Carol Ann Fitzmaurice:1970, Allegany, New York

  

  Carol Ann Manzo was born on May 14th, 1947 to Catherine Ciampa Manzo and Gerald Manzo in Olean, New York. Carol had a younger brother named Michael. 

  Carol Ann Manzo went to nursing school at the St. Francis Hospital School of Nursing in Olean. 

  Carol Ann married Daniel Fitzmaurice in 1968. He and his family had a house moving business and he worked with his father. (One article said it was also a rigging business and another said it was a wrecking business.) 

  The couple had a new house north of Allegany near Five Mile Creek. The area around there today consists of wooded hillsides, small farms and some small fields of row crops. I wasn’t able to pinpoint where their home was. One article called it the “former ranch of Carl Hamm”.

  On Tuesday, October 22nd, 1970 she worked a half day at the doctor’s office. She had lunch with her parents. Then she went home to start dinner and wash and set her hair. 

  Daniel was working on a job in Jamestown, New York that day. 

  She prepared a chicken to put in the oven later. She got out several things she would need to wash and dry her hair. But, she did not get to complete either of those tasks. Something happened that afternoon. 

  Daniel returned home from work that evening to find Carol Ann had been murdered. She had been stabbed at least 14 times in the area of the back and the throat. She was face up on the living room floor. She died of blood loss. The scene showed signs of a great struggle. 

  The police were called and immediately began investigating and questioning neighbors. Someone saw a stranger in the area that day who was described as “six foot tall and driving a red or maroon car”. 

  During a search of the area a knife was located in about a foot of water in Five Mile Creek behind the house. The knife was visible to officers who were searching the area. It was later determined to be the murder weapon. 

  A knife from the home had been used to kill her. Investigators did not believe that she had been sexually assaulted. She was clothed but her clothes were in some state of disarray.

  Carol Ann Fitzmaurice did not have any known enemies. It may be that someone followed her home or spotted her entering her home. Perhaps they were hunting or camping nearby. Perhaps they lived nearby and impulsively decided to try to assault her.

  The 1970’s saw a lot of violent crime that seemed to be committed just for the sake of killing. This seems to be one of those crimes. Nothing was stolen from the home. Carol was reportedly not sexually assaulted. Perhaps that was the intention when the man entered the home but Carol fought him. The amount of blood from the wounds that he inflicted may have scared him off.

  We tend to think of thrill killers and serial killers as rare. We tend to think that there were only a few of them and that we know all their names. But, teen boys and young men of the 1960’s and 1970’s were growing up being raised by a generation of men who had gone off to WW2. This country then got involved in Korea and Vietnam. Her killer could have been a young man or even a teen who had a fascination with killing. I have seen many cases where the motivation seemed to have been just to kill for the sake of killing. 

  Women were also seen by much of the society as just an object to use and abuse. 

  Did Carol have time to push, grab or scratch her attacker? Were her fingernails clipped at the autopsy and were her fingernails saved? DNA from her killer could still be under her nails. 

  Were any fingerprints found at the scene? They might not have matched anyone in the system then but perhaps the perpetrator has prints in the system now. 

  Two potential killers come to mind. Gus Sapharas lived three hours away in Akron. Serial killers like Gus drove around a great deal. He was incredibly violent but almost always raped his victims. He has recently been found guilty of two cold cases in Akron. Karen Bentz was abducted, assaulted and murdered in May of 1970 and Loretta Jean Davis was abducted, assaulted and murdered in 1975. He had attempted an abduction in West Virginia in the 1970’s when he lived there. He went to jail for rape from 1976 to 1991. In 1991 he nearly killed a woman when he stabbed her violently while on parole. He went back to jail until 2018. He was tried for a different 1991 murder then. Despite his DNA being found in multiple places on Bonita Parker’s corpse, he was acquitted by a jury in Ohio. Bonita Parker’s 1991 murder is still technically unsolved. I believe Sapharas is responsible for many murders in the Columbus, Dayton and Akron area. He had returned to Akron from Vietnam in early 1970. The boldness of this crime and the level of violence is definitely something he was capable of. 

   The May 1970 killing of Karen Bentz was incredibly brutal. Gus Sapharas was already a known serial rapist in 1970 in Akron and the surrounding area. Unfortunately, the sentences for rape were very lenient. I imagine that police in Akron were keeping an eye on him. He might have wanted to take a drive to another state to commit a murder.  His known crimes involved a lot of stabbing. 

  Another potential killer here is David Sinopoli. He lived in the Lancaster, Pennsylvania area and would have been 16 in 1970. In 1975, he was married and living in an apartment building in Lancaster. He stabbed his neighbor, Lindy Biechler, to death. She was a young wife who had just come home with groceries. He used a knife from her kitchen. He then masturbated over her corpse. 

  At 16, I don’t know what David Sinopoli would have been doing up in Allegany. Maybe he had gone on a camping or hunting trip with family members. It was late October. Maybe he just skipped school and “ran away” for a while. 

  But, there may also have been a local suspect who has just flown under the radar. 

  Where did they find that knife along the creek? Did the killer leave the house and walk toward the creek just to toss the knife in or was that on his way home? 

  This killer would have been presumably covered in blood upon leaving the Fitzmaurice home that afternoon. 

  If this was a stranger who followed Carol home that day…did she stop in Olean or Allegany to buy that chicken that day? Was she wearing her nurses uniform when she left work and went to have lunch with her parents? 

  Four years earlier a 15 year old babysitter, Mary Elizabeth Chapin, was murdered in Allegany. Stephen Foster was accused and convicted but did they get the right guy? (Or, was Allegany the home of two murderers?)She was babysitting at the home of her sister and brother-in-law in Allegany. Stephen Foster was the brother of that homeowner and lived a couple of blocks away. He was not free to have killed Carol Fitzmaurice. 

  Evidence, including the knife, was taken to the state crime lab in Albany. 

  With that many stab wounds there is a chance that the killer slipped and might have cut himself at the scene. If Carol’s clothing was saved, perhaps some of the killer’s blood is on it. 

  In 1972, Daniel Fitzmaurice was in a motorcycle accident and passed away from his injuries. He was buried next to his wife. 

  Daniel and Carol Ann Fitzmaurice are buried in Saint Bonaventure Cemetery in Allegany, New York. 

  Rest In Peace Carol and Dan

  If you have information about the murder of Carol Ann Fitzmaurice please call the Allegany Police Department at (716)373-1460.