"After 50 Years of Silence, I Became a Detective to Uncover My Mum's Murder – and the Binman Held the Key"

A WOMAN turned detective to help find out her mum’s killer was the binman 52 years on – and cleared her dad’s name.

Barbara Waldman, 31, was murdered in her home in Oceanside, Long Island, in 1974, 20 minutes after waving her three children, Marla, Eric, and Larry – who are now 60, 58, and 59 respectively – off to school.

Barbara Waldman was murdered in 1974 – and many incorrectly had suspicion it had been done by husband Gerald Credit: SWNS Barbara’s daughter Marla – pictured with brothers Larry, and Eric – helped to solve the crime Credit: SWNS

She was found by Eric – who was five at the time – who had arrived home from school for his lunch break.

Barbara was lying upstairs with her hands tied behind her back and a pillowcase stuffed in her mouth with a bullet hole in her head.

The later determined that Barbara had been sexually assaulted, and the police created a sketch of the suspected killer, but nobody was arrested.

Marla said that there was suspicion in the area that her father, Gerald Waldman, who died in 2007, was behind his wife’s death.

A police side-by-side of a 1974 composite sketch of the person seen by neighbours and binman Thomas Generazio Credit: SWNS Barbara was murdered in her home in Oceanside, Long Island, New York, 20 minutes after waving her kids off to school Credit: SWNS

These accusations were spurred on after he remarried six months after her murder.

Marla said: “After my mother died, my father remarried quickly, and pictures of her were taken off the wall. She was wiped from our lives.

“My mother’s side of the family always implied that my father had killed her.

“We were aware that a large part of the community accused him of having our mother killed. Processing that as a child was tough.”

Barbara with Marla, who would later turn detective to help find out her mum’s killer Credit: SWNS Marla helped clear her dad Gerald’s name with her discovery. Gerald pictured with Barbara Credit: SWNS

Marla said she “never asked questions” about her mother’s death, until she was an adult and said she would ring the police department every year asking them to reopen the case.

In 2022, Marla said her phone started “blowing up” after serial killer Richard Cottingham, also known as “Times Square Ripper”, confessed to four murders in Long Island, with one of them being a home invasion like her mother’s.

“I called the detective, and he said that he will reopen the case to see if the evidence matches Cottinghams,” Marla said.

“We waited eight months, but there was no match on the national database or in Cottingham.

“The police told us there was nothing else they could do at that point.”

Undeterred, Marla pushed for Nassau County police to bring in the for access to more advanced DNA techniques.

They agreed, and DNA from the scene was sent off for advanced DNA and genetic genealogy testing, and in August 2024, Marla got the news that there was a match.

The police identified Barbara’s killer as Thomas Generazio, the local binman, who died in 2004.

Marla Waldman Conn, a restaurant owner from St Louis, Missouri, said: “When I was told there was a DNA match, I fell to the floor.

“I was beyond baffled. He looked like a regular person.

“He didn’t live far from the house. I just didn’t understand why he would do this.”

Marla was determined to find out who Generazio was, so she began researching where Generazio had lived and worked in her hometown, digging through local records and contacting his family members.

She said: “After the DNA match, I started researching Generazio and did not tell anyone.

“I made it my mission to prove that this mother f***er killed my mother, and he might have hurt other people.

“I did a lot of digging, and when they had a DNA match, it came up with the names of his children.

“That is how I found him. Over a few months, I spoke to Thomas’s children – some of whom had never met their father.

“In the end, it was his daughter who sent photos over to me that helped us solve this case.”

One of the snaps showed her father wearing a coat with a fur-lined collar strikingly similar to the one depicted in the 1974 police sketch.

The coat became a key piece of evidence, and in March 2026, Nassau police department announced it had found Generazio responsible for Barbara Waldman’s homicide.

Marla said: “I was speechless when I got the news. I told my brother’s, and they couldn’t believe it.

“When I heard he had died, that satisfied me that he couldn’t hurt or kill anyone else.

“The element of the unknown killer is gone; he is dead.

“It was a brutal murder; my mother deserved more than that.”

Marla recalled her final interaction with her mum, before her tragic death in January 11, 1974.

As Marla and her siblings were making their way down the drive, she remembers slipping on the snow.

Barbara is said to have shouted: “Marla, be careful, are you ok?” while Eric and Larry were in fits of giggles.

Marla said: “My mum’s last words to me were ‘be careful’.

“Later that day, I remember being picked up from school and being told she was in an accident.

“I thought she was in the hospital, so I was making her get-well-soon cards.

“Later that evening, my dad came home and told us she was gone and not coming back.”