Frederick Wilkerson was a gifted coach and teacher behind some of the greatest voices the world has ever heard. His life and career were cut short when he was killed in his Upper West Side home 44 years ago next month.
While there’s never been an arrest in his death, a former student and friend is refusing to let Wilkerson’s case fade quietly into silence.
“He made my voice. He created my voice,” Carlos Gueies-Bonilla, one of Wilkerson’s former students, said.
Wilkerson helped legends like Paul Robeson and Roberta Flack hit all the right totes. Even Maya Angelou raved about Wilkerson – affectionately known as Wilkie – in an interview with Oprah.
Now, decades later, he’s using that voice to get justice for his teacher who was mysteriously murdered in April of 1980.
“Someone’s got to come up and step up to the frickin’ plate. Nobody else has done it,” Gueies-Bonilla said.
It happened in Wilkerson’s Upper West Side apartment, where Carlos happened to be staying. When he went out to a rehearsal, police say two men came knocking. Another houseguest opened the door.
“She let the gentlemen in. She gave them a glass of scotch. And she thought nothing of it,” Gueies-Bonilla said.
That’s because, as Carlos explains it, lots of people dropped in on Wilkerson – to party and talk music. But the next morning, when Carlos peeked in on his friend, he found the man’s cold body.
“The minute I opened the door I knew he was dead. It was cold in there,” Gueies-Bonilla said.
Forty-four years later, with the case still unsolved, Carlos recently contacted the NYPD Cold Case Squad.
“When we get an email and someone is saying this is something that’s bothered me for 40 years, it definitely sticks out to you and you want to do everything you can to help,” Detective Rob Deckert said.
Dt. Deckert found Wilkerson’s case file and the medical examiner’s report – the famed voice teacher was strangled to death.
Still preserved in the folder were sketches of the two men who visited Wilkerson that deadly night. The two main suspects.
“The sketches are pretty good. I think that someone knows them. And I think it’s time,” Deckert said.
Deckert revisited the scene of Wilkerson’s murder, making a trip to the old apartment building on 95th Street near Broadway.
“When you have the file, it’s paper and then when you come and visit the places they were at it makes the person come to life more. These aren’t just files, they’re actual victims,” he said.
More than four decades later, Gueies-Bonilla hopes someone sings to clear their conscience.
“Please come forward for Frederick Wilkerson, for the people whose the careers he built,” pleads Gueies-Bonilla. “Bring justice to everybody that knew this man and loved him.”
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