Killer Stories with Harvey Guillén - “The Bike Path Killer” Altemio Sanchez Pt. 1

Episode Date: June 14, 2021

An elusive rapist stalked areas around Buffalo, New York, for decades beginning in the late 1970s. When he moved to a city once dubbed the “Safest City in America,” he began using his signature we...apon to not just subdue… but to kill.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Starting point is 00:00:00 Due to the graphic nature of this killer's crimes, listener discretion is advised. This episode includes discussions of murder, assault, sexual assault, and rape that some people may find offensive. We advise extreme caution for children under 13. Just past noon on September 29, 1990, 22-year-old Linda Yaelan exited her dorm room in the Richmond Quad on the University at Buffalo campus. Linda set her run that day to what tears for fear. cassette, she stepped into the warm autumn sun and headed north along the Ellicott Creek bike path. The narrow path was framed by the familiar dense hardwood forest to Linda's right and the gently flowing creek on her left. She was almost at the footbridge, so close to the overpass,
Starting point is 00:00:57 that she could see the traffic on Interstate 990. Linda pushed herself hard. Her mind was on the New York City Marathon just a few weeks away. Her white, new-balanced sneakers slapped the asphalt with each step as her walkman pushed her on with the rhythm of some 80's new wave pop. Her eyes remained focused on the path ahead, keeping pace with the music. Then, as Linda passed a stand of trees to her right, something flashed past her face. It happened so quickly it might have been mistaken for a swinging headphone cord or a length of her Auburn hair. But it was a rope. which tightened around her neck.
Starting point is 00:01:40 Panic flushed Linda's face as her attacker dragged her down a grassy embankment just east of the creek. Her tears for fears casette kept playing as the ligature tightened around her windpipe. Her eyes darted up to the sky as she drifted in and out of consciousness. She was within walking distance
Starting point is 00:02:01 from the second biggest college in New York State, but no one could hear her muffled screams. Hi, I'm Greg Paulson. This is Serial Killers, a Spotify original from Parcast. Every week we dive into the minds and madness of serial killers. This week, we're covering Altimio Sanchez,
Starting point is 00:02:33 the bike path killer of Buffalo, New York. I'm here with my co-host, Vanessa Richardson. Hi, everyone. You can find episodes of serial killers and all other Spotify originals from Parcast for free on Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcast. Today, we'll discuss Altimio Sanchez's childhood and his family trauma. We'll also explore how the elusive bike path rapist carried out his attacks on women across
Starting point is 00:02:57 Western New York for decades. Next time, we'll see how Altimio became a serial murderer. We'll also dive into the fumbled investigation that left an innocent man incarcerated for Altimio's crimes for over 20 years. We've got all that and more coming up. Stay with us. This episode is brought to you by ZipRecruiter. Whether you're hiring for a role or searching for a killer, the hunt can be exhausting.
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Starting point is 00:04:33 Meet your match on ZipRecruiter. This episode is brought to you by Shopify. Bonnie and Clyde, the Lonely Hearts Killers, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. These are infamous criminal duels. But you don't need to break any laws to find your perfect business partner because you have Shopify.
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Starting point is 00:05:36 celebrating its 40th anniversary. You in? Must be 21 to enter. Whenever we hear about a serial criminal living a double life, the first question that often comes to mind is, how did no one else notice what they were doing? In many cases, to their friends and their family, they seemed so normal. Sometimes they embody a lie so deeply they can even manage to fool the police, and perhaps they start to fool themselves in the process,
Starting point is 00:06:09 believing the lies that shape their own inner world. For these kinds of killers, it all comes down to control. They control their image, what information others are aware of, including who does or doesn't witness displays of anger. That need for situational control often stems from feeling powerless in their own lives. It can typically be traced back to some early in life resentment, feeling as though they themselves are at the mercy of someone else. In the case of Altimio Sanchez, his very existence was in the hands of his mother.
Starting point is 00:06:46 Altimio was born in San Sebastian, Puerto Rico, in January of 1958. His parents, Lucy Caraballo and Altimio Sanchez Sr., already had three children, an older brother and two sisters. Not much is known about Altimio's childhood in Puerto Rico, but by the early 1960s, his parents were having marital troubles. His father left the family when Altimio was two years old, and his mother moved the children to Miami, Florida. After an unknown period in Miami, they landed in North Collins, New York,
Starting point is 00:07:19 before putting down roots on the west side of Buffalo in the mid-1960s. When he was around 12 years old, his mother began seeing a string of boyfriends. One of them was physically abusive towards his mother. Altimio has been hazy about the details, but he claims that his mother's boyfriend also abused him. It's not clear how long that persisted or whether his mother knew, but the experience left Altimio extremely traumatized. Vanessa is going to take over on the psychology here and throughout the episode.
Starting point is 00:07:53 As a note, Vanessa is not a licensed psychologist or a psychiatrist, but she has done a lot of research for this show. Thanks, Greg. According to a study by psychologist Kathy Whittem, being abused or neglected as a child can increase a person's risk of adolescent criminality by 53%. That study went on to conclude that those childhood factors can increase the probability of being arrested for a, violent crime in adulthood by a factor of 38%. In Altimio's case, he experienced both neglect and abuse. On top of that, Altimio claimed to have received some shocking news during his middle school years that would forever alter his relationship with women.
Starting point is 00:08:36 His mother, the primary constant throughout his shaken up childhood and adolescence, had tried to have him aborted. Lucy Carabayo was already a mother when she learned that she was pregnant with Altimio, Allegedly, she decided that she couldn't raise another child and sought out ways to terminate the pregnancy. However, in 1950s, Puerto Rico, her options were limited. Lucy was able to procure a combination of medications that were supposed to induce a miscarriage. She took the pills, but nine months later, she still gave birth to Altimio. This revelation proved to be a major turning point in young Altimio's life.
Starting point is 00:09:22 years later he would reflect on the day he learned what his mother had done. He said, sometimes that triggers me, thinking what she said, but I told her, I'm fine, mother. But Altimio wasn't fine. After learning this, he interpreted it to mean his mother hadn't wanted him to be born. Many people find out that their parents considered having an abortion, but individuals can still manage to find joy and purpose in their lives and build healthy relationships with their parents. But for Altimio, he seems to have internalized the attempted abortion as a sort of betrayal.
Starting point is 00:09:59 Even though his siblings went on to live normal, healthy lives, Altimio struggled to cope with his circumstances. By some accounts, his mother had her own battles with alcoholism, and from time to time, she would drunkenly remind her son that she had tried to have him aborted. This experience may have inhibited his ability to connect with women. In fact, he claims that he claims that. for most of his early adulthood, he couldn't even talk to women. And given his already fraught relationship with Lucy, it's possible that seeing how she interacted with her abusive boyfriend
Starting point is 00:10:33 gave him a skewed impression of how men and women relate to one another. In looking at Altimio's history, forensic psychologist Dr. Lewis Schlesinger suggests that watching his mother endure abuse from her boyfriend desensitized Altimio to violence. Over time, his developing brain began to identify with the aggressive father figure over his own mother who hadn't wanted him, increasing the likelihood that Altimio would one day model his own behavior on those experiences. All of that isolation and anger would come to a boiling point when Altimio left home and started attending Buffalo State College in 1978. Even away from his mother's influence, he wasn't a very social guy. He played baseball, but otherwise mostly kept to himself. That didn't stop him from finding
Starting point is 00:11:26 love, though. Not long into his time at school, he met another student named Kathleen, the first and only woman he ever dated. Altimio met Kathleen on campus after she expressed interest in him. He was too unsure of himself to ever approach women. But when Kathleen's friend told Altimio that Kathleen was interested in him, he must have felt confident enough to pursue the relationship. It seems that Kathleen became his new priority, and he dropped out of school around the time she got pregnant. Then on July 5th, 1980, 22-year-old Altimio Sanchez married Kathleen. The couple's first son, Christopher, was born that October, and they moved to an apartment near the Buffalo State College campus. Around this time, Altimio's anger issues intensified. He'd managed to contain himself for years,
Starting point is 00:12:19 but now his violent, aggressive fantasies were spiraling out of control. He attacked several women, holding them down and grinding against them. It was his first brush with sexual assault, and it seemed to give him a temporary feeling of power over women. He didn't know how to control his impulses, but he never sought out professional help either. Instead, the violent nature of his aggressive attacks continued to intensify,
Starting point is 00:12:47 and he didn't tell anyone about his issues, including his wife, who was four months pregnant with their second son. Kathleen never saw this side of Altimio. he only took out his anger on women he didn't know. Eventually, something darker awakened in Altimio. Sexual assault stopped giving him satisfaction, and he decided to escalate his attacks to rape. On April 14, 1981, Altimio left his pregnant wife at home
Starting point is 00:13:17 and when prowling for a victim in a place that felt extremely familiar and comfortable to him. Delaware Park. The 350-acre recreation area covers a subspecific. part of Buffalo's west side, with much of the park ringed by an expansive walking path. It's just a short walk from the nearby Buffalo State College campus. This makes it a popular place for college students to exercise and relax. It's also close enough to campus that many students feel safe there. So as a former Buffalo State student himself, Altimio would have understood that feeling of security, and he wanted to exploit it.
Starting point is 00:13:55 That morning, he posed as a jogger in Deliore. Delaware Park, eyes scanning for the perfect victim. Around 945, he noticed a 21-year-old woman will call Beverly. Beverly was a student from the nearby college, and when she crossed Altimio's path, he reached out and grabbed hold of her collar. She fought back until he threatened her with a small knife, promising he would cut her if she resisted. Then he dragged her by the collar to a secluded spot surrounded by bushes and raped her. After he was done, he instructed Beverly to stay in the ground while he fled. When she felt it was safe, she left the park and reported the attack to police,
Starting point is 00:14:42 but there was little for them to go on. However, three days later, Beverly went to the Boulevard Mall in the nearby suburb of Amherst with her sister. It was the first time she left her home since the attack. While walking around the mall, trying to do that, distract herself from what had happened. She was stopped dead in her tracks. Amid the crowd of shoppers, she found herself face to face with her rapist. Altimio was holding hands with a woman, Kathleen, and walking with their baby. Beverly and Altimio briefly locked eyes, and in that moment,
Starting point is 00:15:20 they both recognized each other. In a visible panic, Elteamio suddenly rushed his pregnant wife and their son to their car in the parking lot. Beverly grabbed your sister's arm and cried out. That's him. That's the man who raped me. The two sisters followed after the Sanchez family. They couldn't make contact with Altimio before he fled the parking lot, but they did manage to write down the license plate on the car he was driving, a blue 1975 Oldsmobile.
Starting point is 00:15:54 Armed with this new information, the young women called the police from a payphone at the The cops dutifully followed up on the report and tracked the license plate. It belonged to a man living on Prospect Avenue on Buffalo's Lower West Side, just three miles from Delaware Park. But the man who owned the car and lived at the registered address wasn't who Beverly described. This was Wilfredo Carabayo. Carabayo was confused when police showed up to question him, and he had an alibi for the time of Beverly's rape. The car was registered in his name, he explained, but the auto insurance policy had expired several months earlier, and it hadn't been driven since then. It was puzzling, but Carabayo was cooperative with police, even letting them take his photograph for Beverly to review.
Starting point is 00:16:44 However, she quickly ruled out Carabayo as a suspect, and the case went cold. But what no one else knew was that Wilfredo Carabio knew exactly who the police were looking for. Someone had driven the Oldsmobile that day. His nephew, Altimio Sanchez. Coming up, Altimio almost gets caught, and the local police get desperate. Hi, listeners, it's Carter from Parcast, and I am thrilled to tell you about a new limited series I'm hosting just in time for Father's Day. It's called Devious Dads, and it introduces you to some of the most.
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Starting point is 00:18:43 the family man crossed paths with his victim, and both seemed to recognize each other. Police tracked down the car al-Timio was driving, but the vehicle's owner, Wilfredo Carabayo, wasn't the man Beverly spotted at the mall that day. However, police didn't realize that Carabayo was Altimio Sanchez's uncle. Altimio had borrowed Carabio's car the day he was spotted at the mall and knew something was wrong after police came to visit. So afterwards, he confronted his nephew. It's unclear what exactly they discussed,
Starting point is 00:19:17 and to this day, people still debate how much Carbio actually knew. Ultimately, Carabio let the matter drop, and Altimio remained off the suspect list. allowing him to continue his double life. To the outside world, he was a regular guy with an ordinary job and conventional family. However, what lay beneath the surface was much darker. And for the next few years, Altimio terrorized women in Delaware Park,
Starting point is 00:19:45 unchecked and unafraid. As the attacks continued, Altimio changed his tactics, threatening women with a gun instead of a knife. Curiously, he also started introducing himself to some of his victims, telling them his name was David. It was an odd addition to his routine and a detail that made it easier to identify his attacks, but it didn't help police get any closer. But in the summer of 1984, Altimil felt the heat again. That July, he raped another victim in Delaware Park at gunpoint. But this time, the city's commissioner of human resources, William Byers, got to be able to
Starting point is 00:20:25 involved. The day before the attack, Byers witnessed a man behaving strangely at the park and took note of what he looked like. He was in his late 20s, had dark hair with sideburns and a thin mustache, and he was slightly out of shape. When the details of the following day's attack were made public, Byers recalled the man he had seen lurking around Delaware Park. He provided his own report of the suspicious individual to police, who confirmed that the man he'd seen matched the description of the Delaware Park rapist. But without any concrete suspects, the case went cold. Fourteen months later, at a Perkins restaurant on Delaware Avenue, Byers saw the man he'd warned the police about the previous year. He couldn't believe that he'd just seen the elusive
Starting point is 00:21:16 rapist eating at a diner in broad daylight. Biers followed the man out into the parking lot, recorded the vehicle's license plate, and gave it to the authorities. So, on September 12, 1985, four detectives went to the home of the vehicle's owner. But the man buyers had seen wasn't Altimio Sanchez. It was Anthony Caposi. Side-by-side comparisons show that Altimio and Caposi looked nearly identical at the time of the attacks. But while Altimio was cunning and cruel, Copposi was an innocent man with schizophrenia. He lived with his parents due to his mental health condition. which also prevented him from holding a steady job.
Starting point is 00:22:01 Kaposi spent much of his time walking around the city and struggling with hallucinations. This might have explained his allegedly suspicious behavior in the park the day Byers had seen him. Police searched the Kaposi house, looking for a handgun, and the clothing a victim had described her attacker wearing, a yellow tank top and a pair of maroon red shorts. When they didn't find either, they left. But they returned the following morning. Even though there was no physical evidence linking Anthony Caposi to the Delaware Park rapes,
Starting point is 00:22:33 he was taken into custody and forced into a lineup. Three of Altimio's victims studied the lineup and identified Caposi as their attacker. Caposi and Altimio did bear similar features. However, there were differences between the two men that should have made the error obvious. Caposi weighed over 50 pounds more than the man the victims had described, and he also bore a prominent forehead scar, that neither of the victims had previously reported. Despite these discrepancies, prosecutors prepared to charge him with three counts of rape.
Starting point is 00:23:09 Anthony Caposi was held in the Erie County Holding Center during the trial. In that time, more women were raped in Delaware Park, with each attack fitting the same modus operandi as before. Obviously, Caposi couldn't commit these crimes from jail, but the prosecution was unwavering, and they convinced the judge to prohibit Caposie's lawyer from mentioning the ongoing Delaware Park rapes during the trial. That wasn't the only way the trial against Caposi was stacked.
Starting point is 00:23:38 DNA testing existed at that point, at least in a rudimentary way. But there had been no examination to see if Caposi matched the samples. On September 19, 1985, a juror in the trial asked the prosecution why they hadn't compared Kaposi's blood type to the semen samples that were recovered after the Delaware Park rapes. She wanted to know whether that type of testing was standard in cases like this. The assistant DA reportedly dismissed the juror's question, telling the court, I can't answer that now,
Starting point is 00:24:13 but I'll say it's not standard in this case. On February 6, 1987, the jury reached a decision. Despite the discrepancies in Caposi's appearance compared to victim descriptions, and despite a complete lack of physical evidence or blood testing, Kaposi was convicted on two counts of rape, sodomy, and sexual abuse. He was sentenced to 11 to 35 years in state prison. Just like that, Kaposi had taken the fall for some of Altimio's crimes, and while authorities were waging their war against an innocent,
Starting point is 00:24:51 man. Altimio continued his attacks unabated. Alteamio was also evolving as a sexually violent criminal. For a period of time, he threatened his victims with a gun, but during one of his attacks, a woman fought back. In the scuffle, she managed to momentarily gain control of the weapon. For the first time since he started attacking women, Altimio had found himself at the mercy of one of his victims. He realized that if one victim could overpower him, he realized that if one victim could overpower, him and take his weapon, he could end up getting shot or even killed in a future attack. So, beginning in 1985, instead of a gun or a knife, Altimio Sanchez almost always favored a garot or ligature. The weapon gave him the thing he sought in all of his attacks. Absolute
Starting point is 00:25:40 control over his victim. He'd gotten the idea from a movie he'd seen on television. By attacking from behind with a ligature, Altimio could control a victim's movement, their ability to fight back or even see their attacker. He could even control a victim's ability to breathe. For someone like Altimio Sanchez, who had resented women for much of his adult life, the ligature allowed him to exercise situational and bodily control, while also inflicting extreme psychological torture. He thought about rendering a victim nearly unconscious during an attack, then releasing his grip and watching her struggle to breathe again. According to forensic psychologist Louis Schlesinger,
Starting point is 00:26:23 attackers who use a ligature or manual strangulation as a weapon almost always derive sexual satisfaction from the encounter. Strangulation takes much longer than stabbing or shooting a victim, so it gives the attacker time to savor the victim's suffering. Control was a major motivation for Altimio, and the ligature clearly gave him that sense of power. Years later, he would admit, that controlling women during an attack
Starting point is 00:26:50 made the assault more exciting, saying that the element of control made him feel over the top. That was a good feeling. His first garat was made from things Altimio had in his garage. He'd recently purchased lumber, and the pieces of wood were tied tightly together with the length of nylon rope.
Starting point is 00:27:12 He'd strung the rope between two six-inch sections of a broom handle that he'd sought apart, leaving enough nylon rope to loop twice around his victim's necks. For homicide departments across western New York, the double ligature was about to become a haunting, telltale sign that the elusive rapist had struck again. On June 12, 1986, Altimio used his new ligature to drag a 44-year-old woman off the jogging path in Delaware Park. After raping the woman, Altimio tightened the ligature, rendering her unconscious. He strangled her so aggressively and so brutally.
Starting point is 00:27:49 almost every blood vessel in her eyes burst. But remarkably, she survived. With a new, consistent attack weapon that left easily identifiable indentations on victims' necks, police began to see a pattern emerge. What had previously seemed like random, unrelated acts of violence gradually came together to reveal a serial rapist on the loose. Authorities realized that the rapist was almost exclusively active
Starting point is 00:28:18 during the summer, committing three attacks each year, approximately one month apart. This was because the elusive rapist often hid in dense vegetation around wooded areas, and the trees in western New York only held enough leaves to conceal his presence during the summer months. Police also noticed a change in the time the attacks took place. In the assaults that took place before 1985, there was no set time of day. Some attacks took place at night, others in the late afternoon or even, But in 1986, Altimio Sanchez began working the third shift at the American Brass Factory. After that, every subsequent attack involving a double ligature took place between the hours of 7 a.m. and 12 p.m.
Starting point is 00:29:08 This coincided with the end of the third shift. Most of the attacks throughout the late 1980s occurred in the downtown region, not far from Delaware Park. But by 1989, Altimio had moved his attacks away from downtown. downtown altogether, right around the time he and Kathleen moved to the suburbs. He relocated his attacks to the client community of Amherst, New York, due to its close proximity to the University at Buffalo. The north campus of U.B. is located in a part of Amherst where the suburban sprawl fades into forests and fields.
Starting point is 00:29:41 It's a buffer community between bustling downtown Buffalo and the more agrarian townships northeast of the city. Amherst has built a reputation on having low crime rates. The town has consistently made a national ranking of the safest cities in America. In several years, Amherst even took first place nationwide. It's a community where not a lot happens for police officers, at least compared to the workload of the city of Buffalo Police Department. So when local teenagers and adult women began to report rapes and assaults,
Starting point is 00:30:13 it took the sleepy suburb by surprise. The first attack happened on the morning of August 24, 1989. A 14-year-old girl was walking to summer school along the Willow Ridge bike path, a familiar route close to her home. The narrow, paved path begins on a dead-end street and winds past a row of backyard fences just southwest of Ellicott Creek, across Highway 990 from the University at Buffalo. As the young student walked to class, she was snagged from behind by Altimio's signature double. ligature. He hoisted her over a metal fence by her windpipe and dragged her to a clearing in the woods. After he raped her, Altimio tightened the garot until she lost consciousness.
Starting point is 00:31:04 The following summer, in the early morning hours of May 31, 1990, a 32-year-old woman was attacked from behind on the Ellicott Creek bike path near the University at Buffalo's Amherst campus. She never saw her attacker. She only felt the ligature tightened around her neck. until she passed out. It seemed as though Altimio had found a new hunting ground in the suburban bike paths. Their isolation and relatively low population made it easy for him to stalk unsuspecting victims, even in broad daylight. But those horrific attacks were just the beginning.
Starting point is 00:31:41 The safest city in America now had a serial rapist on their hands, and his attacks were about to escalate to murder. Coming up, the bike path rapist becomes the bike path killer, leaving the suburban college town of Amherst, New York, irreparably shaken. Kayak gets my flight, hotel, and rental car right, so I can tune out travel advice that's just plain wrong. Bro, Skycoin, way better than points.
Starting point is 00:32:13 Never fly during a Scorpio full moon. Just tell the manager you'll sue. Instant room upgrade. Stop taking bad travel advice. Start comparing hundreds of sights with kayak and get your trip right. Kayak, got that right. Now back to the story. After nearly a decade at large, serial rapist Altimio Sanchez began preying on women along isolated bike paths.
Starting point is 00:32:42 He struck several times near the suburban Amherst campus of the University at Buffalo. And his new weapon of choice, the double ligature, left easily identifiable imprints in each victim's neck. As evidence piled up, authorities began to recognize the telltale signs of an Altimio Sanchez attack. With the serial rapist now lurking in the woods, Amherst police began to feel external pressure to catch the man dubbed the bike path rapist. But while authorities raced to find answers, Altimio's next attack would end up catapulting the safe suburb of Amherst, New York, into the national news. Linda Yalam was a 22-year-old sophomore and communications major at the University of University of New York. Buffalo, she'd moved to Amherst from her hometown of Thousand Oaks, California, leaving the west coast so that she could be closer to her sister in New York City.
Starting point is 00:33:39 When Linda wasn't studying, she was running. She had been training in earnest for a little over a year and planned to run at the New York City Marathon that fall. With just over a month until the race, Linda was a regular on the Ellicott Creek bike path that cut through the university campus. Linda never ran at night. She'd read extensively about the Central Park jogger attack in New York City, which had just happened the previous year, so she only trained during the day.
Starting point is 00:34:07 But Linda felt safe running when the sun was out. That's because University of Buffalo officials had failed to notify students that over the past 14 months, two separate rapes had taken place in the morning hours. A little past noon on Saturday, September 29th, Linda went out for a run. She left wearing a t-shirt that read, Run Like Hell, with a Tears for Fears cassette playing through her headphones. While jogging on an isolated stretch of the bike path, Linda was accosted from behind by Altimio Sanchez.
Starting point is 00:34:41 He slipped the double ligature around her neck and used it to drag her 40 yards into a densely vegetated area. Once he'd gotten off the trail, Altimio applied two pieces of pre-cut duct tape to Linda's face. One strip covered her nostrils, and a second strip was pressed over her mouth, forming a criss-cross. The duct tape was supposed to prevent her from screaming, but it also blocked all of her airways.
Starting point is 00:35:07 And throughout the attack, Altamio continued to tighten the ligature around her windpipe, causing Linda to choke while she was being smothered by the duct tape. It's unclear whether he'd intended to murder Linda that day, but whatever his intentions might have been, Linda couldn't breathe. Still, Linda, She resisted her attacker and struggled for error. She fought so hard that she sucked the duct tape inside her nostrils, causing internal blood vessels to break from her efforts.
Starting point is 00:35:37 Whether or not the attack was intended to be fatal, authorities agree Altimio watched Linda Yellum die a slow and painful death. Years later, Altimio would claim that he never meant to kill any of his victims, but when women fought back, as Linda did, it increased his anger. and his desire to exert control. Their death was incidental to his rage. At some point, controlling a woman who fought back became more of a priority to him
Starting point is 00:36:11 than the angry sexual urges that drove him to violence, though the two weren't necessarily mutually exclusive. FBI sexual crimes profiler Robert Hazelwood determined in one study that the majority of serial rapists experience only low levels of pleasure from the sexual act itself. Based on his history of violence, Altimio Sanchez likely fell into what the FBI would categorize as the anger excitation class of serial sex offender. This suggests that aggression and control were important
Starting point is 00:36:46 to Altimio and that pleasure and excitement were derived from witnessing his victims suffer. Linda had no doubt suffered, and now she was dead. He left her body in the scrub and made his escape, knowing that it was only a matter of time before someone would come looking for her. Linda was a popular student with an active social life, and it just so happened that she had plans with friends to see a movie that evening. By 9.30 p.m., when her roommates realized that she still hadn't returned from her afternoon run, they decided to call the campus security office. The college security officers contacted Amherst police to help them look for Linda. Several of her friends also joined the search party. By that stage, the bike path was completely dark, with no streetlights along the five-and-a-half-mile track.
Starting point is 00:37:43 Separated from the suburban neighborhood by dense stands of trees, there was nothing about the search that was easy. As flashlights scanned the dark and silent woods along the bike path, a gentle rain. started falling. Around 1130, with no sign of Linda, police decided to call off the search and resume in the morning. At sunrise, Linda was still missing, and the campus had turned into a crime scene investigation. The morning silence was broken by the buzzing of a helicopter circling overhead. On the ground, 15 campus security officers were joined by almost a dozen Amherst police officers, who brought bloodhounds to track Linda along the bike path. The search party scoured the woods the entire day.
Starting point is 00:38:31 They hoped to find the missing college student injured somewhere off the trail, but sometime after 5 p.m. that evening, the team's worst fears were confirmed. Linda Yalem's body was found in a patch of dense foliage between the bike path and a residential street. Local camera crews were on campus that evening. When the 6 o'clock news aired, correspondence reported that a body had been found near the UB campus, shocking Amherst residents. All of a sudden, their sleepy town, one of the safest in the country, had a murderer on the loose.
Starting point is 00:39:08 Altimio Sanchez, the bike path rapist, was now the bike path killer, a name that would flash across the news in the days and weeks to come. And unfortunately, it was only a matter of time before he struck again. Thanks again for tuning into serial killers. We'll be back soon with part two of the bike path killer. We'll cover how the investigation unfolded, the subsequent murders, and how the town of Amherst was rocked from its peaceful slumber.
Starting point is 00:39:52 For more information on Altimio Sanchez, amongst the many sources we used, we found Bike Path Rapist, a cop's firsthand account of catching the killer who terrorized a community by Jeff Schober and Detective Dennis Delano, extremely helpful to our research. You can find more episodes of serial killers and all other Spotify Originals from Parcast for free on Spotify. We'll see you next time.
Starting point is 00:40:18 Have a killer week. Serial Killers is a Spotify original from Parcast. Executive producers include Max and Ron Cutler, sound design by Jay Cohen, with production assistance by Ron Shapiro, Carly Madden, Trent Williamson, and Bruce Kitovich. This episode of serial killers was written by Brian Petrus, with writing assistance by Abigail Cannon, fact-checking by Cheyenne Lopez, and research by Brian Petrus and Chelsea Wood. Serial Killers stars Greg Poulson and Vanessa Richardson. Hey there, Carter again. As we close out, here's a reminder to check out my new Parcast Limited Series Devious Dads.
Starting point is 00:41:09 For 10 weeks, we're exposing the men who are far more flawed. than fatherly, ruining anyone who stood in their way, even their own families. Follow devious dads free only on Spotify. A beloved 75-year-old man washing up getting ready for bed is brutally beaten and killed. Despite an exhaustive investigation, the killer avoids arrest and then strikes again. I'm global news crime reporter Nancy Hicks. You might listen to a lot of true crime podcasts this year, but they're not crime beat. Search for and follow the award-winning podcast Crime Beat on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, and wherever you find your favorite podcasts.
Starting point is 00:41:56 Do you want to hear something spooky? Some Monster, it reminded me of Bigfoot. Monsters Among Us is a weekly podcast featuring true stories of the paranormal. One of the boys started to exhibit demonic possession. Stories straight from the witnesses' mouths themselves. Something very snake light lifted its head out of the water. Hosted by me, your guide, Derek Hayes. Somehow I lost eight whole hours.
Starting point is 00:42:21 Listen now on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

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