NJ NJ - Wendy Wolin, 7, Elizabeth, 8 March 1966

[los2188]

Wendy Sue Wolin

http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2011/08/cold_cases_45_years_later_7-ye.html

March 8, 1966

It was a sunny March 8, around 4 p.m., when Wendy and her mother, Shirley Fleischner, planned to leave their apartment. According to police records, Shirley told her daughter to wait at the corner of Irvington Avenue and Prince Street while she got her car from the rear parking lot..On that sunny afternoon in the heart of Elizabeth, New Jersey, a man walked up to the 7 year old Wendy Sue Wolin, crouched down, and thrust a knife into her stomach. She doubled over and cried out, telling onlookers that the man had punched her. Several bystanders picked up the young girl and rushed her to a fire station across the street.

No one thought to follow the assailant as he shuffled down the sidewalk.


<modsnip>

The killer was never found.

 

[bessie]

Elizabethan girl’s murder still unsolved after nearly 50 years

November 19, 2013
By Nicole Malczan

The man stabbed her, striking both her ribs and her stomach, where his knife lacerated her liver. It is believed that a hunting knife was what caused the fatal injuries. The knife was located the next day, but no fingerprints were found on it...

According to Mooney, the stabbing was hardly random, as the man who stabbed Wolin had been in contact with other young women before he stabbed Wolin. People sensed that he wasn’t an Elizabeth resident and may have just been passing through that day. A bus driver had even sworn at the time that the man came from New York City on a bus that day. - See more at: http://www.elizabethinsideout.tv/el...d-after-nearly-50-years/#sthash.XzPGlZoW.dpuf

A Tip Yields Fresh Clues To a Killer

The New York Times
By JOHN SULLIVAN
Published: October 25, 1995

The woman who witnessed the stabbing, and who demanded that she not be identified, said she was walking with her niece about 20 feet in front of Wendy when a large man wearing a dark corduroy coat and a blue or gray fedora hat approached her and asked for directions.


"He asked me 'How do you get downtown?' Then he walked past me, and I turned around and I looked for my niece. And I saw him bent over this little girl," the woman said. "I said to the little girl 'What is the matter?' She said 'He punched me, the man punched me."


The woman said she did not realize the girl had been stabbed. But because Wendy was obviously in pain, she brought her to a nearby firehouse.

Facebook: Who Killed Wendy Sue Wolin

 

[Yakwoman]

Am I the only one who finds it odd that the mother told her to go outside and wait on a specific corner while she went to get the car? Why not just have the girl walk with her to the car?

I'm not attacking the victim's family, here. But my first thought was that the mother set it up to get rid of the child.

Probably not the case at all, but it's the first thing that came to mind.

 

[Kell1]

Broad daylight
Offender walking down the street, talking to people walking by
Picks the one Lone girl
Stabs her once and walks away

I would think your looking at an offender who's mentally ill

 

[G&AMom]

Am I the only one who finds it odd that the mother told her to go outside and wait on a specific corner while she went to get the car? Why not just have the girl walk with her to the c
I'm not attacking the victim's family, here. But my first thought was that the mother set it up to get rid of the child.

Probably not the case at all, but it's the first thing that came to mind.

Actually, at the time, no, I don't think it would have been considered odd behavior on the part of her mother at all. Nowadays, yes, it might be somewhat suspicious. But then, no.

I agree with RichKelly, this is probably someone who's mentally ill. I would also think this person has assaulted people again, either before or after.

 

[Tulessa]

Agree Mom. 1966 was a lot safer than today.

 

[STANDREID]

Who wore a fedora in 1966? They pretty much went out of style in the mid 50s when Elvis came along. Even Sinatra was wearing a trilby by the late 50s and JFK had given up on all hats.

 

[belfastgirl73]

Broad daylight
Offender walking down the street, talking to people walking by
Picks the one Lone girl
Stabs her once and walks away

I would think your looking at an offender who's mentally ill

My thoughts exactly!

 

[Roselvr]

Google maps - Irvington Ave & Prince St, Elizabeth, NJ

My dad had a business down the street on Morris Ave until 1969. Kean College is between my dads old business and where she was killed. Back then; Elizabeth was a whole different town; pretty safe for a "city"..

I grew up not too far from here in 1967; next town over. I used to ride my bike by myself around the block at 4 or 5. We lived off a main busy street that went to Elizabeth. We used to catch the bus to go to Elizabeth on that street; I was as young as 3rd grade.

Back then; there were a lot of immigrants that had just come over from Europe in the late 50's; early 60's. While Fedora's may not have been popular elsewhere; it's very possible people were still wearing them here.


A Tip Yields Fresh Clues To a Killer By JOHN SULLIVAN Published: October 25, 1995

The woman who witnessed the stabbing, and who demanded that she not be identified, said she was walking with her niece about 20 feet in front of Wendy when a large man wearing a dark corduroy coat and a blue or gray fedora hat approached her and asked for directions.

"He asked me 'How do you get downtown?' Then he walked past me, and I turned around and I looked for my niece. And I saw him bent over this little girl," the woman said. "I said to the little girl 'What is the matter?' She said 'He punched me, the man punched me."

The woman said she did not realize the girl had been stabbed. But because Wendy was obviously in pain, she brought her to a nearby firehouse.

"She was doubled over, like she had a pain in her stomach. But she had a coat on. It wasn't until she opened the coat that we saw the blood. There was so much blood," the woman said. "Here was this innocent little girl. An innocent victim, totally innocent, with her whole life ahead of her. And it was just taken away."

Most of the Elizabeth police force was mobilized to search for the attacker. The Police Director, Patrick J. Maloney, who was deputy chief at the time, said officers interviewed hundreds of potential witnesses. Mr. Maloney said that the police soon discovered that two other young girls had also been stabbed in the same area that day, though neither of those girls died.

"We thought he might have gotten on public transit at the time," Mr. Maloney said, "so we canvassed the bus drivers. We went through every mental hospital or mental clinic on the East Coast. We never turned up anything other than the original description."

 

[Satch]

Bumping for updates. Interesting that according to this:

Two other girls were attacked shortly before Wendy was:


Senseless Killing of 7 Year Old Still Haunts 50 Years Later

March 8, 1966, downtown Elizabeth. Seven year old Wendy Wolin was outside the apartment where they lived at Irvington Avenue and Prince Street. IT was 4pm when a stocky white male wearing a dark corduroy coat and a blue or gray fedora approached the young girl. He was described as having white hair and being in his forties. He was around six feet tall and may have weighed around two hundred plus pounds. Witnesses reported that he crouched down and punched the girl in abdomen.

Wolin supposedly let out a cry as the mystery killer wandered off. When people went over to help her, they realized that she was in fact stabbed. Hours later, she would die at the hospital. Around the time of her murder, two other schoolgirls were assaulted minutes earlier within a mile of the Wolin crime scene. Hundreds of people were interviewed and questioned. But no arrests were ever made.

Decades later, a potential suspect was identified but never arrested. It still remains one of New Jersey's most infamous cases. It is likely that whoever committed this murder may have attacked other children in other parts of the country. If you have any information about this case, please contact the Elizabeth, New Jersey police at 908-352-5216.

Taken from:

http://www.ctcoldcases.com/newjersey2.html

Another article on Wendy's case:

http://kidnappingmurderandmayhem.blogspot.com/2011/10/stabbed-to-death-in-broad-daylight.html

Satch

 

[Satch]

A You Tube radio show with the New Jersey police captain who has reopened Wendy's case can be found here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W_etxvlerFc

Starts at 12:14

Satch

 

[Satch]

A You Tube radio show with the New Jersey police captain who has reopened Wendy's case can be found here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W_etxvlerFc

Starts at 12:14

Satch

My feeling is that this was an assault and murder by a deranged man who was probably institutionalized at various points in his life. It is possible that he was a resident at a half-way house or mental-health facility on that tragic day for Wendy. I think he had a pass to be off the grounds that day, and could have boarded a bus. If you follow Wendy's case, a bus driver swears that he saw someone matching the suspect's description getting on his bus very early on the morning of March 8th, 1966.

I think in his sick mind he sought to hurt some girls that day. I think the suspect hated woman. I think this same person is responsible for the previous assaults on the other woman, before Wendy was stabbed like a half-hour to an hour later. Too coincidental for this to not be anything but the same nut. I believe at the end of the day, he boarded the bus or car, and got out of town and went back to his halfway house or institution as if nothing had happened. Thankfully, no crimes like this before or since Wendy's case, involving someone just getting stabbed and a suspect walking away had occurred elsewhere in the USA, and I think they checked Canada as well.

They checked out halfway houses and mental health facilities all over the USA, and I think Canada as well. But remember, that the suspect, although he had a very striking feature of extremely pale white skin, we don't really know how much the Fedora hat he was allegedly wearing covered his face. However, the skin complexion and the apparent White hair are very distinguishing characteristics. I also think that if Wendy had said, "I've been stabbed" as opposed to "I've been punched" that the suspect would have been pursued more vigorously shortly after this happened. Reports are that at some point between the 4:00PM to 4:30PM time frame after the stabbing, a motorcycle cop tried to chase down the suspect, but he got away. I think there was another guy that chased him down, either this guy saw the attack on Wendy, or the assault on the other girls, and the suspect ran into a Woolworths store and seemingly out the back door.

Does anyone know how far the hospital was from the fire station, and why Wendy was not taken there in the first place? I learned that an ambulance had been summoned, but was not used. I think the police brought Wendy from the firehouse to the hospital.

Satch

 

[STANDREID]

This whole affair is so bizarre. It sort of reminds me of the Betsy Aardsma case 3 years later.

 

[lindamichelle1]

wow this is so random.
It is kinda weird the mother specifically told her to stand there and wait and she happened to get stabbed but i guess thats my 2015 brain that knows how messed up people are these days.
it could just have been a wrong place at wrong time situation.
If she wasnt there it could have been that other womans niece he stabbed.

 

[Satch]

wow this is so random.
It is kinda weird the mother specifically told her to stand there and wait and she happened to get stabbed but i guess thats my 2015 brain that knows how messed up people are these days.
it could just have been a wrong place at wrong time situation.
If she wasnt there it could have been that other woman's niece he stabbed.

There's so much random stuff here, but some patterns as well:

It's been awhile since I listened to the radio show link above with the police Captain who has an on-going investigation into Wendy's case. One striking bit of information was he said a little over a year before Wendy was killed, an elderly couple named "Rubinstein" was stabbed to death coming home from grocery shopping by an intruder in their home.

About a year before Wendy was killed she lived with her grandparents something like a few blocks away or something like that from where this elderly couple had been killed. The name of the grandfather's family was "Rubinstein!" The detective has always had some kind of suspicion that Wendy's death by this unknown suspect could have been linked to a mafia hit gone bad. He says in the interview that "The Italian mafia would never kill children with families." The Russian mafia he says, "would not care about Children in families, he says that they would kill if you crossed them. I may not have the time-frame above exact, I heard the interview like a year ago, so it is hard to remember. If the suspicions are true, it would seemingly make this part of the case less "random."

I personally think this attacker was someone who had a pass to be off the grounds that day from a mental-health facility. (Called a mental institution back in those days.) He was probably not from the area. Remember that a bus driver swears that he saw this guy in the early morning hours of March 8th, 1966. The witness to Wendy being stabbed claims that this unknown assailant asked, "How do I get downtown?" than moments later this poor little girl is stabbed and the assailant walks away like nothing had happened.

Even to this day, as I understand, a set-up for this kind of assault has never been reported anywhere else in the USA or Canada where you have someone alone on a street corner, someone just walks up, bends down, and walks away without saying a thing. This case made national news and even expanded to Canada, maybe other countries as well. This was a huge case at the time.

One also has to wonder if Wendy's life could have been saved had she said, "He stabbed me.", which is what really happened, not "he punched me." There is no doubt in my mind that the other young girls he assaulted, tried to, or any other reports that day of girls being hurt in that area were committed by this same person. This suspect hated women, and today, probably would have been followed, arrested, and successfully prosecuted for his crimes. The other thing was that Wendy's Mother Shirley, was very protective of her daughter, and this had been the first time she was allowed to go to the corner by herself. The investigator at the above link remembers that Wendy had to "beg" her to allow this. He says that "Shirley never let Wendy out of her sight."

Satch

 

[STANDREID]

Rest in peace Wendy-50 years ago next Tuesday.

 

[JusticeWillBeServed]

Who Murdered Wendy Wolin? The 50-Year-Old Murder That Still Haunts This Town

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/03/07/who-murdered-wendy-wolin-the-50-year-old-cold-case-that-shattered-a-town.html

Car 12 was the first to arrive on the scene. Williams and Melchione found Wendy Sue Wolin, just 7 years old, quietly bleeding to death on a desk in the fire chief’s office. “A man punched me,” she had told the chief before she went into shock. It wasn’t until they opened her coat that they realized she’d been stabbed.

An ambulance was called, but Wendy was going downhill so quickly that the police decided not to wait.

“Pete picks up the little girl,” said Williams, “and they put her in the car. Headquarters notified the hospital that we were on our way with someone in bad shape. And when we got there, the doctor came over and opened the door of the police car and he saw Pete, blood all over. And this part I will never forget. The doctor looked at me, and he put his head down. He knew. She wasn’t dead at that time, but he knew. And I was just—it was just the hardest thing.”

I asked Eddie Johnson if he could think of anything that would allow the killer’s identity to be revealed. “Somebody could come in and say, I’ve known about this for a long time, this guy told me he did it,” he said. “And you’re on your way.”

That’s what Jodi Wolin, Wendy’s sister, is hoping for. “There’s somebody out there who knows,” she said, and I’m inclined to agree. I mean, how can it be that this burly stranger appeared out of nowhere in his gray fedora and green corduroy coat to terrorize our city for one afternoon, before vanishing into thin air? Somebody, somewhere must know who he was.

Elizabeth’s mayor, Chris Bollwage, has plans to dedicate a memorial to Wendy later this year, probably somewhere in her old neighborhood, which is undergoing vibrant renewal after years of decline. Jodi Wolin will fly in from her home in Florida, and hundreds of current and former residents of Elizabeth promise to attend. And maybe, though the case remains unsolved, some healing will at last take place.

 

[Satch]

Who Murdered Wendy Wolin? The 50-Year-Old Murder That Still Haunts This Town

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/03/07/who-murdered-wendy-wolin-the-50-year-old-cold-case-that-shattered-a-town.html

Great update on the case!

Do you guys think the guy who died in 1998 at 76 did it? I would say probably not, IF those two polygraph tests he took were administered by a DA or neutral official. Than, I would say I'm 75% that no, he's innocent. If those two polygraphs were taken by an examiner whom his lawyer recommended, I would say it's a 50/50 shot.

But we just don't know. I think there's that 20 to 25% chance he could have done it. But not enough for an indictment, let alone a possible conviction. Like the investigator said, "This is someone's life here."

You wonder if this was a one time thing, or if the killer killed or assaulted again after Wendy's murder? I think it was a one time thing by a person who was mentally ill. I believe that one time was the event in time. I do think this SAME PERSON who killed Wendy, also assaulted that other girl and accosted the other girl on that same day. And the guy the bus driver saw pounding on the door, (some investigators say he rode the bus early that morning.) This is the first report I heard of him "pounding on the door of the bus." I believe this was the same guy who did this. He was looking to get out of town. I think he had a pass to be off the grounds that day from a health-care facility, when he went back to the facility, he acted like nothing had happened.

I think the killer hated young woman and did this in a sick way for his "15 minutes of fame." I think he probably assaulted and abused woman before this. Did he murder anyone previously, we will most likely never know. Maybe because of his mental illness he thought he could never be convicted through an insanity plea? (for the killing of Wendy, and the other assaults.) The guy was probably crazy long before the attacks on the girls, and could have been serving his time as a patient there for previous assaults on people. If he got back to the facility, that could have been his security blanket, immunity from prosecution. This could explain why he was never seen again. Too bad the hunting knife and Wendy's clothes were not kept. Is that confirmed, they are completely gone? I thought that I had read that LE still had the knife in another news report?

The good news is that Wendy's killer is fairly certainly dead now, so he won't be able to hurt or kill any more people, and even if not, would be between 95 to 100 years old. Far too old to be a threat anymore. It would be great if they could get a confession, just to get some closure.

Satch

 

[STANDREID]

Yes, I think it's less than 50/50 that the one suspect did it. It's hard to imagine him being out and about in the area for years and only having this one crazy day. I didn't see any mention of fingerprints on the knife or sheath so I assume there weren't any or police are withholding them which doesn't make much sense at this stage.

 

[Satch]

Yes, I think it's less than 50/50 that the one suspect did it. It's hard to imagine him being out and about in the area for years and only having this one crazy day. I didn't see any mention of fingerprints on the knife or sheath so I assume there weren't any or police are withholding them which doesn't make much sense at this stage.

Good points,

Additionally, why is LE not releasing the suspect's name? He is now deceased. For that reason, there would be no consequences in doing that. Unless, the suspect's living relatives have requested that his name be withheld. What do you think?

Satch