Alphabet murders

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The so-called "Alphabet murders" (also known as the "double initial murders") took place in the early 1970s in the Rochester, New York area; three young girls were attacked sexually and strangled. The case got its name from the fact that each of the three girls' first and last names started with the same letters (Carmen Colon, Wanda Walkowicz, and Michelle Maenza) and that the bodies were found in towns that started with the same letter as the girls' names (Colon in Churchville, Walkowicz in Webster and Maenza in Macedon).

While hundreds of people were questioned, the killer was never caught. One man, considered to be a "person of interest" in the case (he committed suicide six weeks after the last of the killings) was cleared in 2007 by DNA testing.^[1]

Another suspect was Kenneth Bianchi, a Rochester native who later moved to Los Angeles, and with his cousin Angelo Buono committed the Hillside Strangler murders between 1977 and 1978. Bianchi was never charged with the Alphabet murders, but many view him as one of the more viable suspects.

In 2001, the Discovery Channel aired a program revisiting the murders,^[2] and a movie based on the murders is scheduled for release in 2008.^[3]