Altemio Sanchez was a factory worker from Cheektowaga, a suburb east of Buffalo, New York, married for 26 years and the father of two, when a joint police task force arrested him on January 15, 2007. For more than two decades the press had called the man behind a series of attacks on women in and around Buffalo the Bike Path Rapist, because several of the attacks happened on or near the region's bike paths. Police said DNA tied Sanchez to that series and to three killings: Linda Yalem, a University at Buffalo student, in 1990; Majane Mazur of Buffalo in 1992; and Joan Diver of Clarence in 2006.
On May 16, 2007, he pleaded guilty to three counts of second-degree murder, and on August 14, 2007, he was sentenced to 75 years to life. The rapes linked to him could not be prosecuted, because New York's five-year statute of limitations had already run. His arrest also exposed a wrongful conviction: Anthony Capozzi, a Buffalo man with schizophrenia, had spent about 22 years in custody for two of the attacks, and DNA testing in 2007 matched those crimes to Sanchez instead. Sanchez died in state custody on September 22, 2023. The State Commission of Correction later found that the manner of death was suicide.
Little about Sanchez's early life is on record. The state prison record, as summarized by the Commission of Correction, gives his birthplace as San Juan, Puerto Rico. By the time of his arrest he lived with his wife in Cheektowaga, about four miles from the University at Buffalo's North Campus, according to the university's student newspaper, The Spectrum. Associated Press reports in 2007 described him as a factory worker and a father of two, and gave his age as 48 at his arrest and 49 at his plea and sentencing.
Neighbors were stunned. After the arrest The Spectrum reported that some of them could not believe the police had the right man. His wife and family said in a statement after his plea that it was unimaginable to them that someone they had loved and respected could have done what he admitted. His wife told the court at sentencing that she had known nothing of his crimes.
Before 2007 Sanchez had two minor arrests. He was arrested in Buffalo in 1991 and again in 1999 for patronizing a prostitute, Erie County officials said at the time of his arrest. The Spectrum reported in 2020 that both charges were reduced to loitering and that he paid fines.
The first attack later linked to Sanchez took place in 1981. After the rape, the woman saw a man she took to be her attacker at a mall and wrote down the license plate of the car he was driving, according to the National Registry of Exonerations and an account published by Union College in 2009 about a state police analyst who worked on the case. The plate traced to a car owned by Sanchez's uncle. The uncle told police that the car had been at home, and the lead went nowhere. Decades later he admitted that the account had been false and that his nephew had been driving the car.
In the early 1980s a series of rapes and assaults in Delaware Park in Buffalo led the local press to speak of a "Delaware Park rapist." In 1983 a city official who was in the park noticed a man behaving oddly. He later saw the man again, followed him to a car and took down the plate number. It traced to Anthony Capozzi. The registry gives his age at the time of the crimes as 27.
Capozzi was arrested on September 13, 1985, and charged with rape, sodomy and weapons possession, the National Registry of Exonerations records. He had been diagnosed with schizophrenia but was found competent to stand trial. Three women picked him out in a photo lineup. One of them said she had first chosen someone else. His trial in Erie County Supreme Court opened in February 1987. The defense pointed out that no victim had described the three-inch scar above his left eyebrow, that medical records put his weight well above the attacker's described build, and that his family said he never wore shorts, which the attacker had worn. Capozzi did not testify. The court refused to let the defense present evidence of similar rapes committed while he had an alibi or after he was jailed.
On April 6, 1987, the jury convicted Capozzi of two counts of first-degree rape and two counts of sodomy for attacks in April and July 1984, and acquitted him of a 1983 attack. Justice Vincent Doyle imposed the maximum sentence. Capozzi said at sentencing that he was innocent. The Appellate Division, Fourth Department, upheld the convictions in July 1989. He stayed in prison for the next two decades, and his mother fought for his release throughout those years.
Linda Yalem was 22, a sophomore at the University at Buffalo and a keen runner who was training for the New York City Marathon. Three weeks before her death she had joined The Spectrum, planning to write profiles of marathon and cross-country runners. Her only published story, about cross-country running, appeared in the paper on October 3, 1990, after she died.
On the afternoon of September 29, 1990, she left her dormitory for a run near the campus in Amherst. A roommate reported her missing at 9:30 that night. Amherst police found her body the next morning. She had been raped and strangled, the Associated Press later reported.
Her death shook the campus. A student editorial in The Spectrum called it a painful wake-up call about how close sexual violence was. The killing was often described afterward as an on-campus murder, but it did not happen on university grounds.
In November 1990, after a co-worker reported having seen him on the path, police interviewed him, The Spectrum reported in 2020. He was fingerprinted but was not asked for a DNA sample, and he was not pursued further. Union College's account of the later investigation says he had been wrongly dropped as a suspect in the early 1990s and that old police files recorded his workplace, his working hours, physical descriptions of him and places he had been seen.
Majane Mazur was 32 and lived in Buffalo. She was raped and strangled in the city in 1992, the Associated Press reported at the time of Sanchez's plea. Few details about her life were reported. Her killing went unsolved for 15 years, and in January 2007 it became the first murder charge filed against Sanchez.
For years no one was charged. Union College's 2009 account describes the Bike Path Killer as resurfacing in 2006 after a gap of 12 years. The University at Buffalo began an annual 5K race in Linda Yalem's memory, the Linda Yalem Safety Run, whose entry fees funded personal safety and rape prevention programs on campus. Organizers planted a small grove of trees near the bike path in her memory. After Sanchez's arrest, the university's vice president for student affairs, Dennis Black, said a records check showed that Sanchez had run in the 1996 race.
Through those years Anthony Capozzi remained in prison. Biological evidence from the Delaware Park cases, long believed lost, sat in a drawer at Erie County Medical Center, where it had been kept for decades although the hospital was not required to keep it.
Joan Diver was 45. She was a native of Salt Lake, the youngest of seven children, and studied at the University of Utah, where she earned degrees in community health and nursing and met her husband. She worked as an intensive care nurse in Utah. The couple moved east for further study in Wisconsin and at Harvard, and her husband later joined the chemistry faculty at the University at Buffalo. The family had lived in Clarence, in Erie County, for about five years. In New York she stayed at home with their four children, then aged 4, 7, 12 and 14, according to the Deseret News. She was a Girl Scout leader. The family spent two or three weeks in Utah most summers.
She often ran on a bike path near her home. On Friday, September 29, 2006, she did not pick up her youngest child from day care, and the staff alerted her husband, who reported her missing. Her truck was found nearby. Erie County Sheriff's crews searched that day and the next, then called off the search. Family and friends kept looking and found her body in Newstead on Sunday, October 1.
Investigators said she had been strangled and appeared to have fought her attacker. "She was a wonderful person, a good mother and very devoted to her husband," her father, a retired physician, told the Deseret News. Her sister said it was a terrible feeling that someone would do such a thing "to such a sweet girl."
Police investigating Joan Diver's death asked early on whether it was linked to the unsolved attacks of earlier decades. A joint task force was formed, which WGRZ described as drawing on 12 agencies. Its core included the Erie County Sheriff's Office, the Buffalo and Amherst police departments and the New York State Police, with the University at Buffalo police acting as liaison.
Two lines of evidence came together. First, the killer had moved Joan Diver's vehicle after the attack, and investigators recovered DNA, from sweat according to Union College's account, from the steering column. The profile matched the DNA profile of the Bike Path Rapist. Prosecutors said in January 2007 that Sanchez's DNA had been found in her vehicle but not on her body.
Second, the task force went back through decades of files. Betsy Schneider, a New York State Police intelligence analyst assigned to the FBI's Buffalo field intelligence group, reviewed the records and flagged Sanchez as a man who had been looked at and dropped. She also linked the owner of the car in the 1981 plate report to Sanchez as his uncle. According to the Erie County Sheriff's Office, the breakthrough came when investigators revisited the 1981 rape case and returned to a house where Buffalo police had questioned people 25 years earlier. The uncle then admitted that his nephew had been driving the car.
By mid-November 2006, WGRZ later reported, the task force regarded Sanchez as its primary suspect. According to the sheriff, three separate investigative units had each pointed to him, and he was placed under surveillance.
Investigators needed a sample of Sanchez's DNA without alerting him. On January 13, 2007, detectives followed him to a restaurant and, after he left, collected the drinking glasses, tableware and napkin he had used. The laboratory compared the DNA on them with the Bike Path Rapist profile. District Attorney Frank Clark said the match was 100 percent.
On the morning of Monday, January 15, 2007, Sanchez was stopped in traffic in the city of Buffalo and taken into custody. Erie County Sheriff Timothy Howard announced the arrest at a joint news conference in downtown Buffalo with the Amherst and Buffalo police and the State Police. Clark said the case showed that "nothing is impossible."
Officials said Sanchez's DNA linked him to the three murders and to at least seven or eight sexual assaults in Erie County over about two decades. Joan Diver's husband issued a statement thanking the task force and the university community. He said he was relieved by the arrest and that the community was safer.
At his first arraignment, reported by WBFO on January 17, 2007, Sanchez was arraigned on one count of second-degree murder in the death of Majane Mazur and pleaded not guilty. He was held without bail. His lawyer, Andrew LoTempio, said his client maintained his innocence and that Sanchez and his family were shocked by the accusations. His wife and one of his sons attended the arraignment.
An Erie County grand jury voted to indict him in the deaths of Linda Yalem and Majane Mazur, WBFO reported on January 20, 2007. Clark said there was not yet enough evidence to charge him in Joan Diver's death. LoTempio said his client was "physically and mentally exhausted." At his arraignment on the indictment, reported on January 24, 2007, Sanchez pleaded not guilty to two counts of intentional murder and one count of felony murder. Prosecutors asked for a fresh cheek swab to obtain a clean reference sample, and LoTempio asked in return for the crime scene samples so that the defense could run its own tests. He complained that police were leaking too much to the media and asked for a change of venue.
In February 2007 prosecutors subpoenaed Sanchez's wife to testify before the grand jury investigating Joan Diver's death. Clark said she could appear or ask the court to quash the subpoena on the ground of marital privilege, and that the grand jury could not ask her about private conversations between husband and wife. The Diver killing was later added to the charges, and it was among the three murders to which Sanchez pleaded guilty.
Within days of the arrest it was clear that the rapes would never be tried. New York's five-year statute of limitations for rape had expired on all of them, including the 1981 case that had led investigators to Sanchez. Clark said prosecutors had long argued that the time limit defied common sense, and he pointed out that the Legislature had removed it for B-felony sexual assaults in June 2006. The change was not retroactive. It applied only to new cases and to cases still inside the five-year window, so it did nothing for the women attacked in the 1980s and 1990s. A Buffalo rape crisis counselor said the Bike Path case strengthened the argument for closing that gap. Clark said he was surprised how few people knew the law had changed. When Attorney General Andrew Cuomo was asked about it in Buffalo that week, he said he had not known.
On May 16, 2007, Sanchez appeared before State Supreme Court Justice Christopher Burns in Buffalo and pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in all three killings as part of a plea agreement. He wept as he answered the judge. Asked about each woman, he said three times, "I strangled her." His wife cried in the courtroom.
LoTempio said Sanchez had pleaded guilty to spare his family a trial. Clark said the case against him in each of the three killings had been overwhelming. "The only thing he's remorseful for is that he was caught," Clark said. Prosecutors told reporters that DNA tied him to eight or nine rapes and that they suspected him in about a dozen more between the late 1970s and the mid-1990s. Sentencing was first set for August 2.
Days before sentencing, LoTempio said that his client had admitted raping 12 to 15 women since 1979, WBFO reported on August 10, 2007. On the day of sentencing the Associated Press reported the lawyer's figure as 13 to 20 women since the early 1980s. None of those admissions led to charges. Before sentencing Sanchez also spoke with the prosecutor, Frank Sedita III, after first refusing to talk to investigators, Sedita recalled in a later interview with WGRZ.
Sanchez was sentenced on August 14, 2007. Sedita, then deputy district attorney, described him as calculating and said he had rehearsed his method before attacks. LoTempio told the court that part of Sanchez "hates the other part of him." Joan Diver's husband and Linda Yalem's sister addressed the court. Joan Diver's husband called her death senseless and incomprehensible, and said their four children had lost a devoted mother.
Sanchez spoke for less than a minute. "Whatever sentence I get today I deserve," he said, and he told the families that he knew he could not bring their loved ones back. "I did these crimes," he said. "I should pay for these crimes."
Justice Burns said he saw no remorse and that Sanchez had harmed the families beyond repair. "You showed no mercy," he said. "You deserve none." He imposed the maximum sentence, 75 years to life, and said it was the court's intention that Sanchez never be free again. No appeal was reported.
After Sanchez's arrest, investigators asked whether he had committed the Delaware Park attacks for which Capozzi had been convicted. Those attacks had taken place in the same park as two of the rapes now linked to Sanchez. Task force members visited Capozzi in prison, and he again said he was innocent.
Finding the old evidence took time. A State Commission of Investigation review later found that the delay was not caused by negligence at the hospital: law enforcement officers had not followed Erie County Medical Center's procedure for requesting medical evidence. Once the proper process was followed, slides from the two cases were found at the hospital in March 2007. DNA testing excluded Capozzi and matched Sanchez, District Attorney Clark said. The hospital's president later apologized to Capozzi and his family for the confusion and said the hospital was the only agency that had not thrown the evidence away.
Prosecutors supported a motion to vacate. On April 2, 2007, at a hearing that lasted seven minutes, Erie County Judge Shirley Troutman vacated both rape convictions on the basis of the new DNA evidence and dismissed the charges. Capozzi was then at the Central New York Psychiatric Center in Marcy, and his lawyer, Thomas D'Agostino, said he would be released within days. The National Registry of Exonerations lists mistaken witness identification as the contributing factor in his wrongful conviction, and DNA as the evidence that cleared him.
Capozzi sued the state, seeking $41 million in a 2008 claim. In June 2010 New York settled with him for $4.25 million, which D'Agostino said was the largest settlement ever reached for a claim of its kind. Capozzi's sisters and brother, acting as his guardians, were to oversee the money for his benefit. He was then living in a group home in the Buffalo area. "He will never get back 20 years of his life," D'Agostino said. His mother, who had fought for his release for two decades, died in October 2009.
Sanchez entered the state prison system on August 14, 2007, under the identification number 07B2617, according to the Commission of Correction. He was received at the Wende reception center and moved the same day to the Elmira reception center. On September 13, 2007, he was sent to Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora, where he spent the next 15 years. On October 27, 2022, he was transferred, for what the report calls an area of preference, to Wende Correctional Facility in Alden, in Erie County. His disciplinary record shows a 2013 infraction for an unauthorized exchange and false information, and on September 19, 2023, a ticket for fighting with another prisoner, which ended when officers gave a direct order.
On September 20, 2023, Sanchez declined an interview and refused voluntary protective custody. On the morning of September 22, staff found him unresponsive in his cell at Wende, and a medical emergency was called at about 7:15 a.m. An ambulance arrived at 7:50 a.m. He was taken to Millard Fillmore Suburban Hospital in Amherst, where he was pronounced dead just before 3 p.m., the Department of Corrections and Community Supervision told reporters. He was 65.
Investigations by the department's Office of Special Investigations and the State Police found that he had been alone in his cell and that his injuries were self-inflicted. The Commission of Correction's Medical Review Board gave the cause of death as hemorrhagic complications from an incised wound and the manner of death as suicide.
The Commission's final report, dated December 18, 2024, also found problems in the prison's handling. The housing unit's logbook had no entries for Sanchez from the evening of September 20 to the morning of September 22. The physician's notes did not record the emergency response or the care given, which the Commission said broke state rules on medical records. A delay in calling the ambulance led to staff retraining. The Commission directed a quality assurance review at Wende, and the department reported in November 2024 that it had been completed.
Alan Rozansky, a retired detective who worked the case, told WGRZ after the death that he had hoped Sanchez would serve every year of his sentence. "He was a menace to this area," he said.
The Linda Yalem Safety Run continued after the arrest. In September 2007 the university made the agencies that had caught Sanchez, the Buffalo police, the Erie County Sheriff's Office, the University at Buffalo police, the State Police and the Amherst police, honorary starters of the 18th race. The race director, Andrea Costantino, said the year was special and emotional and that the community's thoughts were with Yalem's family and the other victims. The run was held for 28 years and ended after 2018, The Spectrum reported. Her memory is also kept by a scholarship in her name.
The task force received honors from the State Police, The Buffalo News and the New York State Bar Association, according to Union College's 2009 account of Betsy Schneider's part in the case. "I couldn't believe we found the Bike Path Rapist," she said.
The number of rapes. Prosecutors said in 2007 that DNA linked Sanchez to at least eight sexual assaults. His lawyer said he admitted 12 to 15 rapes since 1979 (WBFO, August 10, 2007) or 13 to 20 since the early 1980s (Associated Press, August 14, 2007). Spectrum News reported in 2023 that he was suspected in dozens of sexual assaults going back to the 1970s. None was ever tried, and no total is established.
The date of Linda Yalem's death. The Spectrum gives September 29, 1990, the day she left for her run; a 2005 university news release gives September 30, the day her body was found.
The counts of conviction. A WGRZ report after his death said he had been convicted on four counts of second-degree murder dating to 1981 and that he pleaded guilty to rape and murder charges. The court reports from 2007 and the Commission of Correction record three counts of second-degree murder only.
1981: A woman is raped; she later records the plate of a car her attacker is driving. The owner, Sanchez's uncle, says the car was at home, and the lead dies.
April and July 1984: Two Delaware Park attacks for which Anthony Capozzi is later convicted; DNA tested in 2007 matches Sanchez.
September 13, 1985: Capozzi is arrested.
April 6, 1987: Capozzi is convicted of two counts of first-degree rape and two of sodomy.
July 1989: The Appellate Division upholds Capozzi's convictions.
September 29, 1990: Linda Yalem, 22, is killed in Amherst; her body is found the next morning.
November 1990: Police interview and fingerprint Sanchez after a co-worker's report; no DNA is taken.
1991: Sanchez is arrested for patronizing a prostitute.
1992: Majane Mazur, 32, is killed in Buffalo.
1996: Sanchez runs in the Linda Yalem Safety Run, according to a university records check.
1999: Second arrest for patronizing a prostitute.
June 2006: New York removes the statute of limitations for first-degree rape, not retroactively.
September 29, 2006: Joan Diver, 45, disappears while running; her body is found in Newstead on October 1.
November 2006: The task force identifies Sanchez as its primary suspect.
January 13, 2007: Detectives collect his DNA from tableware at a restaurant.
January 15, 2007: Sanchez is arrested in Buffalo.
January 2007: Arraigned on one count of second-degree murder (Mazur); pleads not guilty.
January 2007: Indicted for the murders of Yalem and Mazur.
February 2007: His wife is subpoenaed before the grand jury investigating Joan Diver's death.
March 2007: Slides from the Capozzi cases are found at Erie County Medical Center; DNA matches Sanchez.
April 2, 2007: Capozzi's convictions are vacated.
May 16, 2007: Sanchez pleads guilty to three counts of second-degree murder.
August 14, 2007: Sentenced to 75 years to life; received into state prison.
September 13, 2007: Moved to Clinton Correctional Facility.
June 2010: New York settles Capozzi's claim for $4.25 million.
October 27, 2022: Transferred to Wende Correctional Facility.
September 22, 2023: Found unresponsive in his cell; dies at Millard Fillmore Suburban Hospital, aged 65.
December 18, 2024: The Commission of Correction's final report finds the manner of death was suicide.