OCEANSIDE, N.Y. (1010 WINS) -- Authorities announced Wednesday that they’d cracked the decades-old cold case murder of Barbara Waldman on Long Island, saying they found the suspected killer, now deceased, via advances in investigative genetic genealogy.
Waldman, 31, was sexually assaulted and murdered inside her home on Sally Lane in Oceanside on the morning of Jan. 11, 1974.
Her 5-year-old son, Eric Waldman, now 57, found her after returning home from kindergarten for lunch. She had been tied up and shot.
“I’ve had the image of my mom in my head since I’m five,” he said. “It won’t go away until I die.”
Police said they’ve identified the killer as Thomas Generazio, a sanitation worker from Oceanside. He died in 2004 of cancer at 57 years old.
“We would have liked to have seen him in jail for that entire time for the brutal murder that he did,” said Nassau County Police Commissioner Patrick Ryder at a press conference.
Ryder said that while Generazio had prior arrests for assault and stolen property, no DNA was taken at the time, “so there was no sample of him in the system.” Advances in science and the help of the FBI led to investigators cracking the case, with a “genetic hit” in 2024.
Waldman’s daughter, Marla Waldman Conn, 59, said “the shock, fear, loss and profound grief were felt across our family, friends and the entire community.”
She said people were suspicious of her father, Gerald Waldman, and that “this powerful social mark of disgrace was heavy and hurtful to our family.”
She said her father “never ran from rumors” and continued to work and raise his family. He died in 2007.
“Happily, today, 52 years later, I get to say to the world that our father Gerry Waldman is exonerated. He was a victim and not a villain,” Waldman Conn said.