The Alphabet Murders

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Rochester, NY - Patrick Ashley / CC BY (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)
Rochester, NY Patrick Ashley / CC BY

The disappearance of an 11-year-old girl and her subsequent murder would rock the city of Rochester, NY in November 1971.  Shock turned to fear when two more young girls were abducted from busy streets in broad daylight never to be seen alive again.  Listen to the story of The Alphabet Murders and discover why these crimes are also known as The Double Initial Murders.

The Double Initial Murders are also known as the Alphabet Murders. The victims first and last names both started with the same letter and the town they were from started with the same letter.
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The Double Initial Murders are also known as the Alphabet Murders. The victims first and last names started with the same letter and the town they were from started with the same letter as their name.

The Alphabet Murders Location

The Alphabet murder occurred in Rochester, NY. Rochester is the 3rd most populous city in New York State behind NYC and Buffalo. it was founded in 1817 after the American Revolution by the descendants of Puritans looking for fertile agricultural land. Rochester was named after Colonel Nathaniel Rochester.

It is known as both the “Flower City” and “Flour City” due to its seed and mill trades.

In 2014 Rochester made the Guinness Book of World Record for the largest human flower. 2,297 people gathered wearing purple, pink, and green ponchos to form a flower during the annual Lilac Festival. it is also known to be one of the snowiest cities in America with an annual snowfall amount of 89 inches.

November 16, 1971

On November 16, 1971, 10-year-old Carmen Colon, was running an errand for her grandparents. Carmen lived with them in the lower socio-economic area of  Bulls Head neighborhood of southwest Rochester. She needed to pick up a prescription for her grandfather.

Carmen was originally from Puerto Rico.  She is described as having a lively smile and being a good girl. She was also a scrapper who was able to stand up for herself.

Jax Pharmacy is on West Main Street which was only about two blocks from her home. She set out shortly before 4:20 pm on a gray and rainy Wednesday afternoon. When Carmen arrived she was told the prescription was not ready. According to the store clerk, Carmen appeared to be in a hurry and stated: “I got to go, I got to go”. She soon left out of the front door.

Carmen entered a car that was parked close to the pharmacy according to a witness. When Carmen failed to return home her grandparents contacted the police at 7:50 pm. What her grandparents didn’t know was that approximately 50 minutes after Carmen left the pharmacy, motorists on Interstate 490 would see a female child naked from the waist down running away from a vehicle that was backing up towards her.  

The young child matched the description of Carmen. At the time she had been flailing her arms and shouting trying to get someone to stop but no one did. The vehicle was described as a dark-colored Ford Pinto hatchback. One witness came forward and said they saw a little girl being led back to the car by the driver after he had caught up to her. None of these witnesses would report to authorities what they had seen until news broke two days later.

November 18, 1971

Two teenage boys were riding their bikes near a gully close to the village of Churchville. They came across Carmen Colon’s partially nude body off an infrequently traveled road near the Chili border. She had on the shirt she was last seen in and was wearing socks and sneakers.

Churchville is approximately 12 miles from where Carmen was last seen alive. Her coat was found 300 yards from her body in a culvert. Carmen’s pants were discovered 12 days later on November 30th. The pants were located close to the service road where she was last seen running down the interstate.

Carmen’s Autopsy

The autopsy would show that Carmen has been raped and had a fractured skull and vertebrae. There were also extensive scratches made by the killer’s fingernails all along her body. The cause of death was manual strangulation by someone who had faced her. No DNA profile was obtained.

Investigation

News of Carmen’s abduction and murder soon hit the media causing immediate outrage. Rochester newspapers, the “Times Union” and the “Democrat & Chronicle” offered a combined reward of $2,500 (a little on $15,000 in 2020) for any information leading to the arrest and conviction of Carmen’s killer

Investigators rounded up plenty of suspects, but unfortunately, all of them were cleared. The investigation dragged on. In 1972 five large billboards were erected around the Rochester expressway with Carmen’s picture on them. They had the headline “Do You Know Who Killed Carmen Colon?” Again this brought in plenty of tips, but none of them panned out.

17 Months Later

Police might have been thinking Carmen’s abduction murder was a one-off, but sadly that was not the case. At 5 pm on Monday, April 2, 1973, red-haired, 11-year-old Wanda Walkowicz disappeared from her east side neighborhood in Rochester.

Wanda is described as a tomboy who was a bundle of energy who had some street smarts. She had been sent to the Hillside Delicatessen by her mother to purchase some groceries for the evening meal. Wanda saw some neighborhood friends at Boss Delicatessen, which was closer than the delicatessen Wanda was going to. Both delicatessens were located on Conkey Avenue.

When Wanda’s friend’s exited their store they noticed that Wanda had exited hers. She was slowly walking behind them trying to carry what appeared to be a heavy grocery bag. Wanda purchased $8.52 worth of groceries which included tuna fish, milk, cupcakes, and cat food.

The friends didn’t wait for her as it was raining. When they looked back they could see her struggling with the bag. They also saw a large brown car pass them slowly. When they looked back again both the car and Wanda were nowhere to be found.

Wanda is Reported Missing

Joyce Walkowicz, phoned the police at 8 pm to report Wanda missing. Fifty police officers spread out and began searching the area. It covered several square miles including an area around the Genesee River where Wanda liked to go and play. At 10:15 pm the following day, a state police officer found her body down an embankment. This was off the Bay Bridge rest area in Webster.

She was found on her sister Michelle’s 10th birthday. Wanda was fully clothed and was found at the base of a hillside along State Route 104. It is approximately 7 1/2 miles from Rochester. The position of her body suggested she was most likely thrown from a vehicle and rolled down the embankment.

Wanda’s autopsy would reveal that she died of strangulation from behind. She had ligature marks on her neck indicating that she may have been strangled with a belt. Wanda had several defensive wounds. She had also been raped and redressed afterward. Semen would also be found on her clothes and underwear along with pubic hair.

Her autopsy also showed that she had eaten a custard type of food shortly before her death. Several strands of white cat hairs were found on her clothing. The Walkowicz owned a cat, but not one with white fur.

Witnesses Come Forward

This time a reward for information on the abduction and murder of Wanda Walkowicz was $10,000 (a little over $58,000 in 2020). Witnesses came forward after news broke of Wanda’s disappearance and murder and reported seeing a small child standing by a passenger door of a large brown vehicle talking to the driver.

Another anonymous witness reported that on the evening of Wanda’s disappearance she witnessed a man forcing a red-haired girl, who matched Wanda’s description, into a light-colored Dodge Dart on Conkey Avenue sometime between 5:30 pm – 6 pm. When questioned by reporters if there was a link between Carmon & Wanda’s abduction/murders the police stated they didn’t think so at the time.

On October 21, 1973 (over 6 months later) WOKR news station aired a 30-minute reconstruction of Wanda’s walk to the Hillside Delicatessen and what happened once she left the store based on witness statements in hopes of finding a lead in a case that had gone cold

7 months later

On Monday, November 26, 1973, 11-year-old Michelle Maenza from the Webster Crescent neighborhood,  was reported missing by her mother, Carolyn. She had failed to return home from an errand her mother had sent her on after school that day. Michelle is described as a chubby shy girl. She was excited to walk home by herself for the first time.

Michelle was last seen by some of her classmates around 3:20 pm. She was walking by herself towards a local shopping plaza, the Goodman Plaza. Her mother had either left her purse at a store there or had lost it there. Michelle was sent there to see if she could retrieve it for her.

She ran into her uncle in the parking lot of the shopping plaza and he offered to give her a ride home. Since it was such a short distance she turned him down and decided to walk home.

A witness would claim that 10 minutes after Michelle had talked to her uncle she was spotted sitting in the passenger seat of a four-door beige or tan vehicle. This vehicle had been at an intersection and then took off at a high rate of speed down Ackerman Street before turning on Weber Avenue. The witness said the little girl looked to have been crying.

Good Samaritan

According to police, at 5:30 pm that evening a man stopped to assist a driver with what appeared to be a flat tire. He was parked along Route 350 in the town of Walworth. This man appeared very menacing and was holding onto the girl’s wrist. When the good Samaritan started to walk towards the man and child the man started walking towards him in a threatening manner. The Samaritan got back into his vehicle and left.

The description that the witness gave allowed police to develop a full-body sketch. It was of a white male with dark hair between the ages of 25 & 35 who stood approximately 6 ft. tall and weighed 165 lbs. He wore a blue or dark color ski-type of vest with jeans tucked into brown cowboy boots that had belt buckles on the side. He had several days of beard growth and long dirty fingernails.

Michelle’s Body is Found

Michelle’s body would be found at 10:30 am on November 28th. She was lying face down in a ditch alongside a rural road in the town of Macedon. Macedon is approximately 15 miles from Rochester. Her coat would be found a couple of yards down the road. Police believe the killer didn’t realize he still had her coat in the car just threw it out of the window.

Michelle’s autopsy would show that she died of strangulation from behind. She had ligature marks on her neck that looked like they came from some sort of thin rope. Michelle also had blunt force trauma. She had been raped and dressed after her death. Semen was found on her body and underwear.

Michelle’s stomach contents showed that she had eaten a hamburger with onions at least one hour prior to her death. Another witness would come forward and placed Michelle and her killer at Carol’s Restaurant in Penfield around 4:30 pm. White cat hairs were also found on her clothing.

The Alphabet Murders Investigation

In looking at the three cases together there are some similarities.

Each child had come from a poor Catholic family with only one parent present. In Carmen’s case, she lived with her grandparents. Wanda lived with her mother and her two younger sisters. Her father was deceased. Michelle lived with her mother and older brother. His birthday was the day after her abduction

It’s reported that all three had few friends and had experienced issues with bullying and poor academic performances. They were each preadolescent females who disappeared on afternoons between 3:30 pm and 5:30 pm on days that were grey and rainy. Their bodies had all been discovered in different adjoining counties. All three had been raped and strangled shortly before their deaths.

Only two were redressed afterward. Each girl looks to have gone with their abductor willingly. This lead police to believe that it may have been someone who was posing as a police officer or fireman. Someone they would see as an authority figure.

The most striking similarity was that each of the girls had the same letter in their first names as their last names. In addition, each was dumped in an area close to a town that also started with the same letter as their names.

  • Carmen Colon – Churchville
  • Wanda Walkowicz – Webster
  • Michelle Maenza – Macedon

Some Differences

Some investigators felt that Carmen may have been killed by someone who knew her, like a relative, but that Wanda and Michelle most likely had the same killer. Another difference between the three girls is that Carmen did not have any food in her stomach.

Some additional information in Wanda’s disappearance was that on the Saturday before she disappeared she and a friend were chased by a man near the railroad tracks that run parallel to Conkey Avenue. Also, the groceries that Wanda bought which included a pack of Pall Mall cigarettes (an off-brand) that were never found.

White cat hairs were found on Wanda and Michelle. The police felt that possibly the killer had used the cat as a distraction and used the food to make them feel comfortable.

Robert Ressler, FBI member of the Behavioral Science Unit

Robert Ressler is credited with terming the word “serial killer” in the 70s. He is known as one of the first serial killer profilers.

He put together a profile of the Alphabet Murders. Ressler felt that Carmen may not have been killed by the same killer as Wanda and Michelle because:

  • Carmen’s killer showed a high level of anger.
    • Could her murder have been more brutal because she tried to escape?
  • Carmen also didn’t have food in her stomach prior to being killed.
    • Could he have learned from her murder to do something to keep the girls’ calm?
  • Carmen was also found partially naked while the other girls were fully dressed.
    • Again, could this have been because she put up more of a fight?
  • Carmen was also manually strangled with the killer facing her while the other two girls had ligature marks from behind.
  • Ressler thought that Carmen’s killer was probably someone she knew. They were between the age of 25-30, with a low to average intelligence, and most likely abused alcohol and had an explosive temper.
  • Ressler’s profile for Wanda and Michelle’s killer indicated he had average intelligence. He may have been arrested for lesser sexual offenses, such as nuisance type offenses like a peeping tom, obscene phone calls or exhibitionism.

He also dismissed the idea that the killer chooses his victims based upon their initials. Ressler felt the killer was not organized in his abductions, murders, or the location where he dumped the bodies.

Miguel Colon “Uncle Miguel”

Miguel Colon “Uncle Miguel” was a suspect in his niece’s murder. Police found that he had purchased a car that closely matched the vehicle seen by the eyewitnesses on Route 490. Miguel extensively cleaned both the interior and exterior of the car with a strong cleaning solution soon after Carmen’s body was found.

Miguel left the US to return to Puerto Rico. He told a friend that he had done something wrong in Rochester. Police had Miguel extradited back to Rochester on March 26, 1972. He was unable to provide an alibi for the time Carmen went missing. There was no physical evidence that linked him to her murder.

Police felt there was enough circumstantial evidence to charge him or at least take it to the grand jury, but the DA never brought the case forward. Miguel committed suicide in 1991 at age 44. He shot his wife and brother-in-law, not fatally, but he ended up shooting himself.

Dennis Termini

Dennis Termini was a 25-year-old Rochester firefighter. He was also a serial offender known as The Garage Rapist. Dennis committed at least 14 rapes of teenage girls and young women from 1971-1973.

He was known to have owned a beige vehicle and lived near Carmen Colon Five weeks after Michelle’s murder Dennis attempted to abduct a teenage girl at gunpoint, but her screaming scared him off. He then tried to abduct another girl. Police found him and started pursuing him. Dennis ended up shooting himself in the head instead of being taken alive.

A forensic search of his vehicle revealed traces of white cat fur.

Police ended up exhuming his body in January 2007 to obtain a DNA sample. They used this sample to compare to the DNA found on Wanda. The results showed that Termini was not responsible for her murder. There was no viable DNA from Carmen and Michelle that could be used for comparison.

Kenneth Bianchi

Kenneth Bianchi was known for being half of the Hillside Stranglers along with his cousin, Angelo Buono Jr. The pair committed 10 murders in Los Angeles from January 1976 to 1977/1978. The girls and young women were between the ages of 12 and 28.

Prior to moving to California, worked as an ice cream vendor in Rochester at the time of the murders. He denied having anything to do with the Double Initial Murders, also known as the Alphabet Murders. He was known for having driven a vehicle of the same color and same model as the vehicle seen near one of the abduction sites.

Joseph Naso

In April 2011 at the age of 77, Joseph Naso was arrested in Reno, NV. Naso was charged with the murders of four women in California from 1977-1994. All of Naso’s victims were believed to be prostitutes. Naso would stalk, sexually assault and then pose them in sexual poses alongside mannequins.

His victims’ last names all began with the same letter as their first names. His second victim in California name was Carmen Colon (22).

Another connection was Naso lived in Rochester during the early ’70s and worked as a freelance photographer. Authorities compared Naso’s DNA to the samples recovered from Wanda. It was confirmed that he was not a match. Joseph Naso would turn out to be a copy-cat serial killer. In June 2013, Naso was convicted of four counts of 1st degree.

Currently

Rochester State Police still have open investigations on the murders of Carmen, Wanda & Michelle. No one has been charged to date. DNA testing continues.Perhaps with genealogy DNA and touch DNA they might be able to find their killers.

If you have any information please reach out to the Rochester State Police at (585) 398-4100 or email them at crimetip@troopers.ny.gov

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