Between 1971 and 1973, three girls between the ages of 10 and 11 were murdered in the city of Rochester, United States. Closer returns to this mysterious case.
It was in the United States, on November 16, 1971, that this affair took root. In the small town of Rochester, in upstate New York, 10-year-old Carmen Colón is sent by her grandmother to a pharmacy on West Main Street to pick up a prescription. The pharmacist takes care of her quickly, but Carmen seems in a hurry. “I have to go, I have to go“, she repeats before leaving the pharmacy. But the little girl does not return home. A few hours later, her family is worried not to see her return. She reports her disappearance at 7:50 p.m., three hours and thirty minutes after his visit to the pharmacy.
The investigation is entrusted to the Rochester police, who quickly collect disturbing testimonies. On the afternoon of November 16, several motorists claim to have seen a partially naked girl running on Interstate 490 to escape a dark Ford Pinto. But before anyone could react, the little girl was overtaken by the driver of the car. The hope of finding little Carmen dwindles, until it disappears completely two days later. On November 18, 1971, the child’s body was discovered in a ditch along Interstate 490 near Churchville. His body, bare below the belt, shows terrible traces of scratches. Moreover, the autopsy shows that Carmen was raped and hit on the head before being strangled with her bare hands.
Carmen Colon, Wanda Walkowicz and Michelle Maenza
At first, the girl’s uncle, Miguel Colón, is suspected of her murder. According to one of his friends, the latter declared, two days after Carmen’s disappearance, that he wanted to leave the country after having done “something wrong in rochester“. However, in the absence of material evidence, the track is quickly abandoned. The investigators are then far from suspecting that the drama will happen again, not once, but twice…
On April 2, 1973, seventeen months after the murder of Carmen Colón, Wanda Walkowicz, 11, disappears outside a delicatessen in Rochester. His body was discovered the next morning near a road in Webster, about ten kilometers from the place of his disappearance. He shows signs of sexual assault and strangulation, but his body was clothed post-mortem. In addition, forensic scientists discovered traces of semen, pubic hair and curious white cat hair. Elements that will also be found on the third victim. On November 26, 1973, 11-year-old Michelle Maenza also disappeared on leaving school. She was found dead forty-eight hours later near a road in Macedon. She too was raped before being strangled to death, and on her clothes, the coroners are surprised to take white cat hair…
“The Double Initial Murders”
If the investigators did not believe that the murders of Colón and Walkowicz were connected, they are forced to admit that a serial killer may be roaming the streets of Rochester. The similarities between the victims are numerous and the operating methods are very similar. Additionally, investigators note a strange feature in the murders. Not only did the girls all have double initials, but their bodies were discovered in towns matching those initials. Carmen Colón was found in Churchville, Wanda Walkowicz in Webster and Michelle Maenza in Macedon. Faced with this observation, the investigators nicknamed the case that of the “Alphabet Murders” (“the murders of the alphabet”). Nevertheless, they believe to this day that the correspondence of the letters was just a strange coincidence.
Thanks to several testimonies, including that of a motorist claiming to have seen Michelle Maenza with a man on a road in Walworth, police composite portrait of a dark-haired Caucasian male, 25-35 years old. In 1974, Dennis Termini, a 25-year-old firefighter, is wanted by the police after the kidnapping of a teenage girl. But after several days of tracking, Termini ends up committing suicide. White cat hairs are then discovered in his car, a sign of his possible involvement in the alphabet murders. However, in 2007, the comparison of Termini’s DNA with that found on the body of Wanda Walkowicz allowed her to be removed from the list of suspects.
Fifty years later, the author of the “Alphabet murders” is still running. Nevertheless, the investigation remains open and the Rochester police remain hopeful of bringing justice to the three girls who were murdered in the 1970s.”These children cannot truly rest in peace. And until this case is closed, they never can.“, declared, in 2009, the sheriff of the county of Wayne, Richard Pisciotti.