After 14 years of dead ends and red herrings, the Buffalo Police Department has a new lead on the identity of the man who raped and killed UB student Linda Yalem.
Although it was previously believed Yalem's attacker was linked to similar cases, until last year there was little evidence. Now, officials say they have proof that the man who killed Yalem on the Ellicott Creek bike path was the same one who raped and killed Majane Mazur in Buffalo in 1992.
According to Detective Salvatore Valvo of the Buffalo police's sex offense unit, DNA found on Majane Mazur's body matches that of Yalem's attacker. Mazur's body was found on Nov. 22, 1992, in an Amherst field by a family picking wildflowers, according to The Buffalo News.
Valvo said the male attacker is wanted for nine other rapes. In two of those cases, the victim was also slain. Between 1986 and 1994, there were eight bike-path rapes in Buffalo, Amherst, and Hamburg.
"In July of 2003 the central police services were able to process the DNA from a homicide from 1992 of a man in Buffalo of Majane Mazur, and that DNA was matched with Linda Yalem's and eight others rapes in Buffalo," Valvo said.
According to Valvo, the last similar assault happened in 1994, and the victim from that case is helping the police with the profile of the current investigation.
Valvo said the case was re-opened in 2003 after the DNA match was revealed. He added the case had never been officially closed, but hadn't been actively investigated for quite some time.
"We found a company in Florida take the DNA to determine racial and ethnic background," Valvo said. "And they came up with the person who was 51 percent Caucasian, 30 percent Native American, 13 Sub-Saharan African, and six percent East Asian."
Valvo said this was crucial information because up until now, the description was only that of a white male.
"All seven victims said it was a white male at the time, so that lead (the police) to believe that he was only a white male," Valvo said. "We do still believe he has the appearance of a white male, but now that 30 percent of him is Native American it sheds new light on it."
Valvo said although the police haven't gotten any serious leads yet, they are still hoping for some new facts in the near future.
"We are getting some info and were hoping for a good lead," he said.
