CRIME HUNTER: Is Hillside Strangler responsible for the alphabet murders?

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The killer is believed to have first struck on November 16, 1971.

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The victim’s name was Carmen Colón. She was 10 years old and had run an errand for her grandmother at a local pharmacy in her neighborhood of Rochester, NY. It was 4:20 p.m.

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The pharmacist will later say that her grandmother’s prescription was not ready. A few minutes later, she was spotted entering a car parked near the pharmacy. When she did not return home, her family called the cops around 7:50 p.m.

Detectives learned that about an hour after leaving the drug store, the little girl was spotted running – naked from the waist down – away from a reversing Ford Pinto sedan on I-490.

The child looked terrified as she was led back to the car. She was never seen alive again.

Carmen’s partially naked body was discovered not far from the freeway two days later. She had been raped and strangled to death.

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“(If) I could die knowing who killed my Carmencita, I could die more peacefully than I lived. It’s the only thing I want in my life, to know that this person had to pay for the terrible things he did to my little girl, » her mother told the Democrat and Chronic 24 years after his death.

« If the person who did this could have any compassion, they would see the pain and suffering that the families of these little girls have endured, all this time. »

But Carmen Colón would be the first of three alphabet murders that terrorized Rochester from 1971 to 1973. Awards and media campaigns have not helped identify the monster that killed her.

Wanda Walkowicz was the next victim. The 11-year-old girl disappeared in April 1973 after going shopping for her mother. Her body was found in the town of Webster two days later and she too had been raped and strangled.

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Michelle Maenza, 11, was reported missing after failing to return home from school on November 26, 1973. The little girl was spotted sobbing inside a vehicle. Michelle was discovered fully clothed two days later in Macedonia. She had been raped and strangled to death.

All three victims shared the trait that their first name began with the same letter as their last name. And the dumps also corresponded to the first letter in all three cases.

The children had other similarities. All three attended Catholic schools, did poorly in school, and were considered loners.

And just as suddenly as the killings started, they stopped. Despite the harrowing efforts of law enforcement, the cases were never solved.

There is, however, a very convincing suspect: Kenneth Bianchi, aka Hillside Strangler, who was born and raised in Rochester.

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Criminologist and author Christopher Berry-Dee told the UK Sun he believed Bianchi to be the elusive Alphabet Killer.

« No doubt he was involved in the case, » Berry-Dee told the newspaper, adding that cops looked at the handsome serial killer early in the investigation.

Bianchi, now 71, is serving a life sentence in Washington state for the murders that terrorized Los Angeles in the 1970s and 1980s. Along with his fat cousin Angelo Buono Jr., the couple have kidnapped, raped, tortured and murdered at least 10 women and girls between the ages of 12 and 28.

Berry-Dee interviewed and corresponded with Bianchi for years. He said the killer offers conflicting statements and conflicting theories.

“A lot of people say he was innocent. No doubt he was involved in the case,” the criminologist said. “There were things about the case, he said.”

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« Bianchi’s lengthy correspondence with me, his habitual lying which is the foundation of his sado-sexual psychopathology, combined with his forgetting what he said to me one week only to say something completely different shortly thereafter, convinced me precisely that he was the killer of the three young girls from Rochester.

Additionally, Bianchi refused a blood test at the time of the Rochester murders.

Berry-Dee said one of the clues that convinced him that Bianchi was the killer was a comment made by the monster’s mother, Francis.

Every time Bianchi was shot by a woman, he left the house and killed.

« ‘Kenneth can’t handle rejection,’ were his words to that effect and, in hindsight, it turned out to be accurate, » Berry-Dee said.

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« Towards the alphabet murders, Bianchi had come out and been rejected by several more mature girls, initially attracted to his good looks, they soon saw behind the mask until they could no longer tolerate his lies and his infidelity one more day. »

Berry-Dee added: “It fits with his pathology as well. He sought « revenge » on the most vulnerable and he did just that. He had access to it and he knew how to charm children – as he did with prostitutes in Los Angeles.

Bianchi can apply for parole in 2025. He is unlikely to succeed even if the killer still maintains his innocence.

Returning to her haunted hometown, the families desperately search for answers more than 50 years after their heart was ripped from their chest.

bhunter@postmedia.com

@HunterTOSun