The gruesome torture and murder of Catherine Blackburn haunted her family for decades.

The beloved 50-year-old Albany-area woman was showing her apartment to potential renters on Sept. 13, 1964, when she was bludgeoned, raped and tortured with heated kitchen knives for hours — an attack so vicious that she died from blood loss rather than the assaults on her body.

Now, police have finally identified the cold-blooded monster behind the macabre murder. 4

“Sixty-one years ago, evil entered my aunt’s house. It changed our lives forever,” Sandra Carmichael, the slain woman’s niece, said at a press conference Wednesday.

“We’ve prayed for this day,” Carmichael, now 81, told reporters. “To all who made this possible, may God bless all of you and may my aunt rest in peace.”

Albany police

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