Murder of Wendy Wolin

Wendy Wolin
Wendy Wolin, c. 1966
Born	Wendy Sue Wolin (1958-08-20)August 20, 1958
Died	March 8, 1966(1966-03-08) (aged 7) Elizabeth, New Jersey, in the vicinity of Irvington Avenue and Prince Street
Cause of death	Homicide by stabbing
Resting place	Beth Israel Cemetery and Mausoleum, Woodbridge Township, New Jersey
Citizenship	United States
Known for	Unsolved death

Wendy Wolin (August 20, 1958 – March 8, 1966) was a 7-year-old American girl stabbed to death by a stranger with a hunting knife outside her home in the vicinity of Irvington Avenue and Prince Street near the Elizabeth River in a then-upscale area of Elizabeth, New Jersey. Her murderer, despite witnesses, was never identified.^[1][2][3][4]

On March 8, 1966, at around 4 p.m., seven-year-old Wendy walked near the front of her Pierce Manor apartment building to meet her mother, who was bringing the car around from its parking area near their home.^[5] At the time, the Pierce Manor Apartments was an upscale building complex in an affluent area of the city (Westminster). The two were to run errands and pick up Wendy's older sister, Jodi, from Hebrew school. A middle-aged man appeared walking in the opposite direction from Wendy, suddenly crouched down, and stabbed her in the abdomen through her coat.^[4]

Initially, the child thought she had been punched in the abdomen and cried out in pain. Her assailant kept walking.^[1]

A witness to the stabbing told The New York Times in 1995 her recollection of the attack:

"[The witness 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.^[5]

At the Elizabeth Fire Department building across the street, personnel realized she had been stabbed. Wendy was rushed to Elizabeth General Hospital, where she shortly passed away.^[5]

Three young female witnesses described the killer as being around 6 feet tall and weighing around 220 lbs. He appeared white and around 45 to 50 years old with gray hair and a slight limp.^[6]

Witnesses also reported that the man's face was "extremely pale" and "lifeless."^[7]

The assailant was suspected in assaults against other Elizabeth schoolgirls that occurred only minutes earlier and less than a mile from where Wendy was killed, according to investigators.^[8] Minutes earlier, without provocation, he was thought to have hauled off and punched a seventh-grade Catholic schoolgirl named Diane in the eye, knocking her onto the ground in front of shocked witnesses at Broad and West Jersey Streets. Shortly before that, on the same day, he was thought to have stabbed a young Elizabeth girl named Patricia in the backside at Spring Street and Elizabeth Avenue; she made a full recovery, although some initial confusion over the attacker's identity occurred.^[9][10] Additionally, he was thought to have put his arms around a 16-year-old girl at Morris Avenue and Prince Street prior to attacking Wendy.^[10]

The murder shocked and terrified the community.^[2] Authorities questioned more than 1,500 men, searched prisons and mental institutions in 13 states, and examined a military ship docked in the port of Elizabeth before it left for Vietnam. "They must have rousted every bum out of every rooming house in town," said one contemporary investigator.^[2]

Many contemporary residents recalled the child's death as marking an "end of innocence" and a change in their estimation in the sense of safety and middle-class comforts in the city.^[11][2]

Despite extensive investigations and public appeals, the identity of the perpetrator remained unknown.^[8]

The murder weapon, a hunting knife, was discovered near the site.^[9][12] In later decades, reports say it had gone missing from evidence storage.^[13]

In 1995, a 60-year-old Elizabeth woman, who was not a witness to the attack, provided police with a tip in the death of the child that led to the reopening of the case.^[8]

The 1995-era tip led investigators to a man, a Union County resident in his mid-70s at the time, who was not among those hundreds interviewed at the time of Wendy's killing.^[8] The woman had recently recalled information that led to the tip.^[14] The Daily Beast reported that the woman had seen the man at a wake in Elizabeth who, she stated, had molested her as a child, and she realized that he resembled the composite.^[11]

The New York Times reported that police interviewed the man and described him as a suspect during the renewed 1995 investigation.^[5]

Investigators, according to a 2016 Daily Beast article, reported several positive identifications from showing a photo of the man to witnesses to the crime during the 1995-era re-investigation. Eventually, however, the man engaged a lawyer and passed two polygraph tests, and the investigation came to an end.^[11]

In 2016, following the creation of a "Who Killed Wendy Wolin?" social media group, a woman reported that she was certain she recognized a composite sketch of Wendy's killer that she had recently seen. She reported she believed the sketch to depict the same man she saw decades earlier on her block the same day that her 11-year-old friend was murdered along with her mother in Highland Park, New Jersey, in 1965, a year before Wendy's murder.^[15]

Wendy was buried in Woodbridge Township, New Jersey, after a service by Rabbi Gershon Chertoff at Temple B'nai Israel in Elizabeth.^[16] Over the years, the chic Pierce Manor Apartments, where Wendy had lived, deteriorated in condition, were renamed the Oakwood Plaza Apartments, and were eventually shuttered.^[17][18] In memory of Wendy, a small memorial rock garden called "Wendy's Garden" has been established at the site of her murder.^[1]

• "Who Murdered Wendy Wolin: The 50-Year-Old Murder That Still Haunts This Town" by Mia Certic, The Daily Beast (2016).

• List of murdered American children
• List of unsolved murders