Three young girls were attacked and killed in the Rochester NY area over 50 years
By Johanna Elattar,
There’s a face you’ve probably seen before, circulating in cold case forums, appearing in true crime videos, haunting comment sections and Reddit threads like an eerie ghost. It’s dressed in denim, average in build, and completely forgettable. The kind of man you’d pass on the street and never give a second thought. And yet, this face has become synonymous with one of New York’s most disturbing unsolved mysteries: the Alphabet Murders.
Between 1971 and 1973, three young girls were abducted, sexually assaulted, and murdered in and around Rochester, New York. Carmen Colón, Wanda Walkowicz, and Michelle Maenza were all under the age of 12, and each of their first and last initials matched the name of the town where their bodies were found. The connection—however coincidental—was chilling, sparking speculation that the murders were the work of one killer, though the details of the case remain eerily elusive.
Carmen Colón was the first victim, abducted in 1971. Her mother had sent her to a local drug store to pick up a prescription. After speaking with the pharmacist, Carmen stepped outside to wait for the prescription to be filled. She was only a block and a half from home—but she never returned. Two days later, her body was found in a gully near the town of Churchville. An autopsy revealed that, in addition to having been raped, the child had suffered a fracture to her skull and one of her vertebrae before she had been manually strangled to death. Furthermore, her body had been extensively scratched by fingernails.
In the hours leading up to her death, Carmen was seen running from a car on the shoulder of Interstate 490. She was naked from the waist down, flailing her arms in a desperate attempt to get someone’s attention. Many drivers passed by, but not one stopped to help. This moment—the desperate run for help, the silent onlookers—speaks to a quiet cruelty, a chilling apathy in a world too often willing to look the other way. It also underscores the unreliability of memory: those who witnessed her were unable to provide a clear description or take action when it mattered most. That, in itself, is a reflection of how easily we can fail to act when we should.
Wanda Walkowicz was taken next, and then, two years later, Michelle Maenza. Each girl was found in a remote area, murdered and left behind like discarded evidence. The pattern was clear, but the killer remained hidden in the shadows. Over the years, as the investigation ran cold, rumors began to swirl, and one of those rumors took shape in the form of a sketch.
The sketch. It’s the face people now associate with the Alphabet Murders. A supposed witness reported seeing a man with Wanda before her disappearance, and from there, a sketch was drawn. The image, a man with a five o’clock shadow, dressed in denim, with an unremarkable build, quickly made its way through the media and onto forums where true crime enthusiasts would pour over it, searching for answers.
But there’s a problem with that sketch. A big one.
I wrote about the Alphabet Murders a few months ago, delving into the chilling details of the case—the brutal killings, the eerie coincidence of the initials, and the years of uncertainty that followed. But I made one conscious decision: I didn’t include the sketch. And I’m not about to now. Why? Because I don’t believe it represents the real killer. And I refuse to give a false image any power.
The origins of the sketch are murky. It didn’t surface until years after the crimes and was never widely circulated by law enforcement at the time. There is no confirmed eyewitness testimony that could reliably link the sketch to the real killer. It’s just… there. A digital phantom that circulates the internet like a badge of authority, but it isn’t. It’s a myth. A placeholder for something we wish were true, a face that we’ve imposed on a tragedy that’s gone unsolved for far too long.
If you look closely at the sketch, you’ll see what I mean. It’s a composite of features: a kind of chiseled jawline, hollow eyes, wearing a denim jacket, and bushy hair. It’s the face of a man you’d pass on the street without a second thought. In reality, killers don’t typically look like they’ve stepped out of a criminal sketchbook. They don’t have the perfect, chiseled features or sharp outlines we see in such renderings. The truth is messier. Killers blend in. They’re ordinary. Forgettable. They don’t stand out in a crowd—they don’t look like monsters. They’re the guy who cuts your grass, the neighbor who brings over cookies, the coworker who sits next to you at lunch. But this sketch? Too perfect. Too tidy. Too convenient.
The longer a case remains unsolved, the more we cling to these artifacts. We reach for them like life preservers, believing that they bring us closer to the truth. But they don’t. They only give us the illusion of closure. The sketch doesn’t provide answers. It only distracts from the real work of finding the killer.
Recently, John Kelly, a criminal profiler with decades of experience, reached out to discuss my coverage of this case. For those unfamiliar with him, John Kelly is a recognized authority on criminal profiling. He’s consulted on infamous cases such as John Wayne Gacy, and the Zodiac Killer. His expertise has helped law enforcement understand the minds of serial killers, and his insights have shaped countless investigations. Kelly agreed with my decision to leave out the sketch.
John Kelly, with his decades of experience analyzing the psyches of killers, agrees. He believes the sketch is the result of false memory and collective myth-making. He asked, “If this man was so memorable, why did he vanish without a trace? Why didn’t anyone else see him again?” The truth is, if the killer had been so easy to spot, someone would have recognized him by now.
We romanticize the idea of a singular predator, lurking in the shadows. We are influenced by time, and false memory. The case has always been controversial, with conflicting timelines and theories about whether the murders were connected. Theories, and time elevated the sketch into something it was never meant to be—a symbol of closure.
So, no, I didn’t include the sketch. Because in a case already burdened by decades of grief, flawed theories, and dead ends, I wasn’t going to breathe more life into a face that isn’t the answer.
Sometimes the most dangerous thing in an unsolved case isn’t the lack of answers. It’s the comfort of a false one. A face that gives us solace where there should be none. A face that distracts from the real work, the real investigation, and the real search for truth.
And that face? It’s not justice. It’s just a ghost.
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Johanna is a Hornell based writer with a special interest in mystery and unsolved crimes. You can reach out to her to discuss anytime, americangrrl70@gmail.com. Read her first piece about the infamous Alphabet Murders here:
