Alphabet Murders

Michelle Maenza lived with her mother, Carolyn and her sisters, Marie and Christine. Michelle was chubby, quiet and eager to please, although her father considered her immature for her age. She was teased about her weight by children her own age and, as a consequence, preferred the company of younger girls. 

She was in the vicinity of Goodman Plaza, a shopping centre a couple of streets from her home in Webster Crescent and about a hundred metres from Webster Avenue, when she disappeared. 

In 2009, her brother, Stephen, who was two years older than his sister and lived with Michelle’s father at the time of her disappearance, said their uncle saw Michelle at the plaza and offered her a ride home but she declined.

‘It must have been shortly after he left the guy picked her up. My uncle was kind of upset with himself for many years because he didn’t pick her up … and go ahead and bring her back to the house,’ Stephen added.

Stephen’s comments are at odds with what their uncle said at the time of Michelle’s disappearance. They are also at odds with the police investigation that indicated she she was probably abducted from the shopping centre car park. 

Unlike the first two killings, there were a number of credible sightings of Michelle after her disappearance. Michelle’s friend who saw her in Ackerman Street on the way to Goodman Plaza later saw her in the front seat of a beige coloured car exiting Ackerman onto Webster Avenue. The car was travelling at speed and almost collided with another vehicle at the intersection. The driver of the second vehicle came forward and described both the man who was driving the beige vehicle and the vehicle itself . The motorist’s description of the suspect’s vehicle yielded an important clue in the form of a very distinctive dent.

A sketch of the suspect based on the accounts given by the eyewitnesses was published in the local paper and produced a number of leads. 

On the evening of the 26th, a woman saw a young girl resembling Michelle in a car at a fast food restaurant in the Panorama Plaza in Penfield, just off Route 441. The witness said a man with dirty or greasy hands approached the car with a bag of food. This sighting is plausible because Michelle’s autopsy revealed she had eaten a cheeseburger shortly before her death.

Later that evening a man saw a car with a flat tyre on  Route 350 in Walworth,  between the Route 441 and Eddy Road intersections. A girl resembling Michelle sat in the front seat of the car. The driver of the vehicle with the flat tyre acted belligerently and rudely rejected the witness’ offer of assistance. 

Subsequently, this witness telephoned police to say he had just spotted the car he had seen on the night of Michelle’s disappearance and had recorded the license plate number.  The police interviewed the  owner of the vehicle  but he provided  a credible alibi and passed a lie detector test. Although the man questioned by police, was shorter than the witnesses’ description, he did resemble the sketch in the paper.

On the 28th, two days after she went missing, Michelle’s body was discovered in Eddy Road, Macedon, approximately seventy yards from the intersection with Mill Road. Given the advanced state of decomposition, the Coroner speculated that the body was dumped the night Michelle was abducted. 

The body was discovered by the fire chief of the Walworth Volunteer Fire Department, Eugene Van deWalle, who was on his way to pick up a member of his crew. 

Michelle’s body was badly bruised and it was evident she had been raped and strangled.

Once again, a substantial reward was offered for information leading to the arrest and conviction of Michelle’s killer.

Sadly, the police failed to solve the murder and it remains an open case.