DNA from the Rochester crimes. The only physical evidence from the Rochester murders that exist today are semen samples, recovered from Wanda Walkowitz's body. Seamen samples recovered from both Carmen and Michelle have since been lost or destroyed So those samples can't provide any answers. Hopefully the evidence that is left will lead to the killer of these young girls being identified. Perhaps investigators can go the DNA genealogy route and have that lead back to the killer. All three girls are buried in holy sepulture cemetery in Rochester.

Hundreds of mortars attended their funerals. In December 1995, Carmen Clones, mother gave her first interview with the Democrat Chronicle. At the time, Carmen had been gone for 24 years, but the pain of losing her little girl continued to grip her. She said, quote, that pain hasn't stopped. Carmen would be 34 this year. I still feel that pain of my daughter gone. The grief-stricken mother went on to say that she had lived in poverty her entire life, but if she had one wish, it would be to see Carmen's killer arrested. She said, If I could die knowing who did this to my Carmen Sita, I could die more peacefully than I have lived.

Wanda's mother, Joyce Walkowitz, passed away in 2003, never seen justice for her little girl. There have been a number of books written on the alphabet murders. The killings were also featured on a Discovery Channel production in 2001. So, Morf, no doubt, this is a case that has baffled people for our own. almost 50 years. And we talked about DNA. We kind of saved it towards the end of the episode, but there was evidence collected from each of the girls, evidence that could have led to the development of a DNA profile. My understanding, Morf, is that they really only have the semen that was collected from Wanda's body. So obviously, they would have already developed

a DNA profile from that. It was very difficult to figure out when they lost the samples from Carmen and Michelle or when they were destroyed. So I don't know if they developed a DNA profile before it happened, but it doesn't seem like they did from the research. One scary takeaway I have from this entire case is just how hell bent this killer or killers was to attack these little girls. Because in one case you have hundreds of motors passing by his little girl is running half naked down the street and here's this car backing up to her he's so intent on taking her that he doesn't care that all these people are seeing this and in the other instance they're at a burger joint and later there's a he's pulled off the side of the road a car pulls up to him and you know you think at that time

he might be scared off by a potential witness but no he just the guy drives off and he takes the girl and kills her anyway. And that's, that's, to me, what's scariest about this case is the killer or killers were that intent on doing the evil stuff that they carried out. So let's just assume that all three of these young girls were killed by the same person. It does seem as though this person was very brazen. Like you said, almost as if they weren't worried about any consequences or they were just so intent, and I'll use the word that you did, on pursuing their victims,

moving forward with their plan that they just didn't care about what was going on around them. I just go back morph to the coincidences. I just can't imagine that these are coincidences. All three of these girls have the same letter for the, their first and last name. All three girls are found in or near a city that starts with the same letter as their names. That cannot be a coincidence. And if you're right, that's very scary because that means someone spent a lot of time planning and stalking potential victims to fit this criteria. Yeah. And I think it's why, you know, they really looked at the crimes of Joseph Nassau because it does seem like he did something similar.

But unlike some old unsolved that we do, investigators have DNA. So, you know, this is a case that could be solved. Absolutely. Now, can they tie the killer to all three or just to Wanda?

I think that will be a question that comes up. If down the road they get a match or, or maybe, use the genealogy route to whittle things down to the killer. You know, that would be very interesting to see how all of that plays out. And one big glaring question is if they haven't done this already or aren't trying to do this genealogy, why not? If I was the family members of these three little girls, I'd want them to pull out all the

stops that they could to try and find out who did this. Thanks goes out to Debbie Buck. TruecrimeDiva.com for writing and research assistance in this episode. If you love the show and you haven't done so yet, take a minute, go out, give us a five-star rating. Keep telling your friends that word of mouth about the podcast goes a long way. If you want to find us on social media, we're on Twitter with the handle at Criminology Pod. You can also find us on Facebook by searching for Criminology Podcast or by joining our Facebook discussion group, which is Criminology Podcast Discussion and Fans.

So that's it for another episode of criminology. But we'll be back with all of you next Saturday night with a brand new episode. So for Mike and Morph. We'll talk to you next week. Take care, everyone.