Sanchez sentenced in three murders

Bike Path Killer Altemio Sanchez received the maximum sentence Tuesday for the murders of three area women.

State Supreme Court Justice Christopher J. Burns imposed a sentence of 75 years to life for the murders of Linda Yalem in Amherst, Majane Mazur in Buffalo and Joan Diver in Newstead.

Sanchez, 49, made a brief statement expressing sorrow and acknowledged that he'll pay a penalty for the rest of his life.

Sanchez recently confessed to as many as 15 additional rapes, starting in 1979.

The Cheektowaga resident was arrested Jan. 15 after three units within a law enforcement task force looking into the crimes each pinpointed him as the suspect.

Erie County District Attorney Frank J. Clark said at the time of the arrest that there was a "100 percent DNA match" to evidence that was collected from some of the crime scenes in which a rape, murder or both was linked to the infamous "bike path rapist."

Yalem was raped and murdered along the Amherst bike path in 1990. Mazur was murdered in Buffalo in 1992, and Diver was murdered along the bike path that runs across the Clarence-Newstead border last September.

Although DNA links him to four of the seven victims, Sanchez was not being charged with any of them because a New York State statute prohibits any kind of legal proceeding if five years have passed since the rape occurred.