The Alphabet Killer

The premier of the film "The Alphabet Killer" a modern-day murder thriller based loosely on Rochester's Double Initial Murders is sure to spur a new surge of leads into the area's most infamous unsolved killings.

But police investigators still working towards answers in the deaths Carmen Colon, Wanda Walkowicz and Michelle Maenza say there is no shortage of leads.

All three little girls were nearly the same age in the early 1970s when they were abducted from their neighborhoods, sexually attacked and strangled. Each girl's first and last name began with the same letter. Police later found their bodies in towns with that same letter: Carmen, killed first, in Churchville, Wanda, in Webster and later, Michelle, in Macedon, Wayne County.

The killings changed Rochester. Fear was palpable across the community. Authorities considered it at one time to be the work of a serial predator.

The case has never gone cold.

Investigators from the State Police, Rochester Police Department and both the Monroe and Wayne County Sheriff's Offices receive tips all the time. Most dry up quickly. Some don't.

The last hot lead, one some believed could be the answer to one, or more of the girls' killings was the November, 2006 exhumation of the remains of a young Rochester firefighter. He was considered a suspect at the time of the killings. DNA tests proved he could not be linked to the girls killings.

That lead came in 2006 at the same time that the makers of "The Alphabet Killer" were wrapping up filming in the Rochester area.

And still the leads come in. The most recent came Election Day from someone who believed they knew something about Michelle Maenza's disappearance. The Rochester Police Department fielded it, then delivered it to the Wayne County Sheriff's Office, the department that has jurisdiction over the Maenza death.

Investigators from both departments, as well as the New York State Police and the Monroe County Sheriff's Office meet two or three times a year to exchange the latest information on the case.

One the exchanges in recent years involved a woman who told police she believed her late father killed all three girls. A DNA test from the family led to a dead end. But a new twist in that lead keeps it alive.

Members of the Colon and Walkowicz family remain in the area. They've heard from police over the years when a substantial lead arrives. Many in the case question whether it was, in fact, the work of one person or merely coincidental killings committed by separate people.