1971: The Unsolved Alphabet Murders That Still Haunt Rochester, New York
Another victim of the Alphabet Murderer vanished while running a short errand in Rochester, New York, on this day in 1971, the first of three unsolved killings that became known as the Alphabet Murders. Each victim shared matching first and last initials, and each body was later found near a town or village beginning with that same letter, a detail that turned a local tragedy into a chilling unsolved puzzle.
Investigators questioned more than eight hundred suspects over the following years, including a local firefighter, an ice cream vendor who later became notorious for killings committed in California, and a travelling man eventually convicted of unrelated murders on the other side of the country. Reward money climbed past six thousand dollars, billboards appealed to the public across the city, and a police hotline logged hundreds of calls, yet no one was ever charged.
The case remains open. Decades later, the mother of the first victim said that finding out who was responsible was the only thing she wanted before she died.
