The Unsolved Crimes Of Rochester, NY

This is being reposted because more has been added to it.

If crime writers or amateur detectives ever hold a convention the ideal site would be Rochester, NY. For a city of it's scale it is amazing how many high-profile unsolved crimes it has. It could be considered as the world's capital of unsolved crimes. Here are the best-known ones in chronological order.

Please remember that I have no direct knowledge of any of these cases and am only going by what has been in the news.

THE LINDEN MURDERS

In the rural areas to the south of Rochester and Batavia a series of murders were taking place a century ago. These murders are still much-discussed and have never been solved. Someone periodically emerges claiming to have solved them.

In 1917 a man and woman were seen walking along a rural road. There was apparently a shortcut through the woods that they took. A man was seen emerging from the woods alone. Not long after a farmer was looking for firewood and found the horribly battered body of a woman. The woman has never been identified.

An elderly woman lived alone in a house in the town of Linden. Someone cut her telephone wires and got into her house. Her body was later found in the house. Like the woman in the woods she was so badly battered as to be scarcely recognizable. 

There was an elderly couple who lived not far from the above woman. Someone got into their house and shot both of them to death. It seems that a neighbor woman just happened to stop by while the killer was there and she was killed too. The killer then set the house on fire. Some people nearby broke into the house rescue the residents and found their bodies.

In a gravel pit not far away the skeleton of a young man was uncovered. Like the first two victims he had been repeatedly struck around the head with a blunt object.

Also in the general area a farmer was found dead at home. He had been repeatedly struck around the head and then the room set on fire.

Most people believe it to certainly be the work of the same killer. Of course there may be other bodies that were never found. The police extensively interviewed all adult males around Linden but didn't come up with anything.

What I notice about the Linden Murders, with known dates, is that all of them took place in the Spring or Autumn, never in Winter or Summer. This was a rural area and itinerant workers would likely be in the area to pick and plant crops, and one of them could be the killer.

There was also the local "poor house", now known as the Rolling Hills Asylum and reputed to be haunted. One of it's residents might have been the killer.

But this wasn't just a serial killer. These were rage killings. Serial killers usually simply kill their victims. To strike an elderly woman twenty or thirty times in the head, far beyond what was necessary to kill her, indicates that the killer knew the victim and had a lot of rage toward her. The killer used a gun on the elderly couple to be sure that one victim wouldn't escape while he was killing the other. He only killed during the Spring and Autumn to make it appear to be the work of a seasonal itinerant laborer.

THE ALPHABET MURDERS

In the early 1970s three young girls were abducted and murdered in the Rochester area. All three girls had double initials, such as M.M. or C.C. The first letter of the name of the town where the body was dumped was the same as that in the girl's initials.

In most such cases the difficulty is in finding a suspect, in this case the trouble was that there was a number of suspects. It seems beyond probability that the initials were a coincidence. But that suggests that the killer was in a position to access information about the girls. The girls did not go to the same school but were all from poorer families who may have dealt with welfare or social services.

It may well be that the first girl was killed and someone noticed the initials. That person then took the opportunity to abduct two more girls. He had to kill them to make it look as if it was the same person that had done the first killing. If questioned the killer of the second and third girls would have an alibi that they couldn't possibly have killed the first girl. 

It is interesting that, according to the Wikipedia article on the Alphabet Murders, strands of white cat fur was found on the second and third victims, but is not mentioned on the first victim. All three victims were strangled but I recall reading an article that the first victim had been strangled manually from the front while the second and third victims had been strangled with some kind of rope from the back.

In the national news at this time was the Zodiac Killer, who made up puzzles about his murders and sent them to newspapers. The initials of the girls and the town where the body of each was found would fit with the trend began by the Zodiac Killer.

The suspects were really interesting. One would go on to become the "Hillside Strangler" in California. Another suspect would go on to be convicted of murdering women, mostly prostitutes, in California that had double initials. One of his victims would have the same first and last name as the first victim in the Alphabet Murders in Rochester.

A composite sketch was made was put together of what was believed to be the killer. After the sketch was released the murders stopped but the killer was never caught.

THE HOLIDAY INN HOTEL FIRE

In November 1978 I remember the news that ten people had been killed in an overnight fire at a Holiday Inn in the Rochester suburb of Greece. The majority of the victims had been Canadians on a shopping trip.

The first scandal was about the safety features in the hotel, although it did meet existing fire codes. The fire alarm went off but it was a quiet bell and many people thought it sounded like a phone or doorbell. The alarm didn't automatically alert the fire department. There was no sprinkler system. There was only one internal fire wall, between the two wings of the hotel, and it didn't go all the way to the ceiling. The fire spread over the wall.

Then came the question of whether the fire was arson. The first suspect was actually the off-duty fireman who first reported the fire, by a two-way radio in his car. He claimed to have noticed flames while driving by on Route 104. The fireman stopped and helped to rescue people from the hotel.

But investigators were brought in from outside. The fire started inside the hotel and it was claimed that he couldn't have seen flames from the road at the time he called in the fire. It is not unheard of for a fireman, or other emergency worker, to start a fire or manufacture a crisis so that they can "play the hero". 

As with the Alphabet Murders there were multiple possible suspects in this fire. Once again remember that all I know about this case is what I recall reading in the news.

There was a man whose wife had been rescued from their abusive relationship and he found out that she was staying at the hotel.

There was a man living nearby who was later found to have set fire to hotels in other places.

Another man nearby had been evicted from apartments more than once, after which there had been suspicious fires at the apartment buildings.

Interestingly the man whose company got the contract for demolition of the hotel was supposedly at the hotel on the night of the fire.

Suspects were practically lining up. But then came doubts that the fire had been arson. Improvements in fire investigation cast doubt on the earlier reasons for thinking that it was arson. The first thing fire investigators usually look for is burn patterns suggesting that an accelerant, such as a flammable liquid, was used.

What I don't understand is, since hotels cannot be entered from outside, except through the main door where there would be someone at the desk, how could someone have gotten into the hotel in the middle of the night to start the fire, unless it was someone staying or working at the hotel?

No one has ever been charged with the fire. The fireman who first called in the fire has been the most-discussed suspect but in America a person can only be tried once for a given crime. If a person is put on trial and found not guilty then that's it, that's the end of it. The person cannot be tried again for the same crime, even if more evidence emerges.

THE BEAUTY QUEEN KILLER

In early 1984 a serial killer went on a spree across the United States. Unlike most serial killers this one was successful in business and had made himself into a millionaire. Christopher Bernard Wilder was from Sydney, in Australia. His father was American and he relocated to Florida. He was successful in real estate, electrical contracting, and was also a race car driver.

He was dating a girl, from Lockport, NY, to the west of Rochester. She had come close to winning the Miss Florida title. Her name was Elizabeth Ann Kenyon. She was seen with someone who looked like Wilder at a gas station. She was never seen again and her body has never been found.

Attractive young women were disappearing in that part of Florida. Wilder finally became the suspect in their murders, he had an extensive record of sexual assault both in Florida and Australia. Wilder fled but the killing spree was far from over. He was pretending to be a modeling agent and was approaching his victims and offering to start them in a modeling career.

Christopher Bernard Wilder appeared on the FBI's famous "Ten Most Wanted List". He drove across the western U.S., killing along the way, and then turned back eastward. Wilder would sometimes take his victims' cars so, until the victim's body was found and identified, it wasn't known what kind of car he was driving.

It is believed that he visited Elizabeth Ann Kenyon's hometown of Lockport, NY. I recall reading in the news that a woman in Lockport, while holding a garage sale, says that Wilder approached her and offered to get her into modeling.

Between Lockport and Rochester is a nature preservation area, known locally as the "Alabama Swamps". It was never proven that Wilder killed her but the body of Shari Lynn Ball was found there. This happened before his final killing spree began but she had been living in Florida, where she had apparently been abducted. 

Near the town of Caledonia, which is in this general area to the south of Rochester, the body of another woman was found, Tammy Alexander who was also abducted from Florida. There is again no proof linking her to Wilder but what is interesting is that she was found wearing a jacket of the same automotive company that race car driver Wilder often dealt with.

At the Town of Victor, southeast of Rochester, Wilder shot Beth Dodge and took her car. Proceeding southeast he dumped another victim but she survived and told police that he was on the way to Canada. 

It is not unheard of for a serial rapist or killer of women to cast such a spell over them that one actually becomes his accomplice. Wilder had such an accomplice. He spared her and bought her a plane ticket back home from Boston.

All over this part of the U.S. police were searching and people were watching, wondering where his next victim would be from. Finally the headlines came that the "litany of terror" was over.

Two police officers in a small town in New Hampshire, close to the Canadian border, recognized Wilder. One of the officers tackled him, He managed to grab his gun in his car. The gun went off but killed Wilder. It was not established whether it was intentional or not. The news showed a photo of the car door open, with Wilder's lifeless body on the front seat.

I cannot see that Wilder was ever in the city of Rochester but much of this story involves the Rochester general area. This is in the category of unsolved crimes because, while it is very likely that Wilder killed Elizabeth Ann Kenyon, Tammy Alexander, and Shari Lynn Ball, it was never actually proven.

THE AMSA ARMORED CAR ROBBERY

On the morning of June 26, 1990, an AMSA (Armored Motor Services of America) armored car stopped at a convenience store. The female guard went into the store while the male driver stayed in the vehicle. They had apparently stopped at the store on previous occasions.

Two men appeared, one in a Halloween mask, and held the driver at gunpoint, then also the female when she returned from the store. The driver was ordered to drive to a secluded location, and was followed by another vehicle.

The two were bound and the thieves stole about $11 million from the armored car. The female guard managed to slip out of her restraints and drive the armored car back to the company headquarters. The vehicle that had been following the armored car was reportedly later found abandoned.

There is always the possibility that robberies like this are inside jobs. Armored cars are not necessarily carrying much money, or any money at all. The thieves knew that this armored car was carrying a lot of money. The robbery plan would have gone nowhere if the car hadn't stopped at that particular convenience store, the thieves were there waiting. The money was mostly in small bills and so was very heavy. The thieves were obviously ready to quickly unload and transport the weight.

I recall reading an opinion once that a successful armored car robbery is virtually impossible without an inside connection. To begin with no one outside would know when the car was carrying a significant amount of money. It would also require an operation to quickly launder the money, since the serial numbers on bills from the federal banking system might be sequential and tracable. It probably wouldn't be safe to use the bills locally.

This ended strangely. Ten years after the robbery the driver accepted a plea agreement for the murder of a nightclub owner. Part of the plea agreement was reportedly admitting involvement in this armored car robbery, but he was not actually charged with it and the money has not been recovered.

THE BRINKS ARMORED CAR ROBBERY

Maybe the success of the above armored car robbery gave someone the idea that they could pull off a similar robbery. In 1993 $7.4 million was stolen that was being prepared for transport. Although this amount is less than in the above robbery, this second armored car robbery in Rochester has gotten more publicity.

This robbery was not actually of an armored car but of money that was being prepared for transport in an armored car. Armored car services are used to transport cash from the federal banking system to local banks. I would presume that steps are taken to avoid any kind of predictable pattern when vast amounts of money are being handled. But the inevitable weak point of such a system is the possibility of an inside connection. The thieves in this robbery clearly knew that a shipment of cash had arrived at Brinks for transport. According to one account that I recall reading a door to where the money was being handled just happened to have been left unlocked.

A retired Rochester police officer was working at Brinks. He and some coworkers were putting money in the cloth bags that were used for transporting it. The former cop left to get more bags, which his coworkers reportedly thought was unnecessary because they had bags there. Shortly afterward gunmen burst in, taking the money and the former cop as a hostage. Some time later the former cop turned up at a bar, or restaurant, claiming to have escaped his captors.

The former cop was later put on trial, but was acquitted. Just to make it interesting there was also a priest, a former member of the Irish Republican Army, and a former professional boxer involved.

Diligent surveillance of suspects led police to an apartment in New York City where a portion of the money was recovered. The priest and the former member of the Irish Republican Army both spent several years in prison.

The former boxer, originally from Liverpool's Irish community, was in New York City. He reportedly drove to Rochester either for a share of the money that he thought he was due or for a discussion with the former cop. He never returned, his car was found abandoned in a parking lot and his body was found in Lake Ontario.

The murder of the former boxer has never been solved and the remaining majority of the money has never been recovered.