Case snapshot
Between 1971 and 1973, three young girls vanished from Rochester, New York, each found dead days later in towns that matched their first and last initials. Carmen Colon, Wanda Walkowicz, and Michelle Maenza were strangled and dumped in locations that spelled out an eerie pattern, one that has never been definitively solved.
The first victim
Carmen Colon was ten years old when she disappeared on November 16, 1971. She had been running an errand for her grandmother in Rochester’s north side, a short walk that should have taken minutes. When she didn’t return, the family called police.
Two days later, her body was found in Churchville, roughly 12 miles from where she was last seen. She had been raped and strangled. The location was no accident. Churchville begins with C, just like Carmen Colon.
Witnesses reported seeing a young girl matching Carmen’s description in a car with a white male in his late twenties or early thirties. The driver appeared agitated. One witness said the girl looked frightened, her face pressed against the window. The car was described as a light-colored sedan, possibly a Ford or Chevrolet.
Investigators collected evidence at the dump site. Tire tracks suggested the killer had pulled off the road briefly, just long enough to leave her body in a ditch near the Genesee River. There were no signs she had been killed there. Wherever the murder took place, it wasn’t where she was found.
The second death
Eighteen months passed. Then, on April 2, 1973, eleven-year-old Wanda Walkowicz went missing. She had been walking home from school in Rochester’s northeast neighborhood, another working-class section of the city. Like Carmen, she never made it.
Her body was discovered the next day in Webster, a town east of Rochester. She had been sexually assaulted and strangled. Webster starts with W. Wanda Walkowicz.
The parallels were immediate. Both girls were young, both were taken in daylight or early evening, both were found in towns that mirrored their initials. Investigators began to suspect they were dealing with a serial offender, someone who was selecting victims based on a deliberate pattern.
Witnesses near the abduction site reported seeing a man in his thirties with dark brown hair driving a large, tan or beige vehicle. He had been circling the block slowly before Wanda disappeared. Another witness said they saw a girl resembling Wanda in a car shortly after school let out, looking distressed.
The geographical spread was telling. The killer wasn’t dumping bodies randomly. He was choosing specific locations, places that required planning and knowledge of the area. It pointed to someone familiar with Monroe County’s back roads and rural outskirts.
The third victim
On November 26, 1973, the pattern repeated. Michelle Maenza, age eleven, vanished while walking home from a shopping trip in Rochester. Her route took her through a busy neighborhood in the late afternoon. She was seen by several people, then she wasn’t.
Her body was found two days later in Macedon, a town southeast of Rochester. She had been raped and strangled. Macedon starts with M. Michelle Maenza.
The Alphabet Murders, as they came to be known, had claimed a third victim. The method was consistent. The victimology was consistent. The geographic pattern was unmistakable. Yet despite the clear signature, investigators had no solid suspect.
Witnesses in this case also described a man in a vehicle, though descriptions varied. Some said he was in his thirties, others said forties. Hair color ranged from brown to dirty blond. The car was described as large, possibly a station wagon or sedan, light in color. The vagueness of these reports became a major obstacle.
The investigation
Rochester police, Monroe County Sheriff’s Office, and New York State Police coordinated efforts, but the case sprawled in too many directions. Hundreds of tips poured in. Dozens of men were interviewed. Polygraphs were administered. Alibis were checked and rechecked.
Investigators explored the possibility that the killer was connected to the victims’ neighborhoods, perhaps someone who worked in delivery, maintenance, or another role that allowed him to move through residential areas without suspicion. They looked at sex offenders with prior convictions. They examined employees at local businesses near each abduction site.
One early suspect was a firefighter who lived near two of the victims and had access to a vehicle matching witness descriptions. He was questioned multiple times but never charged. Another man, a local laborer with a history of erratic behavior, drew attention after being seen near one of the dump sites. He too was cleared.
The Alphabet connection itself became a point of debate. Was it intentional, or coincidental? Some investigators believed the killer was deliberately choosing victims whose initials matched specific towns, a signature meant to taunt police. Others thought the pattern was an artifact of victim availability, that the killer simply took whoever was vulnerable and the matching initials were chance.
Forensic evidence was limited by the technology of the era. Semen was recovered from the victims, but DNA profiling didn’t exist yet. Tire tracks and soil samples were collected but couldn’t be definitively matched to any suspect vehicle. Fiber evidence from Carmen’s clothing suggested she had been in contact with a carpeted surface, possibly the interior of a car or van, but the fibers were too common to trace.
Suspects and dead ends
Over the years, several individuals emerged as persons of interest. In 2007, a convicted child killer named Joseph Naso was investigated after police found photographs of murdered women in his possession, along with a list that referenced victims by location and initials. Naso had lived in Rochester during the early 1970s, and some items in his collection raised alarms.
Investigators could not link him conclusively to the Alphabet murders. He was eventually convicted of murdering four women in California between 1977 and 1994, but DNA evidence did not match samples from the Rochester cases. Naso denied involvement, and the connection remains speculative.
Another figure, Kenneth Bianchi, one half of the Hillside Stranglers, also lived in Rochester during the time of the murders. Bianchi worked as an ambulance driver and had a history of sexual violence. He was interviewed by police, but there was no physical evidence tying him to the crimes. Bianchi’s known murders in California followed a different pattern, and he was ultimately ruled out.
In 2011, Rochester police announced they were revisiting the case with advances in DNA technology. Genetic material recovered from the victims was retested, and profiles were entered into national databases. No matches were found. Investigators began reaching out to relatives of deceased suspects, hoping to obtain familial DNA that might point toward a killer who had since died.
The cold case today
More than fifty years later, the Alphabet murders remain unsolved. The case files are still active, maintained by the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office, but leads have grown scarce. Most of the original investigators have retired or died. Witnesses have aged, and memories have faded.
The families of Carmen, Wanda, and Michelle have never received closure. Each girl’s death left a wound in Rochester’s collective memory, a reminder that even the most meticulous patterns can dissolve into silence when the person responsible vanishes.
Some investigators believe the killer died long ago, taking his secret with him. Others think he may still be alive, an elderly man living quietly, his past buried. There is also the possibility that he was incarcerated for another crime, his connection to the Alphabet murders never discovered.
What remains undeniable is the deliberate nature of the crimes. Three girls, each taken from the same city, each found in a town that mirrored her name. Whether the pattern was a taunt or a compulsion, it defined the case. It also made it impossible to ignore.
Rochester has changed in the decades since. The neighborhoods where the girls lived have been rebuilt. The roads where their bodies were found are now lined with subdivisions and strip malls. But the case itself hasn’t moved. It sits in the archives, waiting for the one piece of evidence, the one name, that could finally bring it to an end.
Where to dive deeper
- Documentary: “Cold Case Files: The Alphabet Murders” (A&E)
- Book: “The Case of the Alphabet Murders” by Richard L. Walton
- Podcast: “The Alphabet Murders” (“Casefile True Crime”, Casefile Presents)
