The Gilgo Beach
serial killings were a series of killings between 1996 and 2011 in which
the remains of 11 people were found in Gilgo
Beach, located on the South Shore of
Long Island, New York, United States. Most of the known victims were sex
workers who advertised on Craigslist. The perpetrator in the case is known as
the Long Island Serial Killer (LISK).
The victims' remains were found over months in
2010 and 2011, after the disappearance of Shannan
Gilbert resulted in a police search of the area along the Ocean Parkway, near the remote beach
towns of Gilgo and Oak Beach in Suffolk County. The remains of four victims designated "The Gilgo Four" were found
within a quarter of a mile of each other near Gilgo Beach in December 2010. Six
more sets of remains were found in March and April 2011 in Suffolk and Nassau counties.
Police believe the latter sets of remains predate the four bodies found in
December 2010.
Gilbert's remains were found a year after the remains of “The Gilgo Four” were discovered. Her
cause of death remains contested, with police claiming accidental drowning
while an independent autopsy determined possible strangulation.
In July 2023, Rex
Heuermann, a resident of Massapequa
Park in Long Island, was
arrested in Midtown Manhattan and
charged in the murders of three of "the
Gilgo Four" victims: Megan
Waterman, Melissa Barthelemy, and Amber
Costello. He was also named as the prime suspect in the murder of the
fourth of the "Gilgo Four", Maureen Brainard-Barnes.
Police investigations
Bodies discovered
The first discovery of human remains was made by the side of
Ocean Parkway in Oak Beach on December 11, 2010. The investigation was prompted
by the search for Shannan Gilbert, a
24-year-old woman who had disappeared in the area in May that year after
fleeing from a client's home and making a 23-minute-long emergency call to 911,
saying, "They are trying to kill
me." A month after her disappearance, the Suffolk County Police
Department's missing persons bureau asked
Officer John Mallia to search for Gilbert with his trained cadaver dog, a German Shepherd named Blue. Throughout the summer of 2010,
Mallia unsuccessfully searched the gated beach community where Gilbert had last
been seen.
The officer made a new attempt at a search on December 11,
2010, staying close to the shoulder of the parkway. Mallia based his choice of
search area on FBI data indicating that dumped bodies are frequently found
close to roadways. Despite thick vegetation and a light layer of snow, Mallia's
cadaver dog alerted to a scent which the pair tracked to a skeleton in a
disintegrating burlap bag. The remains were later identified as Melissa Barthelemy. Police discovered
three additional bodies while searching the scene for further evidence. The
bodies of the four victims – Maureen
Brainard, Melissa Barthelemy, Megan Waterman, and Amber Costello – were found approximately 500 feet (150 m) from
each other.
In March 2011, partial remains of Jessica Taylor were found along Ocean Parkway. Eight years earlier, in 2003, other parts of
Taylor's remains had been found in Manorville,
a town in Suffolk County. The next
month, in April 2011, police discovered three additional sets of remains: an
unidentified female toddler, an unidentified Asian person, and Valerie Mack, partial remains of whom –
like those of Jessica Taylor – had
been found in Manorville years
earlier in November 2000. Two more bodies were found in Nassau County: Karen Vergata, whose partial remains had previously
been found on Fire Island in 1996,
and an unidentified woman with a distinctive tattoo of peaches who was later
found to be the mother of the unidentified toddler found in Suffolk County.
On May 9, 2011, police speculated that because of
similarities in the cases, Valerie Mack
(who at the time was unidentified) and Jessica
Taylor may have been murdered by a second, separate killer. On November 29,
2011, police announced that they believed one person to be responsible for all
ten murders and that the perpetrator was almost certainly from Long Island. The
single killer theory stems from common characteristics between the condition of
the remains and forensic evidence related to the bodies. In June 2011, Suffolk County police announced a
$25,000 reward for information leading to an arrest in the Long Island murders. Shannan
Gilbert's remains were located in Oak
Beach in December 2011, 19 months after her disappearance. The cause of her
death is contested.
FBI involvement
On December 10, 2015, Suffolk County Police Commissioner Tim
Sini announced that the FBI had officially joined the investigation. The
announcement came one day after former police
Chief James Burke was indicted for civil rights violations and conspiracy.
Burke, who resigned from the department in October 2015, was reported to have
blocked FBI involvement in the Gilgo
Beach cases for years. The FBI had previously assisted in the search for
victims but had never officially been a part of the investigation. In November
2016, Burke was sentenced to 46 months in federal prison for assault and
conspiracy.
2020 release of
evidence to the public
On January 16, 2020, Suffolk
County Police Commissioner Geraldine Hart released images of a belt found
at the crime scene with the letters "HM"
or "WH" (depending on the
orientation of the belt) embossed in black leather. The belt had been found
during the initial investigation near Ocean
Parkway in Gilgo Beach. Police
believe that the belt was handled by the perpetrator and that it did not
belong to any of the victims. The police revealed few details about the
belt's evidentiary value and would not comment on exactly where it had been
found. It was also announced that new scientific evidence was being used in the
investigation and that they had launched Gilgonews.com, a website enabling the
department to share news and receive tips regarding the investigation.
Identification of
remains through genetic genealogy
In June 2019, a proposal was made to use genetic genealogy
to identify the unidentified victims and possibly the killer in the Gilgo Beach case. On May 28, 2020, "Jane Doe No. 6" was
identified as Valerie Mack, who also
went by the name of Melissa Taylor.
On August 4, 2023, "Jane Doe No.
7" was revealed to be Karen
Vergata, whose identity had been established in 2022.
Person of interest
and suspect
Person of interest
On September 12, 2017, Suffolk
County prosecutor Robert Biancavilla said that John Bittrolff, a Suffolk
County resident convicted of murdering two sex workers and suspected in the
murder of a third, may have committed some of the Gilgo Beach murders. Biancavilla said that Bittrolff was likely
responsible for the deaths of other women and that there were similarities
between the Gilgo Beach crime scenes and Bittrolff's known murders, for which
he was convicted in May 2017 and sentenced in September.
Bittrolff was arrested in 2014 after his DNA was found on
the bodies of two murder victims, Rita
Tangredi and Colleen McNamee,
whose bodies were found in 1993 and 1994, respectively. The match had been made
through DNA submitted by his brother, who was convicted in 2013 on an unrelated
case. Bittrolff was convicted in May 2017 of these murders, and in September
sentenced to consecutive terms of 25 years for each murder. The Suffolk County police did not comment
on the prosecutor's statement due to the active homicide investigation of the Gilgo Beach murders. Bittrolff's
attorney rejected the prosecutor's assertion.
Bittrolff lived in Manorville,
30 miles (48 km) from where the torsos of Gilgo
Beach victims Jessica Taylor and
Valerie Mack were recovered.
Bittrolff was a hunter who was said to enjoy killing animals. He was a
carpenter by trade with access to hacksaws and electric saws. Because many of
the bodies were found precisely dismembered, his access to and proficiency with
these tools is of note.
The adult daughter of Rita
Tangredi, who was murdered by Bittrolff, was also the best friend of Melissa Barthelemy, one of the Gilgo Beach victims. Barthelemy's
mother said that her daughter Melissa "had
a lot of calls to Manorville from her phone" before her death.
Suspect
In July 2023, Rex
Andrew Heuermann (born February 12, 1964), a 59-year-old Nassau County resident, was arrested in
Midtown Manhattan and subsequently
charged with three counts of first-degree murder, as well as three counts of
the lesser charge of second-degree murder, related to the deaths of Melissa Barthelemy, Megan Waterman, and
Amber Costello. He is also the prime
suspect in the death of Maureen
Brainard-Barnes. Heuermann pleaded not guilty. Heuermann is an architect
and has lived much of his life in Massapequa
Park on Long Island. In an
interview on YouTube, Heuermann
stated he has worked in Manhattan since 1987.
Authorities began to seriously consider Heuermann as a
suspect in March 2022 after discovering that a Chevrolet Avalanche registered in his name had been linked to one
of the killings by a witness. According to investigators, his cellphone records
indicate he had been in contact with three of the four victims and an email
account linked to Heuermann had conducted online searches of the
investigation's progress. Court records also indicated that he had searched the
internet for "sadistic materials,
child pornography, [and] images of the victims and their relatives." Mitochondrial
DNA (mtDNA) testing indicated Heuermann as a potential match when hair found on
the burlap wrappings of one of the bodies was compared to a sample gleaned from
a pizza crust in a box he had discarded. A potential match to Heuermann's wife
was also found when comparing hair found on or near three of the victims to
samples taken from bottles found in the trash outside the Heuermann residence.
Investigators stated that his wife and children were out of state at the time
during which the killings were believed to have occurred.
The Gilgo Four:
victims discovered in December 2010
Maureen
Brainard-Barnes
Brainard-Barnes of Norwich,
Connecticut, was 25 when she disappeared. She was last seen on July 9,
2007, saying that she planned "to
spend the day in New York City." She was never seen again.
Brainard-Barnes, a mother of two, worked as a sex worker via Craigslist to pay
the mortgage on her house. She had been out of the sex industry for seven
months but she returned to work to pay her bills after receiving
an eviction notice. Her body was found in December 2010.
Shortly after her disappearance, a friend of
Brainard-Barnes's, Sara Karnes,
received a phone call from a man on an unfamiliar number. The man claimed that
he had just seen Brainard-Barnes and that she was alive and staying at a "whorehouse in Queens." He
refused to identify himself and could not tell Karnes the location of the
house. He told Karnes he would call back and give her the address, but never
called again. Karnes said that the man had no discernible New York or Boston
accent.
At the time of her disappearance, she was working at a Super 8 motel in Manhattan. On the
night of July 9, 2007, she called a friend in Connecticut and told her that she
was planning on meeting a client outside of the motel. Like many of the
victims, Brainard-Barnes was very petite, at 4 ft 11 in (1.50 m) tall and 105
pounds (48 kg).
Melissa Barthelemy
Barthelemy, 24, of Erie
County, New York, went missing on July 12, 2009. She had been living in the
Bronx in New York and working as a sex worker through Craigslist. On the night she went missing she met with a client,
deposited $900 in her bank account, and attempted to call an old boyfriend, but
did not get through. Beginning one week later, and lasting for five weeks, her
teenage sister Amanda received a series of "vulgar,
mocking, and insulting" calls from a man who may have been the killer
using Melissa Barthelemy's cell
phone. The caller asked if Amanda "was
a whore like her sister."
The calls became increasingly disturbing and eventually
culminated in the caller telling Amanda that her sister was dead and that he
was going to "watch her rot."
Police traced some of the calls to Madison
Square Garden, midtown Manhattan, and Massapequa, but were unable to determine
who was making them. Barthelemy's mother noted that there were "a lot of calls to Manorville"
from her daughter's phone around the time of her disappearance. In September
2017, a prosecutor suggested John Bittrolff, a carpenter from that town
convicted of two other murders, might be responsible for some of the Gilgo Beach cases. Barthelemy was 4 ft
10 in (1.47 m) tall and 95 pounds (43 kg).
Megan Waterman
Waterman, 22, of South
Portland, Maine, went missing on June 6, 2010, after placing advertisements
on Craigslist as an escort. The
previous day she had told her 20-year-old boyfriend that she was going out and
would call him later. At the time of her disappearance, she was staying at a motel
in Hauppauge, New York, 15 miles
northeast of Gilgo Beach. Her body
was recovered in December 2010. Waterman was a mother of one and had become a
victim of sex trafficking. Waterman was 5 ft 5 in (1.65 m) tall.
Amber Lynn Costello
Costello, 27, of West
Babylon, New York, a small town ten miles north of Gilgo Beach, was a sex worker and heroin user who went missing on
September 2, 2010. That night she reportedly went to meet a stranger who had
called her several times and offered $1,500 for her services. Born in Charlotte and raised in Wilmington, North Carolina, Costello
was living in West Babylon, New York
when she disappeared. Her family believed that she was in a residential drug
rehabilitation center and so she was not immediately reported missing when she
stopped responding to messages and phone calls.
Before moving to West
Babylon, Costello had been living with her second husband in Clearwater, Florida, and was working as
a waitress. A strong student, Costello's drug addiction began when she was a
teenager. She had been sexually assaulted by a neighbor when she was 6 years old.
Costello was 4 ft 11 in (1.50 m) and weighed approximately 100 pounds (45 kg).
Additional victims were discovered in March and April 2011
Four more sets of remains were discovered on March 29 and
April 4, 2011. All of the remains were found in another area off the parkway
near Oak Beach and Gilgo Beach, within two miles and to
the east of those found in December 2010. The newly discovered victims were Jessica Taylor, Valerie Mack, an
unidentified woman designated "Jane
Doe No. 3" or "Peaches",
and an unidentified toddler who was the daughter of "Peaches". Suffolk
Police subsequently expanded the search area up to the Nassau County border looking for more victims.
Two further sets of remains were discovered on April 11,
2011, after the search expanded into
Nassau County. They were found about one mile apart, approximately five
miles west of those found in December. One set of remains belonged to a victim
now thought to be a transgender woman. Designated "Asian Male", police said that the victim had been dead
for between five and ten years. The other remains were those of "Jane Doe No. 7" whose partial
remains had been discovered on Fire
Island in 1996.
Identified
Valerie Mack / Melissa
Taylor / "Manorville Jane Doe" / "Jane Doe No. 6"
Valerie Mack, 24,
also known as Melissa Taylor, was
living in Philadelphia and working
as an escort when she went missing in 2000. Like many of the victims, she was
small in stature at approximately 5 feet (1.5 m) and weighing approximately 100
pounds (45 kg). Mack's partial remains were discovered in Manorville on
November 19, 2000, but were not identified until 2020. Her torso was found
wrapped in garbage bags and dumped in the woods near the intersection of Halsey Manor Road and Mill Road, adjacent to a set of power
lines and a nearby power line access road.
A head, right foot, and hands found on April 4, 2011, were
at first determined to have belonged to an unidentified victim, dubbed "Jane Doe No. 6"; it was later
determined that they belonged to the same woman whose torso had been found in
2000. Her right foot had been cut off high above the ankle, possibly to conceal
an identifying mark or tattoo. On May 28, 2020, police announced that the
remains had been identified as Valerie
Mack, who had last been seen by family members in the spring or summer of
2000 in the area of Port Republic, New
Jersey. The dismembered remains of Valerie
Mack and Jessica Taylor were
both disposed of similarly and in the same part of Manorville,
suggesting a link.
Jessica Taylor
Jessica Taylor,
20, was living in Manhattan when she
went missing on July 21, 2003. On July 26, 2003, her naked and dismembered
torso, missing its head and hands, was discovered 45 miles (72 km) east of Gilgo Beach in Manorville, New York; these remains were identified by DNA analysis
later that year. Taylor's torso was found atop a pile of scrap wood at the end
of a paved access road off Halsey Manor
Road, just north of where it crosses the Long Island Expressway. Plastic sheeting was found underneath the
torso, and a tattoo on her body had been mutilated with a sharp instrument.
Further remains found on March 29, 2011, matched to Taylor,
including a skull, a pair of hands, and a forearm. She had worked in Washington, D.C., and Manhattan as a sex worker. Taylor was
last seen working around the Port
Authority Bus Terminal in Manhattan between
July 18 and 22, 2003.
Karen Vergata /
"Fire Island Jane Doe" / "Jane Doe No. 7"
Karen Vergata, a
34-year-old woman from Manhattan, was believed to have been working as a sex
worker when she disappeared in 1996. Unidentified for 27 years, Karen Vergata was variously known as "Jane Doe No. 7" and "Fire Island Jane Doe" until
she was publicly identified by Suffolk
County District Attorney Ray Tierney in August 2023. She had been
identified in 2022 through genetic genealogy.
Vergata's severed legs were found in a garbage bag on Fire Island on April 20, 1996. Fifteen
years later, on April 11, 2011, her skull and several of her teeth were
recovered at Tobay Beach, the second
set of remains to be discovered in Nassau
County that day. These remains were linked through DNA testing to the
remains found on Fire Island in 1996.
Unidentified
Three victims remain unidentified: "Peaches", "Baby Doe", and "Asian Male". "Peaches" has been identified
through DNA testing as the mother of "Baby
Doe".
"Peaches" /
"Jane Doe No. 3"
On June 28, 1997, the dismembered torso of an unidentified
young African-American woman was found at Hempstead
Lake State Park, in the town of Lakeview,
New York. The torso was found in a green plastic Rubbermaid container,
which was dumped next to a road along the west side of the lake. Investigators
reported that the victim had a tattoo on her left breast of a heart-shaped
peach with a bite out of it and two drips falling from its core.
On April 11, 2011, police in Nassau County discovered
dismembered skeletal human remains inside a plastic bag near Jones Beach State Park. The victim was
dubbed "Jane Doe No. 3." In
December 2016, "Peaches"
and "Jane Doe No. 3" were
positively identified through DNA testing as being the same person. DNA analysis
also identified "Peaches" as
the mother of "Baby Doe"; she
was found wearing gold jewelry similar to that of her daughter.
"Baby Doe"
A third set of remains – the skeleton of a female toddler
between 16 and 24 months of age (or, by another account, 1 to 4 years of age) –
was found on April 4, 2011, about 250 feet (80 m) away from the partial remains
of Valerie Mack. The body was
wrapped in a blanket and showed no visible signs of trauma. DNA tests
determined that the child's mother was "Jane
Doe No. 3", whose body was found 10 miles (16 km) east, near Jones Beach State Park. The toddler was
wearing gold earrings and a gold necklace.
"Asian
male"
The body of a young Asian male who had died from blunt-force
trauma was also discovered on April 4, 2011, at Gilgo Beach, very close to where the first four sets of remains had
been discovered in December 2010. The victim was found wearing women's clothing
and may have possibly been a transgender woman. The victim was between 17 and
23 years of age, 5 ft 6 in (1.68 m) in height, missing four teeth, and may have
had a musculoskeletal disorder that could affect gait. The victim had been dead
between five and 10 years. In September 2011, police released a male composite
sketch of the victim.
Discovery of Shannan
Gilbert's body
On December 13, 2011, police announced that the remains of Shannan Gilbert had been found in a
marsh about half a mile from where she had disappeared. A week earlier, some of
her clothing and belongings had been discovered in the same vicinity. Gilbert
was last seen banging on a resident's door and screaming for help before
running off into the night. Gilbert made an emergency 9-1-1 call that night,
saying that she feared for her life.
Police have stated that the death of Gilbert, a woman whose
disappearance triggered the search during which the first set of bodies was
found, is unrelated to the Long Island
serial killer case. Gilbert's now-deceased mother Mari Gilbert advocated for the theory that her daughter had been murdered
by a serial killer.
Timeline
1996
February 14, 1996: Karen Vergata last seen.
April 20, 1996: Partial remains of Karen Vergata found, Fire
Island, New York.
1997
June 28, 1997: Partial remains of "Peaches" / "Jane Doe No. 3" found, at Hempstead
Lake State Park, Long Island, New York.
2000
2000: Valerie Mack was last seen by family members in the spring or
summer, in Port Republic, New Jersey.
November 19, 2000: Partial remains of Valerie Mack found, in Manorville, Long Island, New York.
2003
July 2003: Jessica Taylor last seen, at Port Authority Bus
Terminal, Manhattan, New York.
July 26, 2003: Partial remains of Jessica Taylor found, in Manorville, Long Island, New York.
2007
July 9, 2007: Maureen Brainard-Barnes was last seen, in Manhattan,
New York.
July 2007: A friend of Brainard-Barnes's, Sara Karnes,
receives a phone call from a man claiming that he had just seen Brainard-Barnes
and that she was alive and staying at a "whorehouse
in Queens."
2009
July 12, 2009: Melissa Barthelemy was last seen at her
apartment, 1149 Underhill Ave in the Unionport section of the Bronx, New York.
July 17, 2009 – August 26, 2009: Amanda Barthelemy, sister
of Melissa Barthelemy, receives a series of "vulgar,
mocking and insulting" calls from a man using Melissa Barthelemy's
cell phone. There are additional calls on July 23, Aug. 5, Aug. 19, and Aug. 26.
The caller eventually tells Amanda Barthelemy that her sister is dead.
2010
May 2, 2010: Shannan Gilbert makes a panicked phone call to
911 at 4:51am after fleeing a client's house; she bangs on doors of several
neighboring houses and disappears, Oak Beach, Long Island, New York.
June 6, 2010: Megan Waterman, 22, who had traveled to Long
Island from Maine for sex work, was last seen at a motel, in Hauppauge, New York.
September 2, 2010: Amber Lynn Costello was last seen at her
residence, in West Babylon, New York.
December 11, 2010: Remains of Melissa Barthelemy found along
Ocean Parkway, Long Island, New York.
December 13, 2010: Remains of Megan Waterman, Amber Lynn
Costello, and Maureen Brainard-Barnes were found along Ocean Parkway, Long Island,
New York.
2011
March 29, 2011: Further partial remains of Jessica Taylor
found along Ocean Parkway, Long Island, New York.
April 4, 2011: Remains of Valerie Mack, "Asian Male" and "Baby
Doe" (the 16-24-month-old daughter of "Peaches") were found in a brush area along Ocean Parkway, Long
Island, New York.
April 11, 2011: Further partial remains of "Peaches" / "Jane Doe No.
3" were found near Jones Beach State Park, Long Island, New York.
April 11, 2011: Further partial remains of Karen Vergata were found, at Tobay Beach, Long Island, New York.
December 13, 2011: Remains of Shannan Gilbert found in a
marsh, Oak Beach, Long Island, New York.
2016
December 2016: "Peaches"
and "Jane Doe No. 3" positively
identified as the same person.
2020
May 2020: Police announce forensic identification of
formerly unidentified remains of Valerie Mack.
2023
July 2023: Rex Heuermann was charged with the murders
of Megan Waterman, Melissa Barthelemy, and Amber Costello, and named as a
suspect in the murder of Maureen Brainard-Barnes.
August 4, 2023: Police announce forensic identification of
formerly unidentified remains of Karen Vergata.
Possible victims
Identified
Tina Elizabeth Foglia
19-year-old Tina
Foglia was last seen alive in the early morning hours of February 1, 1982,
at the Hammerheads rock music venue on Sunrise
Highway, West Islip. She had hitchhiked from her home to the venue to see a
friend performing with a Queens-based band Equinox. Her remains were discovered
by Department of Transportation workers on February 3 on the shoulder of the Sagtikos State Parkway in Suffolk County. Her dismembered body,
which had been placed in three separate plastic garbage bags, was found a few
miles north of the Robert Moses
Causeway, which leads to Gilgo Beach
and Oak Beach.
A diamond ring that Foglia was known to wear was missing and
the DNA of an unknown male was found on the garbage bags. Police have not ruled
out the possibility that Tina Foglia
was an early victim of the Long Island
Serial Killer but have stated that a connection is "not an active avenue of the investigation."
Jacqueline Ashley Smith
Jacqueline Smith,
16, was last seen in Brooklyn, New York
on August 7, 1999. She had left her home at 9 p.m. to visit friends and never
came back. She was reported missing on August 12, 1999. On June 20, 2000, an
unidentified female torso was recovered near Beach 88th Street in Rockaway
Beach, Queens. The torso was found in plastic bags and wrapped with tape.
No other body parts were recovered. The victim was later identified as Smith.
Two years later, the torso of Andre Isaac was also recovered in Rockaway not
far from where Smith was found.
Andre Jamal Isaac
Andre Isaac was a
professional drag queen known by his stage name "Sugar Bear". He was 6'5" inches tall and was 25 years old when he disappeared from East New York in November 2002. According
to a friend, Isaac was last seen shortly before Thanksgiving, getting into a
car with a "secret friend."
The vehicle was described as a red BMW-type coupe driven by a Hispanic man.
Isaac's torso was found close to the boardwalk on Beach 63 Street in Arverne,
Queens on December 17, 2002. On January 25, 2003, his head was discovered
by ice skaters in East Millpond in Moriches, New York in Suffolk County, with a single bullet
wound to a temple. His arms and legs were later found several miles away in
plastic bags. Isaac's case was added to the Suffolk County Police Department Gilgo News website on May 29,
2020.
Jamie Diane Seymour
Jamie Seymour, a
21-year-old, was last heard from in Brick,
New Jersey, on July 22, 2005. She called her father on July 22 to let him
know she needed a ride home from the Port
Authority. Seymour used someone else's phone at the Manhattan Port Authority to call her mother later that day. She has
not been seen or heard from since.
After the final phone call to her mother – when two weeks
passed and no one heard from Seymour – the family became worried. On August 8,
her father reported her missing to police. Seymour spent time before her
disappearance in New York City and
had a criminal record. There have been few leads in Seymour's case and her
family believes that she met with foul play. Police have never indicated any
connection between Seymour's disappearance and the Long Island serial killer.
Seymour was a young woman with a small frame, like other victims of the Long Island serial killer. She vanished
in July, similar to victims Melissa
Barthelemy, Maureen Brainard Barnes, and Jessica Taylor. Seymour was also last seen at the same place as Jessica Taylor, the Port Authority bus station in midtown.
Tanya Rush
On June 23, 2008, Tanya
Rush, 39, was last seen around 3 a.m. walking towards a subway station in
Brooklyn. Her dismembered body was found by a state road-cleaning crew inside a
black canvas suitcase on June 27, 2008, in plain sight on the Newbridge Road ramp leading to the
westbound Southern State Parkway in Bellmore, New York. Rush was a mother
of three who had been a Salvation Army
volunteer and had worked in telemarketing. She took up sex work to support a
drug addiction. Rush was African-American and lived in the Van Dyke Houses, a Brownsville
public housing complex in Brooklyn, New
York.
Shannan Maria Gilbert
24-year-old Shannan
Maria Gilbert was an escort who may have been a victim of the Long Island serial killer. She left for
a client's residence in Oak Beach after midnight on May 1, 2010. At 4:51 in the
morning, 911 dispatchers received a panicked phone call from Gilbert, who could
be heard saying that there was someone "after
her" and that "they"
were trying to kill her. She was last seen a short time later banging on the
front door of a nearby Oak Beach
residence and screaming for help before running off into the night. After
nineteen months of searching police found Gilbert's remains in a marsh, half a
mile from where she was last seen.
In May 2012, the Suffolk
County medical examiners ruled that Gilbert accidentally drowned after
entering the marsh. They believe that she was in a drug-induced panic and have
concluded that hers was "death by
misadventure" or "inconclusive."
Her family believes she was murdered. On November 15, 2012, a lawsuit was
filed by her mother, Mari Gilbert,
against the Suffolk County Police
Department in the hopes of getting more answers about what happened to her
daughter the night she went missing.
Due to the controversy about Gilbert's death, in September
2014, forensic pathologist Michael Baden
agreed to conduct an independent autopsy of Gilbert's remains in hopes of
determining a clear cause of death. Upon examination of Gilbert's remains Baden
found damage to her hyoid bone suggesting that strangulation may have occurred.
Baden also noted that her body was found face-up, which is not common for
drowning victims. Despite this, her death is still officially listed as an
accident.
On July 23, 2016, Mari
Gilbert was murdered in her home in Ellenville,
New York. Later that day, her younger daughter, Sarra Elizabeth Gilbert, was arrested and charged with the stabbing
death of her mother.
On May 6, 2020, the New
York State Supreme Court ordered Suffolk
County Police to release Gilbert's 911 call recording, denying their
request to withhold it after more than 10 years. On May 13, 2022, the Suffolk County Police Department
released the 911 call.
Natasha Jugo
Natasha Jugo, 31,
was last seen leaving her Queens
Village, New York home on March 16, 2013, at 4:30 a.m. The following day,
her wallet, identification, and some clothing, were discovered abandoned along Ocean Parkway close to Gilgo Beach. Jugo's 2009 Toyota Prius
was also found abandoned near the beach with footprints in the sand leading
towards the water. Jugo's body was eventually discovered floating in the water
by beachgoers at 9:30 p.m. on June 24, 2013. Jugo's body was the eleventh human
body to be found at Gilgo Beach
since December 2010. Her body showed no obvious signs of trauma.
Patricia Viola
Patricia Viola, a
42-year-old woman and a mother of two children from Bogota, New Jersey, described as a 5-foot-2-inch brunette, vanished
on February 13, 2001, and her partial remains were found in Rockaway Beach, Queens in July 2002.
Her body wasn't identified until 2012. The
New Jersey “Patricia’s Law,” which
bars police from refusing to accept missing person reports and requires them to
notify a missing person’s family of support services, is named after Patricia
Viola.
Unidentified
"Cherries" /
Unidentified woman, Mamaroneck
On March 3, 2007, a suitcase containing the dismembered
torso of an unidentified Hispanic or light-skinned African-American woman
washed up on a beach at Harbor Island
Park in the town of Mamaroneck.
The victim had a tattoo of two cherries on her left breast, similar in
appearance to the tattoo found on "Peaches."
She was determined to have been stabbed to death. Never identified, the victim
is referred to as "Cherries"
by investigators. One of her dismembered legs washed up at Cold Spring Harbor
on March 21, 2007, and the other at Oyster
Bay in the village of Cove Neck
the following day. "Cherries"
was dismembered in a fashion similar to three other victims (Jessica Taylor, Valerie Mack, and "Peaches") meaning she may be
linked to the other official victims.
Unidentified woman,
Lattingtown
On January 23, 2013, a woman walking her dog found human
remains in a small patch of brush in a sandy area along the shore at the end of
Sheep Lane in Lattingtown, near Oyster Bay. The skeletal remains showed
signs of trauma and were wrapped in a particular type of material that police
have not disclosed. The remains are believed to be those of a woman between the
ages of 20 and 30 who was possibly Asian. She was wearing a 22-karat solid gold
pig pendant which may be related to the Chinese zodiac "Year of the Pig." The relevant birth years are 1971,
1983, and 1995, possibly suggesting that the woman died at the age of 29.
Investigators believe that her body had been dumped before Hurricane Sandy in late 2012. Her case
may be connected to the other 10 bodies found 32 miles (51 km) away in and
around Gilgo Beach, though, unlike
the other victims, her body was buried rather than left above ground.
Profile of killer
The media had speculated about a profile of the killer,
referred to by police as "Joe
C" (unknown subject). According to the New York Times, the perpetrator was most likely a white male in his
mid-twenties to mid-forties very familiar with the South Shore of Long Island, and had access to burlap sacks used to
hold the bodies for disposal. He may have a detailed knowledge of law
enforcement techniques, and perhaps ties to law enforcement, which have thus
far helped him avoid detection. According to investigators, there may be more
than one killer.
In popular culture
The case also became known as "LISK", for the "Long
Island Serial Killer".
Numerous films, television programs, podcasts, and other
media have covered or referenced the case. These include:
48 hours: "Long
Island Serial Killer" (Airdate July 12, 2011), re-aired on September
8, 2023, with information regarding the suspect
The Long Island Serial Killer (2013), also known as The
Gilgo Beach Murders, an independent feature directed by Joseph DiPietro
Lyrics of the 2014 Panama Wedding song "Feels Like
Summer" reference the events of the murders in Gilgo Beach.
People Magazine Investigates: "The Long Island Serial
Killer: The Lost Girls" (2016): season 1, episodes 1–2
The Killing Season, 2016 docuseries episode
Crime Junkie, episode 21: "SERIAL KILLER: L.I.S.K" (Released: April 16, 2018)
Lost Girls, Netflix film (2020)
60 Minutes Australia: "Who
is the Long Island serial killer?" (2020)
The Long Island Serial Killer: A Mother's Hunt for Justice,
Lifetime television film (2021)
The Criminal Lawyer by Thomas Benigno
Grim Tide, (2021) a five-part series on Fox Nation.
Unraveled: The Long Island Serial Killer (2021), a
seven-part podcast series released by Investigation Discovery.
Killing Time, a 2012 play by Tom Slot
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