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<\/p>\nThe children of Barbara Waldman lived for more than half a century with the gruesome images of their mother\u2019s death inside their Oceanside, Long Island home.<\/p>\n
Now, they\u2019re focusing on happier memories \u2014 their mother singing, laughing and playing with them in home videos given exclusively to News 12 \u2014 after advances in DNA testing and investigative genetic genealogy finally led authorities to her killer.<\/p>\n
Eric Waldman was just 5 years old when he came home from kindergarten in Oceanside, Long Island in 1974 and found his 31-year-old mother dead in her bedroom.<\/p>\n
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\u201cShe would always be near the screen door sitting on the steps, so I didn\u2019t see her and I went in,\u201d Waldman recalled.<\/p>\n
He went upstairs and found his mother on the floor.<\/p>\n
\u201cI remember trying to untie her,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Barbara Waldman had been bound, gagged and shot in the back of the head. Despite leads and witness descriptions of a possible suspect, her killing remained unsolved for 52 years.<\/p>\n
Eric Waldman later moved to Monroe in Orange County, where he raised his own family. His sister, Marla Waldman-Conn, spent decades trying to find out who killed their mother.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s all I did \u2014 was obsessed over it,\u201d Waldman-Conn told News 12.<\/p>\n
The family also endured years of suspicion surrounding their father. His children say some people in the community believed he may have been responsible for his wife\u2019s death. DNA testing eventually cleared him, but he died without ever learning who killed her. <\/p>\n
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Waldman-Conn continued pushing for answers and urged authorities to take another look at the evidence as forensic technology advanced.<\/p>\n
The case was reopened in 2023. New DNA testing ultimately produced a full profile from biological evidence preserved on Barbara Waldman\u2019s bathrobe. When searches of law enforcement DNA databases failed to produce a match, Waldman-Conn says she turned to the FBI to pursue investigative genetic genealogy \u2014 a technique that uses genetic relationships to help identify an unknown person.<\/p>\n
The genealogical trail eventually led authorities to Thomas Generazio, an Oceanside man who worked as a sanitation worker in the Waldmans\u2019 neighborhood.<\/p>\n
Authorities compared the evidence from Barbara Waldman\u2019s bathrobe with DNA obtained from Generazio\u2019s biological daughter, ultimately identifying him as Waldman\u2019s killer.<\/p>\n