Hiding In Plain Sight

Altemio Sanchez seemed like the perfect family man. In fact, he held a terrible secret..

- Jenny Stallard

Baseball coach. Dad of two. Easy-going factory worker. Rapist and murderer?

That was what Altemio Sanchez, 48, stood accused of after his arrest in 2007. And, indeed, what he’d finally plead guilty to.

To the outside world, to his neighbours and friends, Sanchez was the model small-town citizen.

Married to his wife Kathleen, dad to two grown-up sons, he’d held down his factory job for over 20 years.

Mild-mannered, his co-workers called him.

At weekends, he’d usually host barbecues or coach baseball.

A simple, quiet life in the town of Cheektowaga, Buffalo, near the American border with Canada and Niagara Falls.

But this quiet life hid an evil secret...

Sleepy town

Sanchez was the man that police officers knew as the Bike Path Killer...

The moniker was coined after three women were killed near different bike paths in the sleepy town.

The first victim was Linda Yalem, 22.

A student, she was out training for the New York City Marathon on 29 September 1990.

She was found on the Ellicott Creek Bike Path – she’d been raped and then strangled to death.

The next victim was Majane Mazur, 32, who was murdered in November 1992 on a secluded path near a railway line.

Hiding in plain sight, in 1996 Sanchez even entered the memorial run set up in Linda Yalem’s memory – which police recorded, looking for clues.

But he escaped them.

Many years passed with no more bodies.