By  Seamus McGraw

November 22, 2006

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CLARENCE, N.Y (Crime Library)  — Authorities hunting for the so-called Bike Path Rapist, a predator who has attacked at least 11 women over the past two decades, killing three of them, have received so many tips in the past several days that they've had to set up a new tip line.

The probe was catapulted into the national consciousness last week after authorities linked the elusive rapist to the beating and strangulation death of 45-year-old mother of four Joan Diver. The woman, a suburban Amherst housewife, was strangled and beaten to death along a secluded bike path where she had gone for her routine jog in late September. Last week, authorities disclosed that they had found DNA evidence that conclusively linked her slaying to the Bike Path Rapist. The rapist, who made a practice of targeting women on remote trails and rail beds, started his reign of terror in the early 1980s, but the attacks ceased in the suburban Buffalo area in the mid 1990s. Joan Diver's slaying was the first case attributed to him in 12 years. Unlike his previous victims, authorities said there was no evidence that Joan had been sexually assaulted. Nor was there any trace of the Bike Path Rapist's trademark ligature, though authorities said there was evidence that Joan had struggled against some kind of garrote.

In the days since the announcement, authorities from the Amherst and Buffalo police, the New York State Police and the Erie County Sheriff's Department have received more than 400 tips from citizens, some from as far away as Canada, and are vigorously investigating each of them, said Sheriff's Department spokeswoman Mary Murray.

And they are still soliciting tips. Anyone with information about the case is urged to call the new tip line at 1 (877) 277-1990.

The killer first surfaced, authorities now believe, in 1983, with an attack on a 13-year-old girl in Angola, and over the next decade, he struck nine more times. In two cases, his victims died. On Sept. 29, 1990, Linda Yalem,

a University of Buffalo co-ed, was found slain, and two years later, Majane Mazur, a young woman with a history of drug problems, was killed.

As police probed the slayings and rapes, a pattern emerged. Authorities believe that the rapist and killer's only criteria were that his victims be alone and vulnerable. He would stalk them and attack from behind, throttling them, sometime into submission, other times to death, with a trademark rope or cord ligature.

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Contact Seamus McGraw at seamusm@ptd.net

Seamus McGraw

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