The Murder of Catherine Blackburn
Wine pairing: 🍷 Prophecy Pinot Noir — a medium-bodied California Pinot Noir with red cherry and raspberry notes, touches of toasted oak and brown spice.
In this week’s episode of Murder Through the Grapevine, we’re raising a glass to memory — and digging into a case that’s haunted the streets of Albany for over six decades. Thanks to the persistence of local law-enforcement and the breakthroughs of forensic science, the 1964 murder of Catherine “Kate” Blackburn has finally been solved.
If you're looking to take a deep dive into this case, check out the Upstate Unsolved podcast, which debuted in 2019 and featured interviews with the Albany Police Department, local historians, and anthropologists. That laid the groundwork — and now, thanks to new DNA evidence, answers are here.
The Case That Shocked Albany
On September 14, 1964, 50-year-old Catherine Blackburn was found brutally murdered inside her home on Colonie Street in Albany. Catherine was a well-respected manager at the Mohawk Brush Company, homeowner, devout Catholic, and someone who lived independently at a time when that was less common for women.
The area around Colonie Street in 1960 was a triangle of Irish and Polish immigrant families, bordered by the train tracks and Pearl Street — a world very different from the development-ringed neighborhood of today.
Her murder investigation ran cold for decades; missing rent-receipt pages, a mysterious tenant who never properly existed, and a trail of leads that dead-ended again and again. The only things taken were four pages of her receipt book — her money and home left intact.
That changed in October 2025, when Albany PD announced that DNA evidence finally pointed to the killer: Joseph Nowakowski, whose remains were exhumed from Albany Rural Cemetery and matched to DNA from cloth preserved at the scene.
A Killer Hiding in Plain Sight
Nowakowski had a long, troubled history: arrests for burglary, weapons possession, and a violent hatchet attack in Schenectady. Though never initially considered a suspect in Catherine’s murder, the behavioral profile fits — clean but obsessive, organized yet possibly inexperienced.
Investigators found that Catherine’s killer had likely posed as a tenant showing the upstairs flat, walked up with her to retrieve keys, struck her in the back of the head, then stabbed her in the neck, and burned her body with disturbing precision. The missing receipts, the $10 deposit and the man who smelled of alcohol — all clues pointing to a cold-case that finally found its closure.
Reflections Over Wine
We paired this case with Prophecy Pinot Noir — its cherry-raspberry fruit and soft spice fitting for a somber yet vindicating moment.
If you’d like a fuller account — with recorded interviews from the detectives and Catherine’s family, and a deeper look at the forensic journey — check out the Upstate Unsolved podcast and listen to our full episode of Murder Through the Grapevine.
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