36 Years Later, Police Arrest Suspect in Rape and Killing of a 14-Year-Old

The last time Wendy Jerome was seen alive she was leaving her home in Rochester, N.Y., to deliver a birthday card to a friend who lived nearby. It was around 7 p.m. on Thanksgiving and Wendy, who was 14, had to be home by an 8 p.m. curfew.

When Wendy didn’t return by that time, her parents became frantic. Less than three hours later, their worst fears were confirmed when a passer-by found Wendy’s body in an alcove behind a school near her home. She had been raped and beaten to death.

The date was Nov. 22, 1984. The police sifted through hundreds of leads and hunches, all of them leading nowhere, and the case went cold.

Then, on Thursday night, 36 years after Wendy was killed, investigators went to the home of Wendy’s mother, Marlene Jerome, and told her that they had solved the case.