Bike Path Rapist

The Bike Path Rapist

It was a cool, sunny day on September 29th, 2006. It was a Friday when Joan Diver, a mother of 4, disappeared while going for a run in a bike path in Clarence, NY. Around approximately 12:51pm, her husband reported her missing after he got a call from the daycare center saying she never came to pick their child. Joan's husband was very shocked with this because she always was on time for her children. He thought the worst; something terrible happened to his wife. So he took his bicycle to the bike path to look for her, yelling her name. He spotted her vehicle, a blue Ford Explorer, in the parking lot off Salt Road.

The following day, Saturday September 30th, the Sheriff called off the search for Joan Diver temporarily, but that wasn't the end of the search. The next day, Sunday October 1st 2006, volunteers from the Boy Scout troop searched the area. The boys were determined to find the mother of a 4 year old child so they searched and searched. The boy scout troup come across what was to be the dead mother, Joan Diver. Her body was discovered in a patch of thick brush about 30 yards from the path in Newstead. It was roughly three miles from where the authorities found her blue Ford Explorer, which was parked on Shisler Road.

After the discovery of Joan Diver, the search ended. The family was a wreck, now it was a husband without his loving wife, and her kids left devastated with no mother.

Police then had the dead body of Joan Diver and the questions started to race around their heads. It was because of the date of October 3rd, 2006. This made authorities be intrigued with the strange coincidence that Diver was murdered 16 years to the day Linda Yalem was murdered by the “bike path rapist.”

This was very similar to Linda Yalem, because of the way she was murdered in the past by the “BPR.” Joan Diver died from blunt-force trauma and also from being strangled with some kind of wire, cord or rope. The bike path rapist struck in the morning and they believe she was killed between 8:55am and 12:30pm. Her body was found partially clothed and this discovery left people wondering if this could this be the Bike Path Rapist striking again.

In November 2006, a Bike Path Rapist Task Force formed between the Amherst Police Department, the Buffalo Police, the Erie County Sheriff’s Department and the N.Y. State Police. It was formed to find this rapist, who caused so much pain to the families of the victim. Officers worked hard to find clues on who this could be and who committed these rapes.

State Police Investigators took a list of 81 Hispanics to be questioned by the Amherst Police Department on December 22nd, 2006 for the murder of the University of Buffalo student, Linda Yalem. A specific person named Altemio Sanchez’ was highlighted and flagged for further investigation because he lived and worked relatively close to the sites of rape.

Finally, the police made some progress on finding this killer. Then the progress started to show on January 4th-5th. Investigators Delano, Rozansky and Redmonds begin to scrutinize Altemio Sanchez after reviewing a 1981 rape case. This case caught their eye largely because three days after the attack, the victim spotted a man resembling her attacker at the Boulevard Mall in Amherst. She followed the man, saw him leave the scene in a white vehicle, jotted down the license plate number and called police.

Authorities tracked down the vehicle, which was registered to Sanchez's uncle, Wilfredo Sanchez Caraballo. Then a resident of Buffalo's West Side, Caraballo, told police that the car had no insurance and was not used in a long time. Police took photos of the uncle and the car, which were then shown later to the victim. Law enforcement sources said that she recognized the car but not the man.

More news came along with the suspect Sanchez since his name was brought up with other criminal mischief. On a cold day in January, nothing was stopping criminal investigators from finding more on this man. It was the 8th of January in 2007 when Altemio Sanchez’ name came up again when the list of Hispanic names were cross-checked with the list of Hispanics arrested for patronizing prostitutes.

This case got more interesting now because more and more was coming along to end these rapes and find the man they thought had done it. The next day Investigators found out that Altemio Sanchez was related to a Wilfredo Caraballo who was questioned for a 1981 rape case. They learned Caraballo had moved out of state. Investigators Rozansky and Chief Patronik interviewed Margarita Torres (Altemio’s Aunt). She directed them to her brother, Heriberto Caraballo.

More suspects were on this case now, and again the day after those interviews where done, detectives interviewed Heriberto Caraballo, brother of Wilfredo and uncle of Altemio Sanchez. They took a buccal swab from Heriberto for a DNA test. Having DNA involved made things more interesting, no one can hide from the truth now. Wilfredo Caraballo called Detective Rozansky and told him that back in 1981, his nephew Altemio Sanchez had been driving his car when it was seen by a rape victim at the Blvd Mall. Results from Heriberto Caraballo’s DNA swab revealed that he was a close relative of the bike path rapist. Detectives learned that Sanchez had an expired license for a gun. Detectives visited Altemio Sanchez’s home to recover a gun to get DNA samples but did not.

The police needed that information so they got a search warrant for Sanchez’s home so they were able to check on a gun whose license had expired. They attempted to get a DNA