hausoftruecrime: The Alphabet Murders Between 1971 and 1973 a serial killer raped and strangled thr

hausoftruecrime:

The Alphabet Murders

Between 1971 and 1973 a serial killer raped and strangled three young girls in the Rochester area of New York State. The unsolved string of grisly murders was dubbed “The Alphabet Slayings” due to the unusual fact all three victims shared alliterative (double) initials.

The horror began on November 16, 1971, when commuters on the 1-490 highway witnessed a half-naked little girl being thrown into the back of a car after she appeared to be waving her arms for help. A day later, the lifeless body of Carmen Colon (10) was found in a roadside ditch mere miles from where she was last sighted. She had been brutally raped, and her body was covered in scratch marks.

Over a year later on April 2, 1973, not far from where Carmen Colon’s body was discovered, Wanda Walkowicz (11) disappeared after going to the corner store to buy groceries. Her mother reported her missing within hours and a search party was launched, but a teenage boy looking for bottles in a ditch came across her strangled corpse the next day. Wanda’s body was fully dressed, but she had been forcefully molested and scratched on her neck and face.

Seven months later Michelle Maenza was abducted while she walked home from school a day before her eleventh birthday on November 26, 1973. Her body was discovered three days later, clothed, but covered in blood. Police quickly linked Michelle’s murder to the previous two, and made the controversial public announcement that a serial killer of young girls was operating in the Rochester area. The police were overwhelmed with tips and leads, but only two clues proved useful - a detailed sketch of a bearded man seen talking to Wanda Walkowicz, and a description of a beige car in connection to Michelle Maenza’s murder. A man who fit the sketch and who was known to drive a beige station wagon was interviewed and given a polygraph test, but police found insufficient evidence against him. No other suspect has been charged with the Alphabet murders.

In 2010 it was published that serial killer Joseph Naso (pictured) might be involved in the Alphabet killings. Naso, who was sentenced to death in 2013 for killing four prostitutes in California, was found to have kept a “rape diary” which references crimes he committed in the Buffalo and Rochester during the period of the triple killings. Many believe he may be responsible for them, but Naso has not been charged.