After 52 years, brutal rape and murder on Long Island is finally solved, police say

Sophisticated DNA technology linked a former Oceanside sanitation worker to Barbara Waldman's 1974 murder. (WCBS via CNN Newsource)

Warning: Graphic content.

NEW YORK (WCBS) - A chilling cold case that goes back 52 years has been solved on Long Island, police say.

Sophisticated DNA technology linked a former Oceanside sanitation worker to Barbara Waldman’s 1974 murder.

Waldman, a 31-year-old New York University graduate, was discovered on the second floor of her family’s Oceanside home by her son Eric, just after he got off the kindergarten school bus.

“I’ve had the image of my mom in my head since I’m 5. So it won’t go away until I die,” Eric Waldman said.

“Although many citizens and neighbors came together and reported sightings, murder of the dentist’s wife was put away and never solved,” daughter Marla Waldman Conn said.

Her family would not give up, and the FBI and Nassau Police persevered, trying to determine who wanted the respected wife and mother dead, and why.

“A violent sexual assault against the mother and then put a bullet in the back of her head as she lay on the floor tied up with the stockings that she was wearing,” Nassau County Police Commissioner Patrick Ryder said.

More than 50 years later, science linked Thomas Generazio, a local Oceanside sanitation worker, to the cold case, police said. While sketches were made from witness accounts at the time, it was investigative genetic genealogy that solved it.

“He was a local. He was literally living among us. I was shocked,” Marla Waldman Conn said.

Generazio died of cancer in 2004 before genetic genealogy matched him to the brutal rape and murder, according to police.

Suspicion had swirled around Barbara’s husband Gerald, a local dentist who was innocent.

“Vindication for my father, Gerry Waldman, who went to his deathbed not knowing who or why,” son Larry Waldman said.

“It’s not about seeking legal punishment. It is an emotional, psychological resolution,” Marla Waldman Conn said.

It’s bittersweet justice for a family seeking the truth.

By Jennifer McLogan.