Kriti Mehrotra
There was a sense of terror and uncertainty in the air across Buffalo, New York, from the mid-1970s to well over the mid-2000s as several women were sexually assaulted and killed. Amongst the latter were, unfortunately, 22-year-old Linda Yalem in 1990 and 32-year-old Majane Elizabeth McCauley Mazur in 1992, which further gave way to more questions than answers. Officials knew both brutal homicides were carried out by a single assailant, as explored in Investigation Discovery’s ‘The Pisgah Predator,’ yet it took them a while to ultimately apprehend him.
Linda Yalem and Majane Mazur Were Both Strangled to Death
Linda Susan Yalem was born on June 8, 1968, as a native of Los Angeles, California, to Helen Kritz Yalem and Eugene S’renco Yalem as the younger of their two adorable daughters. Her sister Ann Brown still remembers how she was the apple of everyone’s eyes owing to her unwavering compassion for people and passion for everything she did, whether academic or otherwise. It was thus no surprise when she chose to enroll at the University at Buffalo to study Communications before quickly also becoming involved in the student paper and the New York marathon.
Linda reportedly had such a running bug that it was often all she talked about or trained for, yet she also knew to be careful because she knew there was a Bike Path Rapist wreaking havoc. Therefore, it was still light out when the sophomore left her dorm to go on a 15-mile run on the Ellicott Creek Bicycle Path, with plans on returning early to watch ‘Beaches’ with friends. It was 9:30 pm when her roommates finally, panickily called campus police to report her missing because she was long overdue, kickstarting an extensive search for the then-22-year-old. She was found dead along the same path near the Amherst campus she said she would be on – she had been jumped, raped, and heinously strangled to death on September 29, 1990.
Although a proud native of Greenville, South Carolina, Majane McCauley Mazu had decided to relocate to Buffalo, New York, sometime after graduating from Lander University in the 1980s. She had previously earned the necessary educational qualifications from the Christ Church Episcopal High School before attending Anderson College, but things later changed for her. According to records, she welcomed a beautiful daughter named Christine Mazur in the late 1980s, yet soon ended up getting involved in sex work to really make ends meet. Her daughter was undeniably her top priority, which is why loved ones didn’t hesitate to report her missing after she failed to show up for her then-5-year-old in early November 1992. It was over 3 weeks later, on November 22, that she was found raped and strangled to death in a field near the Amtrak rail line.
Linda Yalem and Majane Mazur Were Killed by the Then-Unidentified Bike Path Rapist
With Linda having been killed along the Ellicott Creek Bicycle Path, the investigations into her chilling case were originally conducted by the local Amherst, New York Police Department. They were able to recover some DNA that had been left behind by her assailant on her remains/at the scene, yet they could not immediately identify a lead due to technological limitations at the time. As for Majane’s case two years later, it was originally handled by the Buffalo, New York Police Department, yet its status after the recovered DNA evidence was processed was similar. It reportedly wasn’t until a while later that authorities were able to connect these genetic traces to those recovered from the sexual assault cases attributed to the Bike Path Rapist.
In fact, by the time the mid-2000s rolled around, law enforcement knew that DNA evidence from at least 7 rapes and 2 murders led to the same man. He was locally known as the Bike Path Rapist – later Killer – because he had changed his modus operandi for some reason in 1990 with the murder of Linda. His first known sexual assault was in 1986, and he struck several more times throughout the ensuing years before suddenly disappearing after raping a 14-year-old on her way to school in 1994.
However, everything changed in 2006 as the Bike Path Killer suddenly resurfaced in Newstead, having fatally strangled 45-year-old happily married Joan Diver. She was killed along a trail through the City of Good Neighbors on September 29, 2006, which was also the 16th anniversary of Linda’s brutal murder. The former hadn’t been raped, but her assailant had left DNA behind while moving her vehicle, and that’s how he was connected to the matter before being positively identified as Altemio Sanchez.
Altemio Sanchez Died in Prison While Serving His Sentence of 75 Years to Life
It was on January 15, 2007, when Altemio Sanchez was arrested in connection with the Bike Path Rapist/Killer’s crimes based on nothing but pure DNA evidence. The 48-year-old married father of two adult children and factory worker was picked up by the police shortly after he had finished his overnight shift. He was transported to a local station, where he was informed that his DNA, recovered from a restaurant after he had eaten there, was a match to the evidence from several crimes since the 1970s.
During court proceedings, Altemio essentially confessed to leading a double life – one as a pillar of support for his loved ones and another as a sexually violent predator. He not only admitted to killing Linda, Majane, as well as Joan, but also claimed he had committed over a dozen rapes on females of all ages and from all walks of life, most of whom he also strangled. According to records, he used a rope or cord when he initially began his crime spree, but as the years passed and he evolved into a serial killer, he started using a ligature, wire, or garrote on his targets. Altemio allegedly also confessed to beating the women during his attacks if they fought hard, which is part of why many experts believe the number of his total victims could be 20+.
In the end, on May 17, 2007, he pleaded guilty to all three homicides with a mumbled yet detailed admission of his offenses through tears, for which he was later sentenced to 75 years to life in prison. He was not prosecuted for the rapes he allegedly committed because the statute of limitations on them had passed, but New York has since changed its laws regarding the same for such personal crimes. As a result, Altemio was incarcerated at the maximum-security Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora, New York, where he spent the ensuing 16 years until his death from an apparent suicide. As per records, the 65-year-old was found unconscious in his prison cell on September 22, 2023, and rushed to the Millard Fillmore Suburban Hospital, where he was pronounced dead just before 3 pm.
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