By  Seamus McGraw

November 24, 2006

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CLARENCE, N.Y (Crime Library)  —  Authorities probing the strangulation and beating death of jogger mom Joan Diver are now reportedly reaching out for anyone who might have been on the secluded bike trail where she was abducted in the hopes that one of those witnesses might have caught sight of the elusive "Bike Path Rapist."

Joan Diver

The killer, now believed to be in his late forties or early fifties, is linked to at least 10 other attacks over the past 20 years — three of them deadly. He has been dubbed the "Bike Path Rapist" because he targets isolated and vulnerable women on remote bicycle trails and rail beds in the suburban Buffalo area.

The elusive killer's string of rapes and slayings began in the early 1980's and continued more or less unabated until 1994, even though at some point after 1992 he may have lost the ability to produce semen. After his last attack in the area in 1994, he took a 12-year break from attacks in the Buffalo area, and authorities are now trying to determine whether he may have committed similar attacks elsewhere in the state, perhaps elsewhere in the country, or even in Canada.

He resurfaced on Sept. 29 when authorities say he grabbed Joan Diver, a 45-year-old mother of four, as she took her routine daily jog on a bike path not far from her suburban Amherst home. According to police, the woman had dropped her youngest child off at day care about 9 a.m., then parked her SUV near the path, left behind her wallet and other personal items, and headed off down the path.

Three hours later, when she failed to pick up her youngest child at day care, her husband, University of Buffalo professor Steven Diver, notified police.

Next Page

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