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E054: The Alphabet Killer
1.8k Plays5 years ago
Learning the alphabet is one of the first things we teach children. But in Rochester, NY in the early 1970s, the alphabet was soon linked with something much more sinister.
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Transcript
Inspiration and Starting Point
00:00:00
Speaker
Sleuthhounds, have you ever considered creating your own podcast? Have you been inspired by listening to some of your favorites and thought, I'd love to try this out on my own? Whether it's a true crime podcast like ours, a motivational podcast, or maybe one filled with tips and strategies for those interested in the same activities you are?
00:00:20
Speaker
When Maggie and I first decided to start our podcast, we knew absolutely nothing about what podcasting would entail. But when we found that the platform Buzzsprout was one for which we didn't need any special equipment, just a computer microphone, some quiet space, and each other, we knew this was the way to go. It is intuitive to use, fun to play around with, and so helpful in getting analytical data about our number of downloads to track trends and from where our listeners hail.
00:00:48
Speaker
Best yet, Buzzsprout is affordable, even by our teacher salary standards. Buzzsprout will get your podcasts listed on every major podcasting platform. So, what are you waiting for? Fulfill that dream of yours and start today.
Support & Incentives
00:01:03
Speaker
If you use our Coffee and Cases referral code, 709-643, linked on Facebook and in our show notes, not only will you help support our show, but you will receive a $20 Amazon gift card after your second month on a paid plan. It's that easy.
00:01:20
Speaker
Podcasting isn't hard when you have the right partners. Join over 100,000 podcasters already using Buzzsprout to get their message out to the world. Now, it's time for the world to hear what you have to say.
ESP & Coincidences
00:01:34
Speaker
My husband has had many instances in his life where he swears there were crazy coincidences.
00:01:42
Speaker
Sometimes he swears it's almost like ESP. I'll give two examples related to vacations. Before he and I met, he was supposed to go on a cruise with some friends, but whenever he thought about the trip, he just couldn't picture himself on the cruise. He couldn't visualize it happening. Then, about a week before he was set to leave, his grandmother passed away, and he didn't go on the vacation because of the funeral.
00:02:09
Speaker
Fast forward to early 2019, I was invited to chaperone a trip with students to Europe the summer of 2020. We had so many students sign up for the trip that we needed more chaperones, and Rodney was invited to be a chaperone as well, being a good addition with his EMT training.
00:02:28
Speaker
I was thrilled about the trip. Dreaming about all the fun we would have. Planning excursions we wanted to include. Stonehenge went in England. The Palace at Versailles went in France. I asked for travel-related Christmas gifts last year. New luggage. Power outlet adapters. Travel pillows. Organizer bags. I was gonna be ready.
00:02:51
Speaker
Yet all the while, Rodney kept saying he wasn't sure about the trip, that he just couldn't see himself going. I thought it was nervousness about the long plane flight, which it would be the longest he had taken, and I just brushed it off. Then COVID-19 happened, and the trip was postponed. He hadn't seen it again, and a trip didn't happen again. And those are just two examples.
00:03:21
Speaker
Now, an article in the Atlantic Monthly entitled, Coincidences in the Meaning of Life, argues that coincidences actually aren't that uncommon at all. I think it a happy coincidence when we meet someone else who shares our birthday, for example. But according to the article, all it takes in terms of the number of strangers in a room for there to be a 50-50 chance of two people sharing a birthday, 23.
00:03:52
Speaker
One argument made by the article is that because our mind likes patterns, we tend to look for them everywhere. So in a way, because we look for the patterns and then we find one, our mind is creating some of the things that we view as coincidences and that probability proves why coincidences happen so often.
00:04:16
Speaker
But the talk of coincidence and the same conversation as murder rarely leads to an eased mind. I would never want to believe that my loved one was murdered by happenstance. And if there were enough oddities to take notice, it would be even harder to believe that a pattern of similar killings were not the specific intentions of one killer.
Rochester Double Initial Killings Overview
00:04:43
Speaker
Yet, that is still what some argue when talking about the string of murders in Rochester, New York between November 1971 and November 1973, despite the fact that all three victims had first and last initials that matched, and whose bodies were dumped near towns that started with the same letter. Carmen Colon, whose body was left near Churchville,
00:05:11
Speaker
Wanda Walkowitz, near Webster, and Michelle Maenza, found near Macedon. That hardly seems coincidental to me. This is the case of Rochester's double initial killings. The case of the Alphabet Killer.
00:06:06
Speaker
Welcome to Coffee and Cases where we like our coffee hot and our cases cold. My name is Allison Williams. And my name is Maggie Dameron.
00:06:15
Speaker
We will be telling stories each week in the hopes that someone out there with any information concerning the cases will take those tips to law enforcement. So justice and closure can be brought to these families. With each case, we encourage you to continue in the conversation on our Facebook page, Coffee and Cases podcast, because as we all know, conversation helps to keep the missing person in the public consciousness, helping keep their memories alive. So sit back, sip your coffee, and listen to what's brewing this week.
00:06:44
Speaker
All right, Sleuthtowns, we are finally in the homestretch, and I know we say that nearly every week, but we're so close. And if you are a longtime listener of ours, do you know that I'm going to make this weekly request once again?
00:07:00
Speaker
So if you're a new listener to the show, we're glad you're here. Allison and I have been trying for quite a while now to get to 150 ratings on Apple Podcasts and we're so incredibly close with 143. Being teachers, we appreciate the hard work that goes into achieving a long-term goal and we're so thankful that because of you all, we're close to checking off a goal for coffee and cases.
00:07:24
Speaker
While we're close, we still aren't there yet. So if you're listening and you like what you hear, rate us. It only takes just a second to click that five-star rating, and just a few seconds longer to tell us what you like most in a written review. Keep sharing Sleuthhounds, and pretty soon, you'll stop hearing us beg each week for these ratings.
Listener Engagement and Warnings
00:07:44
Speaker
Just make sure that you follow us on social media, Coffee and Cases podcast on Facebook,
00:07:49
Speaker
or at Coffee Cases podcast on Instagram, or as always, listen in each week and we'll tell you when we're gonna air a bonus episode. Now, let's get into the show. Sleuthhounds, before we begin our episode this week, I did want to go ahead and issue you a warning. Because our case this week deals with violence against children, listener discretion is advised.
00:08:14
Speaker
Maggie, I know I say this quite often and it's probably why I value this podcast so much, but this week's case really hit home with me because the three victims I mentioned in the show's intro
00:08:29
Speaker
were children, young girls around age 10 or 11. And of course, my little sleuthound is 11. So I immediately imagine the victims as her. I immediately imagine their mothers as me. And I tell their story with the urgency as if I were telling the story of my own loved one. And cases like this hurt me so much
00:08:54
Speaker
at the same time as I realized that this is why we do what we do. Right. It's to keep hope alive and to do everything in our power to keep their stories alive. Exactly.
Victim Profiles and Patterns
00:09:08
Speaker
So I mentioned in the beginning that there are some similarities between the three young victims that go beyond coincidence for me. Okay. And in addition to those coincidences that I mentioned,
00:09:23
Speaker
the first and last initial being the same, their bodies left near a town that started with that same initial, and them being around the same age, there are a few more that I want to know before I kind of try my best to pay homage to the girls by telling their individual stories. Okay. Okay.
00:09:41
Speaker
So they were all from low-income neighborhoods, from Catholic families, from single-parent households or houses where they lived with relatives. The mom in each case was on welfare.
00:09:57
Speaker
They all only had a few friends and all had recently been struggling at school, either from bullying issues or struggling academically. Two of the three were mentally handicapped. In terms of the crime, some similarities, and this breaks my heart to give these details. Each disappeared in the afternoon between 3.30 and 5.30 p.m. on days that were gray and rainy.
00:10:26
Speaker
Each was likely abducted by someone in a car. All of them had been sexually assaulted.
00:10:33
Speaker
strangled and their bodies left in rural areas. So this to me seems very serial killer-like. Yes, but that's actually surprisingly debatable. So I'll give the details. I'll kind of tell you why some people believe that it's different killers, but I'm with you. I think there are too many similarities. It's weird. To just be coincidence.
00:11:02
Speaker
Even though there are similarities, and I do wanna talk about those connections, first, I do wanna give attention to each individual girl's story one by one, so I'll focus on them chronologically. Okay. Okay.
Carmen Colon's Tragic Story
00:11:15
Speaker
So first, Carmen Colon.
00:11:18
Speaker
Young Carmen lived in Rochester with her grandparents and that overcast day of November 16th, 1971, Carmen's grandmother needed to retrieve a prescription from the local pharmacy. The trip to the pharmacy, it was one that Carmen normally took with her grandfather Felix, which is so sweet and I can just picture them.
00:11:38
Speaker
And I love the name Felix for her grandpa. That's so cute. Yeah. But that day, Carmen begged her grandparents that she be allowed to go on her own. And we've talked about this before. I totally get it because my sleuth hound is 11 and she's in that stage of like fierce independence.
00:11:57
Speaker
Yeah, and side note, my mom would have been 11 in 1971. She turned 11 the day before November 15th. So now that's what you're going to be picturing. Yeah, my mom, as an 11-year-old. So, and like I said, I can literally hear that request.
00:12:16
Speaker
My sleuth hound thinks she's so mature and I know I've told Maggie this story before. I can't remember sleuth hounds if I've told it to you. But this was just recently, well, I guess before COVID. But my sleuth hound and I were at the mall in the food court and she wanted to get to a particular store before the mall closed.
00:12:35
Speaker
But the food that we had ordered was taking longer than expected so she pleaded with me to be allowed to walk to that store on her own and I literally laughed in her face and I was like absolutely not if you think I would actually let you do that and a lot of it is us doing this podcast like it scares me
00:12:59
Speaker
to death. Yeah. And so again like I feel like I've become so much more cautious like myself and over her. Yeah I was talking to my mom on the way to meet you and I was like I really need to start getting back into running but I don't want to run by myself and mom was like well you live in a nice neighborhood and I was like I know but things happen. And then you're thinking about the two men who you saw running and you thought we're gonna
00:13:26
Speaker
I get her begging to go on her own and again this was a different time and I know we say that a lot too but it really was. I mean we're talking the early 70s and so that they did agree to let her go.
00:13:43
Speaker
Carmen was described by her family as a good girl with an infectious smile, but they also quickly added that she could stand up for herself. And I feel like knowing that about her and that Jack's pharmacy, which was the one she was headed to, was only two blocks away from her home in Bull's Head neighborhood in Southwest Rochester, that they felt decently comfortable. My slootown would not be able to hold her own. Like that. She is kind of like,
00:14:12
Speaker
More independent, though, I think, than most kids that are 11. You're sleuth-owned. Yeah. So Carmen set out around 4.20 in the afternoon on that rainy Wednesday. When Carmen got to the pharmacy, she was told that the prescription wasn't ready yet. In fact, a clerk at the pharmacy recalls that Carmen seemed to be in a hurry and kept repeating, I've got to go, I've got to go. Then, without waiting for the prescription,
00:14:40
Speaker
She said, the clerk said that she exited the pharmacy and according to another witness, she got into a car that was parked by the pharmacy. And notice I said got into and not grabbed by someone in the car. So I feel like we have to question then, who was this in the car that Carmen would willingly enter it? So it's almost like, well at first when you said that she was in a hurry,
00:15:08
Speaker
I thought it may be because she was supposed to be back by a certain time or like she didn't want to be out after dark because at 4.20 it's getting dark in November. But then it's now almost kind of like whoever was waiting on her was like, you need to hurry and get back in the car. Right. But she walked by herself. Right. And if they had kidnapped her, why would they let her go into the pharmacy? Because that would be an opportunity for her to say like, somebody has me. Right. And what's the time crunch? Yeah. So these are questions.
00:15:38
Speaker
We'll maybe come back to when we talk about some of the theories. When Carmen hadn't returned to her grandparents' home from the errand by 7.50 p.m., her grandparents reported 10-year-old Carmen Colon missing. And that's pretty quick, so that's good on their behalf. Yes, exactly. But the witness who saw Carmen enter the car at the pharmacy isn't the only one who saw Carmen before she was reported missing.
00:16:06
Speaker
At a little after 5 p.m., not just one, some reports say 38-ish, others, upwards of 100 people, saw Carmen. Wow. They saw her while they were driving down Interstate 490.
00:16:26
Speaker
A young girl matching Carmen's description was seen running down the shoulder of the road flailing her arms trying to get the attention of a passing motorist to stop and help. Okay listen again we've said this all the time like don't assume other people are gonna do the right thing just
00:16:46
Speaker
You do it. You be the person that does the right thing. Like even on Saturday, Anthony and I were at home and obviously we have our Christmas tree up already. So we have the curtains open so you can see it from the street and there was like a little girl that was walking down the road and she kept like looking behind her kind of like she was like looking at somebody and I'll tell Anthony I was like if she does that and turns onto the next street
00:17:10
Speaker
I'm getting out and fall on her like just to make sure nobody's after her. And she did that and then I like walked outside and she was going to her neighbor like a friend's house that was up the street and her mom was watching her walk and so she kept like turning to make sure her mom was still looking at her but she went into the like into her friend's house and I was like I'm gonna make sure she gets wherever she's supposed to be going. And I feel like that's a responsible thing to do and I feel like so many people are afraid on like
00:17:34
Speaker
of like stepping on other people's toes, that they're like, oh, I don't want to get involved. But that's what can lead to something like this. And wait till you hear the next detail. OK, so this we know this isn't just a child, you know, mad at parents throwing a tantrum.
00:17:50
Speaker
So she's on the side of an interstate. Right, exactly. She's on the side of the road, she's flailing her arms, and a dark forward pinto hatchback was also on the shoulder of the road backing up closer and closer to Carmen, like backing up to get to her. But no one stopped. You all should see my face. I know. No one called the police to report the incident, despite the fact that Carmen was also naked from the waist down.
00:18:18
Speaker
So we just think it's completely normal for an 11 year old to be running away from a vehicle naked from the waist down and it's backing up towards her on the side of an interstate where people are going like 90 miles an hour. Oh my god. And it was only afterward that witnesses came forward for us to know what they saw.
00:18:36
Speaker
including one witness who actually saw the young girl meeting Carmen's description being led back to the car by the driver. It wasn't until two days later when Carmen's body was discovered that the witnesses came forward. I have chills.
00:18:54
Speaker
I can't believe I'm disgusted. I know. Now, one article that I read, the author, Gary Craig, interviewed Monroe County Sheriff's Investigator Patrick Croft, who gave some excuses for the witnesses. He said, quote, I know they feel horrible. They didn't stop and they were courageous enough to come forward after the fact. End quote.
00:19:17
Speaker
So, why does he believe that they didn't stop? He says, number one, this was the 70s, so it long predated cell phones. Right. I guess they would have had to maybe have got physical with whoever was trying to. Right. And number two, like you said, Maggie, they were driving by at around 70 miles per hour and maybe they pass it and they thought they saw what they saw and then they were like,
00:19:38
Speaker
I must have seen that wrong. And you can't really turn around on the interstate to double check. So those were the reasons that he gave. And again, that's hard because it's hard to say like, oh, okay, well, it's understandable because on the same hand, it's not. Right, because we know what happened to her. Exactly.
00:20:00
Speaker
On November 18th, two teenage boys were riding their bikes in a suburb of Rochester called Chili, in a ditch near the small town of Churchville, 12 miles away from where she had been seen along the interstate. The boys noticed something that they first thought was a mannequin, but later found as the half-clothed body of Carmen Colon.
00:20:24
Speaker
12 days later, her pants and coat were discovered right by where she had last been seen running. I'm shaking my head. I know. Carmen's skull had been fractured, and she had fingernail scratches covering her body, which tells me that she was fighting her attacker the entire time. But this time, she wasn't strong enough to protect herself. She had been strangled from the front.
00:20:54
Speaker
which means whoever did this to her, looked her in the eyes as the life passed out of hers. I can't even imagine that. I can't imagine murdering somebody. No. In general. A child? Right. An 11 year old child. And like you said, they looked her and she had to, like the last thing she saw was the face of her killer. Yep.
00:21:22
Speaker
Despite the fact that a reward was offered and that five billboards were erected drawing attention to this horrific crime against a child, no investigated suspect panned out. But only around a year and a half later, on April 3rd, 1973, the police were investigating another body.
00:21:46
Speaker
the body of a young girl found, though this time fully clothed, with her body being redressed after death. Which is creepy. Yes. Lying face down in a ditch near the Bay Bridge rest area off of Route 104 near Webster, right outside of Rochester, seven miles from her home.
Wanda Walkowitz's Disappearance
00:22:08
Speaker
The small 65-pound girl had been raped and strangled from behind using some type of ligature, most likely a belt. The position of her body indicated that she had been thrown out of a moving vehicle. Again, my face, if you could see it. That girl was 11-year-old Wanda Walkowitz, who had disappeared just the day before on April 2nd.
00:22:36
Speaker
Again in the mid-afternoon around 5 30 p.m on that day Wanda who was referred fondly to as quote the little redhead from Avenue D. I know had walked the three short blocks from her home to the hillside delicatessen to pick up groceries for her mother.
00:22:58
Speaker
Wanda's mom, Joyce, was a widow who was struggling to make it, raising Wanda and her two siblings. And the loss of Wanda, who could be such a help to her mother, hit hard. In fact, Wanda's mother had to be taken to the hospital twice for emotional stress. I can only imagine. I mean, we are not equipped to deal with that kind of a loss.
00:23:26
Speaker
And here are some of the details that we have about Wanda. On March 31st, just two days before she disappeared, while walking with a friend, Wanda had received quite a scare. They were walking near some railroad tracks, which I remember doing that as a kid. Like anytime I would see railroad tracks, I was like trying to balance on it or whatever. So they were walking near railroad tracks that ran parallel to Conkey Avenue when a man jumped out from the bushes and chased them. Yeah, I'd be terrified. Yeah.
00:23:55
Speaker
and both girls managed to get away but two days later while walking down Conkey Avenue, Wanda was not able to escape a perpetrator a second time. So I wonder if it was the same? That's one theory but we're
00:24:12
Speaker
He was kind of ruled out, but I'll talk about him in a second. Wanda was able to retrieve the groceries from the deli on April 2nd. According to a news report delivered at the time by News 10 NBC, a deli clerk reported that Wanda bought the groceries and immediately left.
00:24:30
Speaker
that she came in alone and she left alone. So similar to Carmen, came in, left. She spent $8.52, how I wish groceries only cost that now. I know, I'm like, what did she buy? A pack of water? Yeah, for $8.52, she purchased, among other things, tuna, milk, Paul Mall cigarettes for her mom. She bought some cupcakes and cat food.
00:24:56
Speaker
So is this before you had to be 18 in the United States to buy cigarettes? I'm guessing so, because I mean, I can remember hearing stories from my dad who would say like, yeah, my parents would send me in to buy them, you know, whatever. So a funny story about my dad, him when he was a, okay, so I guess that does make sense. When he was a senior in high school, no.
00:25:17
Speaker
a sophomore in high school his English teacher said here are the keys to my car while while they were in school go to the store and get me a pack of cigarettes and he total wrecked her car on the way to the grocery store
00:25:34
Speaker
Oh my gosh. Oh my goodness. Imagine that now. I can imagine either of those things happening. Yeah. Giving somebody a kid my car keys and never do. Well, I don't smoke, but asking them to buy something that's illegal. Oh my gosh. Well, witnesses remember seeing Wanda in her multicolored coat, struggling with her grocery bag while walking back to her home. They remember, and this is a vivid image, I feel like, propping the bag up against the fence to get a better grip on it. Like again, I can picture that in my head.
00:26:04
Speaker
And you know obviously wanting to get a good grip because she was trying to rush home a little bit faster because it had begun to rain. Several witnesses also recall seeing a large brown car coming slowly down the street near Wanda and then they remember looking back and Wanda no longer being in sight. So did she get in this brown car?
00:26:31
Speaker
If so, since obviously it was seemingly done without clamor, because otherwise alarm would have been raised, right? People would have turned to look or whatever. There's no screaming. There's no scuffling. So did she know this person in the car? And was this the same car that picked up Carmen from the pharmacy? The same car scene backing up on the side of the road months earlier chasing after the half-closed Carmen. Because it was a dark car. Right.
00:27:01
Speaker
By 8 p.m. that same evening, when Wanda hadn't returned, her mother Joyce reported her missing. So these parents are. They're on it. Yes. Though, as I mentioned, only a day later on Wanda's sister Rita's 10th birthday, Joyce Walkowitz did not get the elated good news of an upcoming reunion with her daughter that she had hoped.
00:27:25
Speaker
And imagine that on your birthday, finding out because that's that it was only one day later that they found her body. That's what I was going to ask. That's sad. A local news station at the time ran a special report about Wanda's abduction and murder and a reward was again offered. But again, there were no viable leads in the case.
00:27:44
Speaker
Police did gain some information, though, from the autopsy. Not only did they obtain pubic hair and semen from the perpetrator, which I know Maggie is making a disgusted face, it's evidence. But that's, I mean, it's not good that it happened, but it's good that they were able to find it.
00:28:04
Speaker
but they also noticed something else. On Wanda's clothing was white cat hair. And although the Walkowitz family owned a cat, remember she's buying cat food, it wasn't white. So this detail had led law enforcement to believe that the killer owned or lived with someone who owned a white cat. Okay, also, I feel like that would be pretty small. I mean, not small, but like,
00:28:29
Speaker
If you knew somebody that had a white cat and drove a dark car, you know what I mean? Those are pretty two distinct things. Put together.
00:28:40
Speaker
Also odd, was the content of Wanda's stomach, which showed that she had recently eaten custard. Something not served at school, not kept in Wanda's home, and not an item Wanda purchased from the deli. So did Wanda's killer feed her before turning on her? Like as a way to maybe calm her or... Like they ain't even all of it gone? Like I'll meet you here? Right.
00:29:05
Speaker
Many suspects were questioned in this case, including an ex-con in the neighborhood with a history of violence against women. Another person questioned was an elderly man, this sickens me, known to attempt to coerce kisses from young girls in the neighborhood. So many disgusting faces have made during this episode. It included a man with a long list of sexual offenses who might be the one who chased Wanda and her friend near the railroad tracks.
00:29:35
Speaker
and another man previously arrested and charged with child endangerment, yes this is her neighborhood I know, who was questioned by police for 12 hours and even led police to announce in that last man's case that an arrest would be made soon. But after that man passed a polygraph test,
00:29:57
Speaker
He was released, which, you know, we talk all the time about how polygraphs are not admissible evidence in court. So why would you let him go? Exactly. So how is that proof of innocence then? Right. Because you can't use it in court. So how does that prove anything? Yeah. If it's not a proof of guilt, then how's it a proof of innocence? Somebody needs to re-look at that. I know. And no other leads panned out. So it seems all of these questions that we have, Maggie, are left unanswered.
00:30:25
Speaker
Then, Thanksgiving weekend, 1973, just seven months after Wanda went missing, another girl's family learned devastating news.
Michelle Maienza's Case
00:30:37
Speaker
Michelle Maenza, 11 years old, had been found dead. Michelle lived with her mother and her older brother.
00:30:46
Speaker
On November 26, 1973, Michelle's mother, Carolyn, called police to report her daughter missing when she didn't come home that rainy day from school.
00:30:59
Speaker
some of her classmates had seen Michelle walking after school toward a shopping plaza because her mother had left her purse in one of the stores earlier that day, and Michelle was going to pick it up for her mother on her way home. Now, how Michelle knew that her mom had left it there, I couldn't find that in any of the research, so I don't know if her mom had called the school and said, right, hey, leave my daughter a message that when she leaves school to stop by and get my purse, but,
00:31:26
Speaker
I feel like that's just what makes it so incredibly sad with all of these cases, Maggie, of these girls, because when they went missing, all of them were doing something kind for their families. Carmen was going to the pharmacy for her grandparents. Wanda was going to the grocery for her mom. And Michelle was going to pick up her mom's purse. Didn't we have another case that? With the Amy Maholovet case, she was going to get her mom a present. It was a promotion. Her mom had apparently got that promotion. That's right.
00:31:56
Speaker
A few minutes later, according to a witness, a girl matching Michelle's description was seen in the passenger seat of a speeding light brown car traveling down Acreman Street and turning onto Webster Avenue and it appeared as though the girl had been crying.
00:32:15
Speaker
Coincidence? I know. Question mark? This is why I'm saying, like, I feel like there's too many similarities in these cases to say it's coincidence. Yeah, agreed. And sadly Maggie, just as the circumstance when Carmen, you know, was running down the road waving for someone to stop, Michelle's abduction might have been preventable.
00:32:38
Speaker
Now, one thing that I read said that her uncle actually saw her walking toward the shopping plaza and had offered her a ride back home. But she told him that, no, I'm fine. I'm going to pick up mom's purse. And then I'm going straight home. And he had left her there. And he feels guilt about that. But we talk about that all the time. I'm sure I would feel guilt the same way, but it's not your fault. Yeah, you can't hold that.
00:33:06
Speaker
And additionally, a man was driving along Route 350, so a different route, right? But he was in the town of Walworth when he noticed a motorist driving a beige or tan vehicle pulled over onto the shoulder of the road with a flat tire.
00:33:24
Speaker
The man who stopped, this good Samaritan, noticed a girl who he now believes was Michelle Maenza. He saw the man who was driving the car grab the young girl's wrist and force her behind him, almost like he was hiding her face. And the man driving the car made sure that they were standing in a way that covered the license plate of the vehicle.
00:33:49
Speaker
Yes, exactly. And this nice man who stopped for help, he obviously felt something is odd here about this situation. So he tried to get a better look at the girl and at the license plate, but the man who was driving with the flat tire gave him such a menacing look that the helpful man drove away because obviously he was afraid that this was going to get violent, the situation. Well, at least he stopped though. Right.
00:34:17
Speaker
And because he stopped, guess what he saw?
00:34:22
Speaker
What? What the man looks like. Oh yeah. Right? So also around 4.30 the afternoon of Michelle's disappearance, one witness reported seeing a girl matching Michelle's description at a fast food restaurant in the town of Penfield. The Caucasian man accompanying her was between 25 and 35, around six feet tall and weighing around 165 pounds.
00:34:50
Speaker
So I feel like now that we have a description, we know he's Caucasian, between 25 and 35, around six feet tall, weighs about 165 pounds, which is fairly slim. Yeah, this dude's, that's what I was gonna say, he's skinny. For six feet tall, and owns a brown or tan beige vehicle, and a white hat, I feel like that's a lot... Yeah, somebody knows this dude. ...to go on.
00:35:14
Speaker
The good news, like I said, is that based upon those two potential sightings we do have a sketch of the man who we think was with Michelle.
00:35:26
Speaker
However, not much else could be determined from those two experiences, because that's about all they remember. And just like in Wanda's case, yet another birthday was forever changed because Michelle's brother's birthday was the day after she was reported missing and the day before her body was discovered. So in both of those cases, a sibling's birthday, like that's gonna be the memory.
00:35:55
Speaker
At 10.30 a.m. on November 28th, Michelle's body was found just like the others alongside the road, face down in a ditch. And Maggie, I don't know why that detail of being face down hits me so hard, but for some reason, that detail, it just feels like a punch in the gut to me. Well, I think like with the, who was the second girl?
00:36:20
Speaker
Wanda walk away. Yeah, like she had just been like thrown out of the vehicle, right? Like such careless regard for another person's life. This whole entire thing. Yeah, I know. Michelle was found 15 miles outside of Rochester on a rural road in Macedon. So again,
00:36:43
Speaker
Carmen, body dumped, I can't think of a better word than that because that's what happened in a town that started with a C. Wanda, in a town that started with a W, and Michelle in a town that started with an M. She has suffered blunt force trauma to her body, had been raped, and had been strangled from behind with a ligature, likely a thin rope. And these are all very violent.
00:37:12
Speaker
crimes. Yes. And deaths. Yes. And again, they concluded that she had been redressed after she had been raped. And on her clothing, they found white cat hair. Okay. This is the same person. Right. 100% the same person. Right. To me, it is.
00:37:32
Speaker
Police determined that she was likely strangled there in that location where her body was found because she had leaves just like the ones surrounding her body on the ground found clenched in her fists.
00:37:45
Speaker
I know. Police were able, just like with Wanda, to retrieve some evidence from the scene, including a partial palm print from her neck. And I had no idea that they could do that. Retrieve a fingerprint from another person's skin. Yeah, I didn't either. Apparently they can. And traces of semen from her underwear and her body. So we don't have any way of tracing this DNA now?
00:38:11
Speaker
We do, but we've just not been lucky enough yet to find a match. And, you know, Maggie, you said it earlier and I couldn't agree more that I never want to imagine a crime to a child like that. So it's hard to say that it was fortunate to find that evidence. Right. Because it should never happen. Right. Because that's the thing that makes the crime worse. Yeah.
00:38:37
Speaker
When Michelle's autopsy was completed, they also found that within an hour of her murder, she had eaten a hamburger with onions, leading credence to the siding at the fast food restaurant.
00:38:49
Speaker
So maybe this dude does like to feed his victims to kind of calm them down. Like I'm not going to hurt you. We're going to get some food. It'll be okay. Right. After this third murder of a child and given so many coincidences, the public became outraged.
Community Reaction and Police Efforts
00:39:04
Speaker
Parents in Rochester were nervous about letting their children walk home from school or play outside or go run errands.
00:39:10
Speaker
And this time, again, luckily the police were able to release a sketch of the potential perpetrator. They set up a hotline for tips and again offered both anonymity to the callers who called in with information leading to an arrest and they offered a reward. But despite the calls that came in, no arrests were made.
00:39:33
Speaker
I just find this very hard to believe. Like, is this town like a big town? How big is... Rochester's fairly decent sized.
00:39:42
Speaker
but I mean, it's not like New York City, right? So like, it's not that big. And I guess we do have to keep in mind, like, you know, today, I feel like it's much harder to get away with crimes because we have, you know, cameras on storefronts and lights and- We can track your cell phone. Right. So there's like all these different ways to catch people now that you couldn't then.
00:40:09
Speaker
Due to all of the similarities in the cases, those who believe they were committed by the same person, me, took to calling the perpetrator the alphabet killer, and to the crimes as the double initial murders, which again, now that makes sense. But who?
00:40:28
Speaker
Is it feasible to think that someone who didn't know any of the girl's names just happened to choose victims with the same first and last initials all three times and just happened to have left their bodies near towns beginning with the same letter? Like could that really be a coincidence? Right, because now that I'm like really sitting here thinking about it, like either they had to know these people or
00:40:57
Speaker
it's a coincidence. And that, I feel like, would be a very low probability of that type of coincidence. Right. So not only happening one time, but then a second time, and then a third time. And you just so happen to drop them off.
00:41:16
Speaker
their bodies off in towns that start with the same letter. Right. That's what doesn't make any sense to me. Because all of the girls were from low-income families on welfare, who all attended Catholic churches, and most importantly because it seems all three girls were willing to get into the car with the man without struggle, then the crimes to me must have been committed by someone who knew the girls.
00:41:42
Speaker
had access to sensitive information about them, like their names, where they lived, all of that stuff, or was a person of authority whom they would have trusted, right, to get into the car with. So somebody in uniform.
00:41:58
Speaker
So in my head I'm thinking like maybe somebody who helped at the church. That's where my mind went to at the very first. Which is sad. Yeah. Somebody who works for social services because remember all of their families are on welfare so they would have access to that information. Or was again somebody in uniform who you would automatically trust like a policeman or a fireman. So this like doing this like we talked about has made me so much more aware of like
00:42:26
Speaker
just my surroundings and things like that. But like, I'm terrified now to be pulled over by someone who's impersonating a police officer. Well, yeah. And I mean, Ted Bundy. Yeah. He did. Yeah. So I've always heard though, that if you're being pulled over, like if it's at night, if it's something where you're scared, if you call 911 and you say,
00:42:50
Speaker
A police officer is pulling me over. I just wanted to verify that if you take a while to pull over, that it's not like they're going to hold that against you because you've called just to verify. I've always heard that. That you can call 911 and you can say, hey, is there an officer who is pulling me over? Here's what my plate number is. So maybe, okay. So life tip, memorize your license plate number. That's right. So then you can give it to 911.
00:43:17
Speaker
Interestingly though, there are so many people who believe that this was merely coincidence. Cuckoo birds. Yeah, I don't get it. Or that the crimes were not committed by the same person. So I'm gonna address those theories first because I disagree. Let's get them out of the way because they're wrong. Yeah.
00:43:33
Speaker
Investigators at the time and now question that each girl was chosen because of her double initials and they argue that it would have been required of the killer to stalk the girls extensively beforehand and that they would have likely noticed him.
00:43:50
Speaker
So they're saying it's not likely that he knew that their first and last name started with the same letter because he would have had to have stalked them to find this out. And then somebody would have been like, hey, yeah, I saw this guy hanging around all the time. Unless it's someone from their church or someone like that. But I disagree. I'm with you. I think that there are many ways that the killer could have had access to the information about the families without seeming like a stalker.
00:44:19
Speaker
Like you just said, Maggie, let's assume that the person who committed the crime worked at the welfare agency. Okay. Would he not have access to all of the children's names? Yeah, their addresses. Yep. Where they go to school, probably. Yep, and so they would have, if they knew the town, would have known the normal route that the girls took. And, you know, if we assume that he helped at the church, or maybe even at the schools,
00:44:46
Speaker
He would have been known by the girls, and that would explain why they were willing to get into a car with him. So I don't think it has to be somebody who stalked them for a long time, because then that doesn't explain why they all got into the car willingly. Yeah, I kind of think it would need to be someone who knew them. Right, and someone who was around them for a while maybe before it happened, so then they weren't like, oh yeah, there was this new guy who works, you know, wherever. Yeah, because I'm trying to think about like me at 11. I was like the type of kid that I had to walk
00:45:14
Speaker
like a half a mile or a quarter of a mile from where I got off the bus to my house and so like I was that kid that as I would walk I mean like until I started
00:45:25
Speaker
like driving to school or had like practice, I still made my mom meet me at the bus stop. Right. And so on days that she couldn't, I was that kid that I would be like, okay, if somebody's coming, I can run. Like I know this person on the street and I know this person on the street. And so like, I'm trying to think like when I was 11, the only person I would have gotten to a vehicle with would have been family, somebody from my church.
00:45:49
Speaker
or if it was somebody, like you said, like a police officer or a firefighter. Or maybe on CNN, I don't even know if I would have done it with somebody from my school if they said, hey, your mom called and I need to drive you somewhere. Like if it was my teacher, maybe my principal. If I recognized them, I'd been around them a lot. But like I can remember when I was in second grade, I would ride the bus to my grandma's house and I was already waiting outside to get on the bus and a boy who rode the bus with me
00:46:19
Speaker
ran up to me and he was like, hey, in the office they called and they said not to ride to your grandma's house to take the bus to like her friend's house instead. And I mean, I'd done that before, but I was like, but my grandma didn't tell me to do that. So I still got off at my grandma's house. Cause I was like, I'm not listening to somebody else. You know, my grandma didn't tell me to do that. And of course it had been right. And so I was like waiting for an hour for my grandma to get there. But I mean, I,
00:46:49
Speaker
I don't know. I think it would take a lot for me to get in a car, like you said, with somebody I didn't know. I just find it inconceivable though that the three crimes were committed by separate individuals, but when they have all this stuff in common.
00:47:03
Speaker
Now, the most common theory is that the perpetrator was the same in Wanda and Michelle's cases, but was actually a different perpetrator in Carmen's
Investigative Theories & Suspects
00:47:15
Speaker
case. Okay, I could give them that. Maybe. It's a little bit different. It is. And well, here's why they believe that way and who they think might be responsible for her death.
00:47:26
Speaker
Of the three crimes, obviously, like you said, the most differences occur in Carmen's case. She didn't have food in her stomach indicating that the killer had fed her before committing the crime. She was the only one found partially clothed and there was no white cat hair on her clothing. Well, my thing with that is though, I feel like
00:47:50
Speaker
Maybe Corman's was quicker, it happened quicker, and they were just longer to find her. Like, maybe he didn't take her back to his house. Maybe it happened in the vehicle, and there wouldn't have been cat hair. Yeah. Well, vehicle cat hair. I'll get to it in a second. But I totally agree with you, though. I think that there are other things that might explain why hers was different. Right.
00:48:14
Speaker
And she was the only one who was manually strangled, so no ligatures used, and strangled from the front, and the other two were strangled from the back.
00:48:25
Speaker
Because the crime was committed by hand and looking her in the eye, like we mentioned, law enforcement actually believed that it was committed by someone who knew her well because that's much more personal. That's kind of like if you stabbed someone to death. Right. That's a much more personal crime than shooting them. Right, and the number of times that you stab can indicate a crime of passion. Oh, because you would be like really angry. Right, exactly. So who do many people believe killed Carmen Colon?
00:48:52
Speaker
Her uncle, Miguel Colon. Her dad's brother, soon after Carmen's parents separated, he and her mom had begun a romantic relationship. Yeah, so... Weird. Yes. That would be... Strange. Yes. A few weeks before Carmen disappeared, Miguel had purchased a vehicle, just like the one witnesses saw reversing along the shoulder of the road,
00:49:22
Speaker
Right, that Carmen was screaming and backing away from. And she would have gotten a car with her apple. Yes, she would have gotten into the car with him and when police were able to locate the car, they found that the inside and the outside of the car had been extensively cleaned and that the trunk had been cleaned with a strong detergent. A detergent that the car dealership he had just purchased it off of attested that they had not used. Okay, so all not looking good for this man. Right.
00:49:50
Speaker
One of Carmen's dolls had been found in the car and according to a relative Miguel said two days after Carmen's body was found that he had plans to leave the country and only four days after Carmen was found Miguel moved back to Puerto Rico. So that is a little bit fishy. It is fishy but to play devil's advocate because you know I like to question things
00:50:15
Speaker
Miguel was now in a relationship with Carmen's mother and would often, according to relatives, drive Carmen around in his car, hence why the doll was in there. And in my head, I'm thinking, okay, well, maybe he cleaned the car when he first purchased it, right, if he bought it used or something like that. But here's the catching point for me. I find it hard to believe that he would have extensively cleaned the car inside and out to cover up a crime, but left her doll in there.
00:50:45
Speaker
Yeah, I also think it would be weird that you would, I mean, because before we bought our new car, we had purchased a used car and we got it from the dealership. It looked brand new on the inside because they had cleaned it. So why would he have needed to clean a new car? And like you said, if you were covering up a crime, why would he leave her doll in the car? See, that's what I can't get past. So that's part of what makes me think he didn't do it.
00:51:10
Speaker
Police tracked Miguel down in San Juan, Puerto Rico in March 1972 to question him, and even though he initially fled from the police, he eventually agreed to be extradited back to Rochester to be questioned about the crime. Miguel didn't have a solid alibi for the day Carmen disappeared, so he had no one to corroborate his movements. And I get why that's bad, because there's no proof, but
00:51:39
Speaker
the brainy side of me also knows that it's a logical fallacy to believe that someone like to believe that he must be guilty because there's no solid evidence of his innocence the same way I can't prove
00:51:55
Speaker
Innocence if there's no solid proof of guilt. Yeah And so there's no evidence in the car or on Carmen's body to link Miguel to the crime So the fact that he doesn't have an alibi I mean, I get that that looks bad. But like if you were home all day by yourself Yeah, who's gonna say like
00:52:16
Speaker
unless you have cameras in your house to prove it, you know? Yeah, and they couldn't be like, well, I'm gonna pull your Amazon cloud up and see if you're at home. So you must be guilty because you have no proof that you're innocent. Miguel Colon did commit suicide in 1991. And I know, and we talk about that quite often too, that that's usually an indicator of guilt. But just before his suicide, he had been involved in an incident of domestic violence during which
00:52:44
Speaker
he had shot his brother and his wife, wounding them both. So not Carmen's mom. Not from what I read. Okay. So it's hard to say then that the suicide was due to guilt over a crime that had happened nearly 20 years earlier versus the one that had just happened. True. Right? Yeah.
00:53:07
Speaker
And many members of the family report that not only did Miguel always maintain his innocence, but that they believe him to be innocent as well. And I feel like you would tell someone, like you would have to tell someone. Yeah, absolutely. And if we do believe that all three crimes are linked, then they can't have been committed by Miguel Collette. Right, because he would have been in, there you go. Right. Personally, and obviously I could be wrong,
00:53:34
Speaker
I think that the three crimes are linked mostly because I disagree with the arguments made to prove that Carmen's case is too different. Here's what I mean. Like when they said, well, she must have known her attacker and he must have been someone close to her. Again, we talked about this. The other two girls willingly entered a car with a man also. So I don't think that her case is different in that aspect.
00:54:04
Speaker
She was the only one with defensive wounds, but that just proves to me that she was fighting back. Right, that doesn't prove to me necessarily a difference between her case and the other two.
00:54:17
Speaker
Many argue that one of the differences, the fact that she had, well, multiple differences, no food in her stomach, that she was strangled by hand from the front, and that she was partially clothed, that those indicate a different person, but out of curiosity, I did some research
00:54:35
Speaker
and I found that it is not uncommon for a serial killer to change his MO. Well that's what I was gonna say like don't they kind of like usually mature I guess you could say and like their killings they become more like
00:54:49
Speaker
I guess kind of like sneaky or detailed about the way they do things. Yeah, like they learn from. Experience. And experience, yeah. According to the Psychology Today article entitled Serial Killers, Modus Operandi, Signature Staging and Posing by Dr. Scott Bond, quote, the MO is what the offender must do in order to commit the crime. For example, the killer must have a means to control his victims at the crime scene, such as tying them up.
00:55:17
Speaker
Significantly, the MO is a learned behavior that is subject to change. A serial killer will alter and refine his MO to accommodate new circumstances or to incorporate new skills and information. For example, instead of using rope to tie up a victim, the offender may learn that it's easier and more effective to bring handcuffs to the crime scene."
00:55:43
Speaker
She's strangled by hand from the front. Maybe the killer was like, oh my gosh, I have way more defensive wounds It's much harder to control than to strangle with Some sort of ligature like a belt or a rope from behind. Yeah So to me like I don't know if if that's enough to say that hers is different and I feel like if you're being strangled from the front as she was you if you're the victim you are gonna have
00:56:10
Speaker
like fight for your life. Exactly. But if it's from behind it's a lot harder to punch and scratch and kick the person that's behind you. Exactly. So I feel like that could just have been something that he learned from the first murder. So Maggie if they were committed by the same individual then we do have a few suspects. Okay.
00:56:35
Speaker
first is a 25 year old fireman. Okay. Yep. So we mentioned that from Rochester and well, someone who used to be a fireman obviously because of what I'm getting ready to tell you. He was a repeat sexual offender between 1971 and 1973.
00:56:54
Speaker
So it was during the time period in which these crimes happened and he actually came to be referred to as the garage rapist. Oh my God. Yep, that was his nickname. He was linked to no fewer than 14 cases of rape of teenage girls and young women. Wow. Now, here's my hang up. I do think that there is a difference between the rape of a teenage girl, the youngest of his known victims was 18.
00:57:24
Speaker
and that of a child. Yeah, I do agree with you. That's my hang up with a theory about. I mean, they're both disgusting. Yes, this perpetrator. Yeah. But he did have a firefighters uniform that he kept in his car. Yeah, I know. Well, how would you do that? Well, I guess so he could commit his crimes. Oh, okay. Because that could be why all of the girls would have trusted him. And he was known to use that as a way to get women to get into his car.
00:57:52
Speaker
Okay. But this fireman also lived near Michelle Myenza. And five weeks after Michelle's body was discovered, they found that he owned a beige car, just like the one from the sightings. And when the fireman attempted to abduct a teenage girl at gunpoint, the girl, well, he ran away because the girl wouldn't stop screaming.
00:58:17
Speaker
And when police caught him, he committed suicide. And upon investigation, there was white cat fur on the upholstery of his car. Okay, because, wow, first off. And then I feel like... Wow, and then... Yeah, so first wow. And then I do feel like the suicide here would be...
00:58:40
Speaker
more in tune with like the guilt of things that had happened or the fear that he would be found guilty of the murder of these girls not necessarily because he maybe have been convicted of rape because I mean he'd raped right 14 women before right and the cat hair I know that's that's the detail
00:59:04
Speaker
I'm torn on this one. The cat hair's hard because it's there. And we know it's found on two of the victims, on Wanda and on Michelle. But his DNA did not match that found on the girls. Oh, I forgot we had that. Yup. So white cat hair, right color car, wrong DNA.
00:59:28
Speaker
I feel like we would need to trust the DNA of the YK here. Yeah, right. Because that could be coincidental. Right. Another potential suspect was a serial killer. So already a serial killer. Kenneth, well, he wasn't yet. Kenneth Bianchi, who at the time was an ice cream vendor in Rochester, right? So again, if you knew this person as an ice cream vendor,
00:59:53
Speaker
maybe you would trust. Or maybe he's like I got you an ice cream cone. Right, I mean it could be. And he worked at areas near Carmen's and Wanda's locations. Bianchi actually moved to Los Angeles in 1976 where between 1977 and 78
01:00:11
Speaker
alongside his cousin Angelo Buono Jr., they had been responsible for the Hillside Strangler murders. Did y'all catch that? Yep. Strangler. That's right. Of 10 females between the ages of 12 and 28. Okay, so. So again, victims. Similar age bracket. Strangulation. The food. And he is found guilty of it. Now, I feel like, you know,
01:00:42
Speaker
Because the age range is similar and because of the the mode of Killing yeah, I don't think it's that far of a stretch to argue that he would also or could also have been responsible for the alphabet murders additionally
01:01:02
Speaker
Bianchi owned a beige car matching the description given by there's lots of people with beige cars, apparently. Yeah, that was a popular color. Yes. Elements found in the DNA on Wanda contained an anomaly that's only found in 20% of males and Bianchi falls into that 20%. Right, so
01:01:25
Speaker
Again, that's not proof of guilt. I get that, right? Because it's 20% and he's in that 20%. However, he vehemently denied any involvement with those three murders. Additionally, his palm print, because remember there was a partial palm print found, it was compared with that found on Michelle's neck and they didn't match.
01:01:47
Speaker
Now police did say that the palm and wrist print can change because of wrinkles and we're talking like his was tested more than 10 years later. But there is also no evidence that Bianchi had killed before teaming up with his cousin. But that doesn't mean that it could have happened. It's what we just said. Just because there's no evidence doesn't mean it's not true. Right.
01:02:13
Speaker
Here's my hang up on this one. Okay. So once the Hillside Strangler duo were caught, their pictures were plastered everywhere when the news broke. Oh yeah, and we had so many witnesses. And I feel like
01:02:32
Speaker
If he had done it, somebody would have recognized him and somebody would have been like, that's the same guy I saw with Wanda or with Carmen. Especially the dude that pulled over to help him. Right. So that's what makes this one so hard.
01:02:50
Speaker
And at the same time, despite being linked to the Hillside Strangler crimes, Bianchi denies killing anyone. He wrote in a journal that he had been tortured and hypnotized into admitting to crimes that he didn't commit.
01:03:05
Speaker
That's scary. But that led one former FBI agent, Clint Van Zandt, to state in an article by News 10 NBC, quote, you look at someone like Kenneth Bianchi, number one, this guy is a stone cold psychopath. 24 hours a day, all he has time to do is figure out who he can potentially con, lie, and convince that he's not the horrible monster that he is, end quote. Wow.
01:03:32
Speaker
Right, so obviously this FBI agent is pretty convinced that he is responsible for some of these deaths, but without all of the evidence needed to prove his link to the murders, any of them, those in Rochester or the Hillside Strangler murders, he's actually eligible for parole in 2025. That's a little bit nerve-wracking. Yeah, but again,
01:03:57
Speaker
I guess my biggest thing with him is I do feel like that comment, and he even made that comment, that he would have been recognized by his sketches in that arrest in California, you know, by people who lived in Rochester. And that does make sense to me. That's true.
01:04:17
Speaker
The final prime suspect was a man arrested in 2011 at the age of 77, a man named Joseph Nasso, who between 1977 and 1994 murdered four women in California who had first and last initials, which were the same. Okay. So, similarity. Nasso was from New York.
01:04:42
Speaker
had lived in Rochester in the early 70s and often traveled back and forth between New York and California and he would offer the women a ride in his car as a way of luring them in. So would the girls have known him? I could not find any evidence that they would have known him. However, all of the women who he murdered in California were prostitutes and again
01:05:09
Speaker
To me, that's a stretch to go from children to grown women. And again, using DNA evidence, his DNA did not match that found on Wanda. And Naso also kept a journal and photographs, disgusting, of his victims and no mention nor photographs of the young girls were discovered.
01:05:32
Speaker
There were, of course, other suspects, Maggie. One man who admitted to relatives his attraction to young girls. Who? Yes. And who acted overly emotional when interviewed, even though, you know, given the fact that he had no relationship to the victim, which again, that's odd.
01:05:51
Speaker
Another tip came from a woman who said that her brother's friend had once admitted to being responsible for the double initial murders, who had lived in the apartment building of one of the girls and whose name appeared on the funeral log of one of the victims. And that to me, that's, yeah, that's weird. Yeah, because sometimes don't like, yeah, they would go.
01:06:15
Speaker
But again, Maggie, DNA samples were given by the relatives of both of those men. And this was an article that I read that in in 2009. And I saw nothing since then that there had been arrests made. So that leads me to believe that both of those men have been cleared of involvement to either that or they just don't have enough evidence yet to make the case. This is crazy to me.
01:06:43
Speaker
I know, and we're also left with the fact that one FBI profiler does not believe that the three victims are at all related, nor that the perpetrator chose them based upon their names. That FBI profiler believes that whoever committed these crimes wasn't organized enough in his abductions, murders, or locations where the bodies were dumped to have chosen the girls based upon something as calculated as that. But again, I disagree.
01:07:12
Speaker
How is it not organized to have left their bodies in towns that begin with the same letter?
01:07:20
Speaker
That, to me, seems organized. I mean, part of me says, yes, that it is calculated and organized that you know you're abducting a girl whose initials are Cece and you're dumping her in a town that starts with a C. But then a part of me says, well, if it was three individual people that killed these girls, then maybe it could be coincidence. Or copycat. Yeah.
01:07:45
Speaker
I'm torn. And I have to kind of pair that FBI profiler's beliefs with beliefs on the opposite side. Forensic psychiatrist David Berry, who in an article in the Democrat and Chronicle by Gary Craig argued that there was a quote, strong possibility.
01:08:06
Speaker
end quote, that the man who killed Wanda Walkowitz also killed Carmen Colon believing that they were all the result of a serial killer. So Maggie, what are your thoughts? Well, I keep going back and forth because like one person will say something that says that they had to be individuals
01:08:25
Speaker
instances and I'm like oh yeah that makes sense I agree and then somebody will say something else they're like it has to be a serial killer and I'm like oh yes that makes perfect sense I agree I think I am going with the serial killer theory I do too only because
01:08:45
Speaker
I don't know, but then I feel like people would have recognized this picture. And with somebody, it could have been copycats or people, maybe somebody out there who we haven't found yet. That's what I was gonna say, unless we just haven't found them yet. And I would literally comb back through those funeral lungs. I'm sure they have already, but go back through them again. Oh, to see if there's like names that match.
01:09:06
Speaker
Now, Sleuthhounds, we want to know what you think.
Families' Quest for Justice
01:09:10
Speaker
For nearly 40 years, the families in our case this week have waited for answers. But hope fades as time passes. And so do memories.
01:09:22
Speaker
Steven Maienza, who was 13 at the time his young sister Michelle was abducted, painfully admitted in an interview that sometimes he forgets what his sister looked like. The details of her smile, the way her hug felt, how light could dance in her eyes.
01:09:38
Speaker
But the one thing that never lessens is the pain. Carmen's mother explained in an interview with Jack Jones in the Democrat and Chronicle in 1995 that, quote, if I could die knowing who killed my Carmen Sita,
01:09:54
Speaker
I could die more peacefully than I've lived. It's the only thing I want in life to know that this person had to pay for the terrible things he did to my little girl. If the person who did this could have any compassion, he would see the pain and suffering the families of these little girls have gone through for all this time." End quote.
01:10:15
Speaker
But law enforcement is determined to not let these families down. An article by Gary Craig for the Democrat and Chronicle notes the following, quote, four police agencies, state police, Monroe County Sheriff's Office, Wayne County Sheriff's Office and Rochester Police, continue to chase down leads.
01:10:36
Speaker
A team of investigators meet to compare possible suspects and to mine old police reports to see whether something crucial can still be pursued. This is no small task. There have been thousands of pages of reports and hundreds of suspects in the past 30 plus years. Each new tip, no matter how innocuous it might seem, could be the one that breaks the case. There's almost a generational quality to the investigation.
01:11:04
Speaker
The current team of investigators meets occasionally with retired cops to probe their memories about the investigation in the 1970s. And the retired officers are very willing to help. They want the killer, or killers, found. Even if it turns out those responsible are now deceased."
01:11:24
Speaker
With physical evidence from all three crimes, there is still hope, still chance for closure. We are the truth seekers, Sleuthhounds, and all it takes is one memory of someone uncharacteristically smoking Paul Mall cigarettes. One memory of a friend or family member with a proclivity for young girls who owned or lived with someone who owned a white cat. We could be only one DNA swab away from justice.
01:11:54
Speaker
and there's no expiration date on that. If you have information on the Carmen Colon case, call the Monroe County Sheriff's Office tip line at 585-753-4175.
01:12:10
Speaker
Anyone with information on the murder of Wanda Walkowitz is asked to call New York State Police at 585-398-4100. If you have any information on the murder of Michelle Maienza, call the Wayne County Sheriff's Office at 315-946-5781.
01:12:34
Speaker
Again, please like and join our Facebook page, Coffee and Cases Podcast, to continue the conversation and see images related to this episode. As always, follow us on Twitter, at casescoffee, on Instagram, at Coffee Cases Podcast, or you can always email us suggestions to coffeeandcasespodcast at gmail.com. Please tell your friends about our podcast so more people can be reached to possibly help bring some closure to these families. Don't forget to rate our show and leave us a comment as well. We hope to hear from you soon.
01:13:03
Speaker
Stay together. Stay safe. We'll see you next week.