The incident occurred in the U.S. After 50 years, the victim's daughter finally requested the police to reopen the case
The incident occurred in the U.S. After 50 years, the victim's daughter finally requested the police to reopen the case, and they found the real killer, while simultaneously clearing her father's name.
As time passes, some cases sink into oblivion, but there are also cases where the relatives of the deceased persevere until the very end to find the culprit, and the story below is an example.
The case was published in The Sun newspaper on May 18, solving a mystery that had haunted a family in the U.S. for more than 50 years. Accordingly, a woman named Marla did not let her mother's case fade into oblivion and was determined to find her killer after 52 years, as well as clear her father's name.
The woman was murdered at her private home, the victim's husband was suspected
Mrs. Barbara Waldman, then 31 years old, was murdered at her private home in Oceanside, Long Island, New York, U.S. in 1974, just 20 minutes after seeing her three children, Marla, Eric, and Larry—now 60, 58, and 59 years old, respectively—off to school.
She was discovered by Eric—then 5 years old—just as the little boy returned home for lunch. Barbara was lying upstairs with her hands tied behind her back and a pillowcase stuffed into her mouth, with a gunshot wound to her head. Police later determined that Barbara had been sexually assaulted, and they drew a composite sketch of the suspect, but there were no leads to find the culprit.
Mrs. Barbara Waldman with her husband, Mr. Gerald Waldman.
Marla said that back then, people suspected that her father, Gerald Waldman, who passed away in 2007, was the culprit. Despite the lack of evidence, these accusations sounded even more plausible after he remarried just 6 months after his wife's suspicious death.
Marla said: "After my mother passed away, my father quickly remarried, and her photos were taken down from the walls. It was as if she was erased from our lives. My mother's side of the family always implied that my father had killed her. We knew that most of the community accused him of killing our mother. Facing that as a child was very difficult for me."
Marla as a child and her mother, Mrs. Barbara.
Marla said she "never questioned" her mother's death until she reached adulthood, and mentioned that she used to call the police department every year to request that they reopen the case.
In 2022, Marla said her phone began "blowing up" after serial killer Richard Cottingham, also known as the "Times Square Killer," confessed to four murders in Long Island, including a home invasion that resembled her mother's case.
"I called the detective, and he said he would reopen the case to see if the DNA evidence matched Cottingham," Marla said. "We waited for 8 months, but no match was found in the national database or with Cottingham. The police told us there was nothing else they could do at that time."
Ms. Marla with her two younger brothers, Larry and Eric.
The identity of the killer left everyone stunned
Undeterred, Marla urged the Nassau County Police to contact the FBI for access to more advanced DNA analysis techniques. They agreed, and DNA from the crime scene was sent for testing. In August 2024, Marla received news of a match. Police identified Barbara's killer as Thomas Generazio, a local trash collector who died in 2004.
Marla Waldman Conn, currently a restaurant owner in St. Louis, Missouri, said: "When I was told there was a DNA match, I collapsed to the floor. I was completely stunned. He looked like an ordinary person. He lived not far from our house. I truly don't understand why he did this."
Marla was determined to find out who Generazio was, so she began researching where Generazio used to live and work in her hometown, searching local records and contacting his family members.
Mr. Gerald Waldman was finally vindicated.
Marla said: "After getting the DNA match, I started looking into Generazio and didn't tell anyone. I was determined to prove that this bastard killed my mother, and he might have harmed others too. I dug deep into the search, and when the DNA match came up, it matched his children's names. That was how I found him. Over several months, I spoke with Thomas's children—some of whom had never met their father. Ultimately, it was his daughter who sent me photos, helping us solve this case."
The composite sketch of the culprit based on a neighbor's description and Thomas Generazio's photo in police records.
One of the photos showed her father wearing a jacket with a fur collar that looked very similar to the one described in the 1974 police sketch. The jacket became a crucial piece of evidence, and in March 2026, the Nassau County Police Department issued a statement confirming that Generazio was indeed the one responsible for the murder of Mrs. Barbara Waldman.
Marla said: "I was stunned when I received the news. I told my younger brothers, and they couldn't believe it either. Hearing that he was dead gave me peace of mind that he could no longer harm or murder anyone else. It was a brutal murder; my mother did not deserve to suffer like that."
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Marla recalled her final moment with her mother before she tragically passed away on January 11, 1974. As Marla and her younger brothers were walking down the street, she remembered slipping on the snow. It was said that Mrs. Barbara yelled out: "Marla, careful, are you okay?" while the two younger brothers, Eric and Larry, giggled.
Marla recounted: "My mother's last words to me were 'careful.' Later that same day, I remember being picked up from school and told that my mother had been in an accident. I thought she was in the hospital, so I made get-well-soon cards for her. But that evening, my dad came home and told us that she had passed away and would not be coming back."
