Posts Tagged ‘ Gilgo Beach ’

Police Commissioner and D.A. Argue Over How Many Killers

Spota Discounts Lone Long Island Serial Killer Theory

By FRANK ELTMAN

Suffolk County District Attorney Thomas Spota told county legislators at a hearing that he disagrees with Police Commissioner Richard Dormer’s latest theory that a single serial killer left the remains along several miles of highway between Long Island’s Jones and Gilgo beaches.

Spota said he was “shocked and surprised” when he received a telephone call from a reporter several weeks ago asking about Dormer’s change of heart.

“I had no idea what that reporter was talking about,” Spota said, adding that Dormer has yet to discuss the revised theory with him personally.

“I would never even discuss this publicly, except I think that the facts that have been disclosed so far do not bear out the single killer theory at all,” said Spota, who had previously declined to comment through a spokesman.

The district attorney and Dormer were in agreement in May when they appeared at a joint press conference to say that authorities believed multiple killers were likely responsible for the deaths of eight women, a man and a toddler.

The remains were found in the thick underbrush along the beach highway between December 2010 and April. Investigators later determined that some remains found near the parkway were linked by DNA to remains of homicide victims found more than 40 miles away as far back as 1996.

Dormer said in interview with The Associated Press earlier this month in advance of the anniversary of the Dec. 11 discovery of the first body that he had revised his theory. He now believes one killer is likely responsible.

Dormer discounted that some of the victims had been dismembered while some had not, arguing that serial killers often evolve and change their tactics. He pointed to the likelihood that all the victims were linked to the sex trade as another indicator that one killer was likely responsible.

On Thursday, Spota countered that because five of the 10 victims have yet to be identified, the police commissioner is not able to confirm that all had a link to the sex trade.

The toddler who was found is believed to the child of one of the unidentified dead prostitutes, Dormer has said. The male victim was found wearing women’s clothing, which Dormer said indicates he may have been a prostitute. Spota countered that men can be cross-dressers without being prostitutes.

The district attorney said not only does he disagree with Dormer’s view, but contended that many of the homicide detectives investigating the case do not share the commissioner’s opinion. Dormer has conceded that others, including some in his department, may not agree with him and has left open the possibility that he could change the theory if additional information is received.

Dormer, who is leaving office at the end of this month, had testified before the legislature’s public safety committee prior to Spota’s appearance Thursday morning but left before the district attorney’s testimony. A spokeswoman said later that Dormer had no comment on what Spota said.

The district attorney said he felt he had been blindsided by Dormer’s revised theory. He said his chief assistant assigned to the case didn’t even know about it.

“I have to tell you that in our office, the DA’s office and the homicide squad work hand in hand,” Spota said. “The moment that any police are called to a crime scene and they determine it to be a homicide, the prosecutor is called out immediately. They’re right there. And that’s the way we’ve always worked.

“And for me to have to call a prosecutor to answer a question from somebody in the media, that we now have a different theory, it’s disturbing. It really truly is disturbing.”

The legislative hearing of the criminal justice committee took place days after police found another set of remains that they believe are the corpse of Shannan Gilbert, the prostitute whose disappearance spurred the search.

An officer and his cadaver dog were searching along Ocean Parkway last December when they happened upon the first skeletal remains. Two days later, three more bodies were found. By April, the body count had risen to 10. Police have not identified any suspects.

Investigators have said they think Gilbert’s death is probably unrelated to the other deaths. She vanished into a wetland after fleeing a client’s home in a panic, for a reason that is still unclear.

Dormer said the skeletal remains discovered this week were in a location that suggested that Gilbert became exhausted and drowned while trying to force her way through the marshy thicket to a nearby road. He said unlike the other remains, which were dumped from the nearby roadway, there would have been no way for someone to leave Gilbert’s remains where they were found because of the daunting thicket and underbrush. 

 

Not sure what I think. The dismemberment of some while wrapping others in burlap bags does seem like a jump in ritual but it is not impossible for a serial killer to do that.

That also makes me wonder if the NJ victims are not once again possibly linked into these bodies.

It is so hard to make a firm opinion considering the lack of so much information and so many details.

2011
12/18
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Possible Advancement in the Search for Gilbert

Police investigating the disappearance of a woman along an isolated stretch of Long Island beachfront said Wednesday they had found her jeans, shoes and cell phone and believed she may have drowned in a marshy area when she went missing in 2010.

Armed with dredging machinery and canine units, police for the second day scoured the area where Shannan Gilbert was last seen in May 2010.

Suffolk County Police Commissioner Richard Dormer said the waters in the marsh had receded far below the lake-like terrain that officers had encountered in previous searches, allowing them to discover the latest items.

He said a purse they found on Tuesday contains some type of photo ID, but said the items inside the bag must be meticulously dried, and said authorities have not yet been able to examine the ID.

Police also believe Gilbert’s body will soon be found, and that the missing prostitute may have drowned, instead of being killed.

“We believe that Shannan Gilbert ran into that area the night she disappeared,” Dormer said. “It’s very easy to get engulfed with water and muck and fall down and not be able to get out of there. So we surmise that that’s what happened to Shannan and she’s in there someplace, and we’re going to do everything we can to find her.”

Police Inspector Stuart Cameron said officers performing the search have been navigating quicksand-like terrain, abruptly dropping to their “waist or deeper,” unable to get out without help.

The 24-year-old woman vanished after fleeing a client’s home in the gated seashore community several miles from Jones Beach State Park.

The Suffolk County Police Department said at a press conference Tuesday afternoon no human remains were found. But a law enforcement source tells NBC New York that remains were indeed uncovered in Tuesday’s search.

Police were looking for Gilbert last December when they began finding human remains in the underbrush along Ocean Parkway. Some 10 sets of human remains were eventually recovered in the area, but not Gilbert’s.

Officials at first suspected several serial killers, but have recently said one person is responsible for all 10 deaths. No suspects have been named.

Police conducted a separate search near Gilgo Beach Monday, but said they did not uncover any new evidence related to Gilbert’s disappearance or the 10 sets of remains.

NBC New York 

 

 

2011
12/07
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For sale: Oak Beach Home; Gilgo Beach New York

The Oak Beach house from which an escort was seen running before her disappearance is up for sale.

According to real estate records, the two story wood-paneled beach house at 8 The Fairway was originally listed for $439,000.

The price was reduced to $399,999 in September.

Netter Real Estate, a realty based in West Islip, first listed the property March 8. The 2,400-square-foot house has three bedrooms, three bathrooms and a full finished basement and is described as a “unique home with complete privacy” with “views of inlet to the south and Great South Bay to the north.”

The first floor features a living room, a dining room, an eat-in kitchen and two bedrooms along with a full bath. There’s a master bedroom with a full bath and a deck on the second floor. There is a private entrance to the basement, which features a family room, a laundry room and a full bath.

Annual property taxes will run $15,525.89, and an additional $3,200 a year in rent goes to Babylon because the 100-by-178-foot land the home sits on is owned by the town.

Shannan Gilbert, 24, of Jersey City, was last seen May 1, 2010, running from the home. Her disappearance sparked the discovery of 10 bodies in the Gilgo Beach area. Gilbert had been summoned by homeowner Joseph Brewer, who police say is not a suspect.

Pictures and more here. 

So, would you buy it?

I would hate to live there right now. All the traffic from people wanting to ‘look’. Trespassers have to be a major problem.

It is also a bit creepy over all.

 

2011
12/06
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Only 1 Serial Killer for all 10 Bodies Say Police

NEW YORK (CNN) — After a nearly year-long investigation, police say they now believe 10 sets of human remains uncovered along a desolate stretch of Long Island, New York, beach are linked to a single killer.

“The theory is now that we’re dealing with one serial killer,” Suffolk County Police Commissioner Richard Dormer told CNN affiliate WABC on Tuesday.

He noted the killer did not “necessarily do the same thing all the time.”

“What’s common here is the dumping ground,” he added.

There has to be more than just the dump site as a connection. The police know something that they are not releasing.

Dormer previously said that only the bodies of four females uncovered in December were thought to be the work of a serial killer or killers.

It is not clear what prompted the change.

Authorities have sifted through more than 1,000 tips related to the case. But it’s unclear whether they have shed any light on an investigation that has drawn state and federal agents and garnered national attention.

In June, police upped the ante in their search for a culprit.

The reward for information leading to an arrest — once topping out at $5,000 — was raised five-fold, making it the largest offered in Suffolk County history. It was an apparent bid to fill out a case that some fear has gone cold.

“We’re hoping the increased reward money will encourage somebody to come forward by calling the police in respect to the families and to (the) victims,” Lt. Robert Donohue said at the time.

At least 10 sets of human remains have been found in Nassau and Suffolk counties since December. But the woman whose disappearance triggered the searches, 23-year-old Shannan Gilbert, remains missing. The New Jersey woman was last seen in May 2010 at a private party at a home in Long Island’s Oak Beach community.

The first four bodies have since been identified. They, like Gilbert, had advertised for prostitution services on websites such as Craigslist.

Their remains were found among bushes along a quarter-mile strip of beachfront property, according to police. More human remains were found on March 29 and April 4.

Suffolk County District Attorney Thomas Spota said in May that the newly found remains were not believed to be connected to the first four victims. In September, authorities released composite sketches of what two unidentified victims might have looked like.

Authorities at the time said the evidence suggested two other killers dumped bodies along Ocean Parkway in Gilgo Beach, about 40 miles east of New York City.

“This investigation is not an episode of ‘CSI’ or ‘Criminal Minds’ that is going to be solved in a one-hour period,” Spota said of the serial killer probe. “Most likely, it … is going to take a very long period of time to complete.”

Spota was not immediately available for comment Wednesday regarding police statements that the killings are now thought to be the work of a single killer.

CNN 

“Because of the dumping ground, the sex trade business, the dismemberment, we have people in the police department that have other theories, but we are leaning towards that theory,” Suffolk County Police Chief Richard Dormer told WCBS 880′s Sophia Hall.

CBS Local

Perhaps there is some type of ritual aspect to the dismembering?

The remains of 10 people — eight women, a man and a baby — were found strewn mostly along a remote beach parkway, but some body parts from those victims also were found on eastern Long Island and nearly 50 miles away on Fire Island. Police have identified only five of the 10 victims. Those five were all women working as escorts. The oldest remains are linked to a case 15 years ago.

Dormer believes nine of the 10 were somehow involved in the sex trade. The other, a female toddler, was linked by DNA to a woman believed to be her mother, Dormer said Wednesday. Their remains were found seven miles apart.

The remains of the Asian man have yet to be identified, but police have previously said he was found wearing women’s clothing, leading them to theorize he was a male prostitute.

Newsday

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2011
12/01
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New York Serial Killer Case: Tips Are Coming In.

The police are getting tips in the NY Serial Killer case. Hopefully we will hear something new soon.

Chilling sketches of a man and a woman found at a serial killer dumping ground on Long Island have spurred dozens of fresh tips about their identities, according to a source close to the case.

Suffolk County cops released the renderings of an Asian man and a white woman yesterday in an attempt to kick-start their investigation into ten sets of remains found at Gilgo Beach.

The victims – eight women, the lone man and a female toddler – were discovered during sweeps of the desolate stretch over the past 10 months and only half have been identified.

A police source said that the Asian male – who likely worked as a prostitute – was wearing a short skirt and some form of female leggings.

The sketch of what the male victim in the Long Island killings may have looked like.

The sketch of what the male victim in the Long Island killings may have looked like.

The source said his discovery initially threw the investigation for a loop because the other identified victims were all petite female hookers. But the cross-dressing revelation makes it plausible, the source said, that their slayer could be one in the same.

There is only one Asian male listed as missing in New York State but no match was made to the Gilgo victim.

The discovery of a female toddler at the site – the other clear departure from the Gilgo pattern – has also frustrated cops. The body of the child’s likely mother was discovered 7 miles away near Jones Beach.

Suffolk County Police Commissioner Richard Dormer has not determined if the grisly Gilgo finds are the work of one or more killers.
Read more

 

2011
09/25
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Long Island Serial Killer Hunt: Police Release Sketches of Victims

By , JOSH EINIGER and  (@jesshop23)

Police released sketches of two unidentified victims dumped on a Long Island beach by at least one serial killer, including a man dressed as a woman and a woman who may have worked as a prostitute.

The skeletal remains of a female toddler found this past April were linked by DNA to the skeletal remains of a woman found seven miles away, police said.

“It is likely that these two individuals were mother and child,” Suffolk County Police Commissioner Richard Dormer said today.

In addition to the sketches, Dormer released pictures of jewelry and other personal details about the five unidentified sets of remains found along on a stretch of beach off of Ocean County Parkway in Long Island, N.Y.

“We are hopeful that the release of this additional information will aid our investigation in helping identify the unknown victims and their killer or killers,” Dormer said at a press conference.

Do You Know the Long Island Serial Killers Victims?

Since December of last year, New York investigators have found 10 sets of human remains in Suffolk and Nassau County. Five of those remains have been identified as prostitutes, and the rest remain a mystery.

One of the sketches released was of a slightly built male victim who police said was wearing female clothing at the time of his death. Police said the Asian man was between 17 and 23 years old and approximately 5- feet-6. The man was missing both his top and bottom molars and one of his top front teeth, police said.

The death could have occurred between five and 10 years ago, police said.

The toddler is non-Caucasian and was wearing hoop earrings and a rope necklace, Dormer said. She was between 16 and 32 months old. The child’s adult relative had two bracelets on when she was murdered, one bracelet with Xs and Os with stones resembling diamonds and a snake chain, police said.

The two could have disappeared between one and five years ago, police said.

Sketch of Jane Doe 6/Suffolk County Police

Another victim identified as Jane Doe 6 was described as having been between the ages of 18 and 35 and approximately 5-feet-2. Her head, hands and right foot were recovered on April 4. Dormer said that DNA taken from those remains were linked to a torso found in Manorville, N.Y., in November 2000. A sketch showed a Caucasian woman with hair to her shoulders.

“To narrow the focus this woman would have been last seen alive in the late summer or fall in 2000…Consider that this woman may have been working as a prostitute in New York City during that time…This woman may have had a tattoo or other identifiable characteristic on her right ankle,” Dormer said.

A forensic artist is working on a third sketch of a woman whose legs were found in April. DNA from her remains has been linked to remains discovered on Fire Island in Nassau County, N.Y., in 1996.

Suffolk County police, who are being assisted by Nassau County cops as well as state police and the FBI, have been tight-lipped about the investigation. Law enforcement sources told ABC News that all of the victims appear to have been slain elsewhere, dismembered and transported to the beaches for disposal.

Four of the identified bodies were found wrapped in burlap in December 2010 and were prostitutes. They have been identified as Maureen Brainard-Barnes, Melissa Barthelemy, Megan Waterman and Amber Lynn Costello. All of the women advertised their services on Craigslist.

The most recent set of remains to be identified belonged to prostitute Jessica Taylor. In April, authorities recovered Taylor’s skull and hands. The rest of her body had been found 30 miles away in Manorville, N.Y., in 2003, the same area where Jane Doe 6’s torso was found.

Dormer made an appeal for help from New York City’s escorts.

“We also want to reach out to the people in the escort business to come forward with information. We are not interested in their occupation and feel that their information will be very valuable to this investigation,” Dormer said.

The Suffolk Police have not identified any suspects in the killing and will not say how many killers they believe may have used the beach as a dumping ground.

In December of last year, police first began scouring the pristine Gilgo Beach in the search for missing prostitute Shannan Gilbert. Her remains have not been recovered and the investigation into her disappearance is ongoing, police said.

Long Island Serial Killings: New Details Released Watch Video
Bodies Found in Long Island Work of 3 Killers Watch Video
Long Island Serial Killer: New Witness? Watch Video
The page has quite a few photos and videos.
The possible connection to the Atlantic City Killer seems to have died out although with 10 bodies and at least 2 killers in NY who knows what will develop.
2011
09/21
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The Author of Dexter Speaks About Serial Killers

Sympathy for the Devils

By JEFF LINDSAY

I MAKE my living writing about a serial killer. It’s a pretty good living, and quite frankly, that surprises me. When I wrote my first book, “Darkly Dreaming Dexter,” the story of a sympathetic killer, I thought I was writing something creepy, repellent, perhaps a little wicked. To balance that, I also made him vulnerable and funny, I gave him a fondness for children, and I wrote in the first person — all elements intended to bridge the gap between a homicidal psychopath and readers, who I assumed would, nevertheless, be appalled.

They weren’t; they liked him. Before publication, a nice-looking yenta from marketing took me aside and confessed, “I maybe shouldn’t say? But I have such a crush on Dexter.” So did other readers. The book took off like a dark little rocket. One of the early reviews even said it “breathes new life into the genre,” which meant there was a serial killer genre.

I found that amazing: I had done the darkest, least lovable thing I could think of, and a whole genre was there ahead of me.

People, I realized, like to read about serial killers. And as I found myself on the telephone with Hollywood, arranging for Dexter’s translation into a series for Showtime, I began to think that was pretty funny. “Lovable serial killer.” Ha ha ha.

And then bodies turn up in real life and it isn’t funny anymore.

This time, it’s along a beach on Long Island. Our shock blooms as phrases pop out from the news coverage: “at least eight bodies” and “three or even four killers.” We read more — we can’t help it. We’re sickened and disgusted, but we need to know. And the more we know about the scene, the more we really are horrified. The ghastly image of this beach as a dumping ground for bodies is bad enough. But then four of the bodies, wrapped in burlap, are thought to be the work of one person: a serial killer.

There’s a special sense of dread that comes with that phrase, “serial killer.” It represents an inhuman psychology that is beyond us, and because of that, we can’t look away.

We can all conceive of killing someone in self-defense, or in combat. But to kill repeatedly, because we want to, because we like to — that’s so far outside ordinary human understanding that we can’t possibly have an empathetic response. The word “evil” seems a bit quaint and biblical — but what else can we call it?

I was brought up to believe that death and money are private, and I was taught to have only contempt for people who slowed down to gawk at an accident. I can’t help feeling that this is similar — but I watch, too. Have I become what my mother called a rubbernecker and what my father, more bluntly, called an idiot?

Maybe so, but I have lots of company. Not just Americans, either; the Dexter series has been translated into 38 languages, and sensational news of serial killers regularly floods in from Russia, China, all over the world. People everywhere are willing voyeurs to mayhem. And when we learn of serial murders like the recent case at Gilgo Beach, our “dark watcher,” that small part of us that just can’t turn away, perks up and pays attention.

This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. We don’t become evil because we dwell on it. In fact, one reason we gawk is to reassure ourselves that we could never do such a thing. When we stare at carnage we feel fear and revulsion, and that tells us with certainty that creating this kind of horror is beyond us.

And it is. Serial killers are psychopaths, and current research in brain mapping indicates that psychopaths are born, not made. There is an actual, physical, difference in their brains; you can’t become a serial killer by reading about one, any more than you can get magical powers from reading “Harry Potter.” You can watch “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” 20 times and it will not inspire you to butcher the neighbors. We can no more move from watcher to killer than we can breathe water.

But a homicidal psychopath — a serial killer — delights in killing. He often taunts the rest of us in some way as part of his fun. The evil creature that has been dumping bodies on Gilgo Beach has used his victim’s cellphone to call her sister.

It’s inhuman cruelty, but the research I read to write my “Dexter” books predicts that, when they catch him, he will probably look just like us. He will be known as a charming and thoughtful co-worker, a nice man who helps his ailing neighbor carry her groceries, and no one will have suspected what he really is.

This is the theater of paranoia, and it grips us, too, because we need a way to see the clues that must be there. Who among your friends and colleagues might be staring at your back and sharpening a knife?

You can’t know; but by watching, you know it could never be you. I think that’s good. We can’t deny that evil exists — but it’s not who we are. And the existence of evil implies its opposite: there is good, too.

As ordinary human beings, we live somewhere in the middle, jerked back and forth by circumstance, never quite reaching either extreme. And if you never understand someone who lives at the evil pole, no matter how much you rubberneck, that’s good.

It means you’re only human.

Jeff Lindsay is the author, most recently, of “Dexter Is Delicious.”

A version of this op-ed appeared in print on June 25, 2011, on page A19 of the New York edition with the headline: Sympathy for the Devils.

NY Times

2011
07/08
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Possibly more victims in New York case

BY ALICIA CRUZ
NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM

Source

The murders of two prostitutes are being investigated as possible link to several bodies of other prostitutes found between Jones, Oak and Gilgo beaches since December 2010.

According to the New York Post, police have revisited the case of 39-year-old East New York resident, Tanya Rush whose dismembered remains were found stuffed in a suitcase. Rush’s remains were found June 27, 2008 along the Southern State Parkway in Bellmore on June 27, 2008. She was the mother of three.

The New York Post source would not disclose any details about the second victim. Suffolk investigators believe at least two killers have dumped the eight bodies found within the past few months.

The investigation into the suspected serial killer, who dumped his victims near Jones Beach State Park in Nassau County, New York and Ocean Parkway, and Gilgo and Oak Beaches in Suffolk County, concluded more than a week ago with police finding no additional human remains, Newsday reported.

Initially, police were searching for Jersey City resident Shannan Gilbert who vanished after arranging to meet a client from Craigslist on Fire Island when they stumbled upon the first four bodies. Gilbert, missing since May 1, 2010, still has not been found. She was last seen begging for help at the home of an Oak Beach resident, but disappeared after the man called 911.

In all, ten bodies have been found over the past five months. Six additional remains were found within the past two months. It remains unclear if the same person killed all of the victims.

I think that the baby and the male victim were 2 separate killings unconnected to the other victims.

As to the 6 females found the two that had been dismembered and scattered they might have been killed by a different killer than the other 4. I would need more details and a better timeline than the one I have drawn out for myself to give an opinion that mattered.

The full article links these bodies to the Atlantic City murders but I doubt they are connected.

2011
05/20
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Experts Disagree Over Number Of Long Island Serial Killers

As the parents of a Stony Brook University student who went missing in 1998 wait to find out if their son is the unidentified John Doe found among the murdered prostitutes on Gilgo State Beach, some uninvolved criminologists are publicly doubting the current theory that the beach was a dumping ground for at least two killers.

 Daily News has rounded up a former detectives and a forensic psychologist who doubt the current theory of there being multiple killers—one who killed the four women found in December, one who killed the two dismembered women, one who killed the young Asian man and, assuming it was murdered, one who killed the toddler.

“I wouldn’t be so quick to be talking about multiple killers,” retired NYPD detective and textbook author Vernon Geberth told the tabloid. “The probability of having two serial killers using the same dumping ground is very, very remote—to the point where I don’t buy into it.”

And a forensic psychologist, N.G. Berrill, cautiously agrees saying that “That coincidence, in and of itself, would be remarkable.”

The two point out that bodies disposed of in different ways don’t necessarily mean different killers. Instead they could simply imply that the one killer tried out decapitation and then found he could get his rocks off without it. “I am looking at a serial killer who has basically progressed,” said Geberth. “He has become more effective at disposing of the bodies. He doesn’t have to go through all the work of decapitating his victims.”

But others think there is a good chance the police are on the right track seeking out at least two killers. Forensic psychologist Barbara Kirwin chimes in with this chilling point: “We are not talking about a person as much as we are talking about a place. That desolate stretch of Gilgo Beach is a haunted graveyard, and what holds it all together is that it is an unpatrolled, completely private and deserted place where you can dump a body.”

Full Article

Another Article

Long Island Serial Murders: The Victims of a Killer – or Killers

By Jaclyn Gallucci on May 9th, 2011

It was 24-year-old Shannan Gilbert’s disappearance that led police to the discovery of a 15-mile-long graveyard on Ocean Parkway used by one or more killers. An investigator with a cadaver dog looking for Gilbert, a New Jersey woman who worked as a prostitute and was last seen meeting a client in Oak Beach in May 2010, found the first set of remains in early December of 2010. Later in the month, three more sets of remains were discovered in the area. In April of 2010 another six bodies or partial remains were found. None have been determined to be those of Shannan Gilbert. As of May 9, 2011 the known victims left on Ocean Parkway in order of their disappearance are:

Jane Doe: Nude torso found off Halsey Manor Road in Manorville Nov. 19, 2000; Head, hands and foot found on Ocean Parkway April 4, 2011. White female, 5’5”, 125 lbs, 35-40 years old, brown hair, body in pieces and wrapped in plastic bags. Head, hands and right foot missing. Died weeks before (November 2000)

Jessica Taylor: Nude torso found off Halsey Manor Road in Manorville July 26, 2003;  last seen weeks before (July 2003). Head, hands and forearm found on Ocean Parkway March 29, 2011. Taylor had recently left Washington, D.C. and multiple prostitution arrests. She had been working in the area of the Port Authority Bus Terminal in NYC when she disappeared. It was a D.C. investigator who recognized a mutilated tattoo found on Taylor’s hip, released by the Suffolk County Police Department, and was able to identify her. Her murder remains unsolved. 20 years old at time of death

Maureen Brainard-Barnes: 25 years old, of Norwich, Connecticut, last seen July 9, 2007 in Manhattan. Found on Ocean Parkway in December 2010.

Melissa Barthelemy: 24 years old, last seen in July 12, 2009 in the Bronx. Found on Ocean Parkway in December 2010.

Megan Waterman: 22 years old, from Maine. Last seen on June 10, 2010 leaving the Holiday Inn Express in Hauppauge alone early in the morning. Found on Ocean Parkway in December 2010.

Amber Lynn Costello: 27 years old, last seen in North Babylon in Sept. 2, 2010. Found on Ocean Parkway in December 2010.

DATE OF DISAPPEARANCE UNKNOWN:

John Doe: Asian male, clothed, late teens to early 20s. Evidence of trauma to the body. Undisclosed cause of death. Police say the man’s body has been here for years. Found April 2011.

Baby Doe: 18-24-month old girl wrapped in a blanket. No apparent injury or trauma to skeleton. Found 200 feet away from Jane Doe on Ocean Parkway, but no believed connection between the two. Found April 2011.

Source

2011
05/12
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NY Serial Killer Theories

Theories abound in mysterious NY beach bodies case

WANTAGH, N.Y. (AP) — Is there a serial killer on the loose in Long Island? More than one? Could he be a police officer or an ex-cop? Are some of the victims rubbed-out mobsters sleeping near the fishes? Or could they be the long-undiscovered victims of New York’s most prolific serial killer of them all, Joel Rifkin?

With police saying next to nothing about the discovery of 10 sets of human remains dumped off a highway near Jones Beach, amateurs and experts alike are offering a multiplicity of theories — some outlandish, some entirely plausible.

Many of the theories have been compiled on the Web site LongIslandserialkiller.com or offered up in the daily papers.

“It’s mostly fodder for laughter by the investigators,” said attorney Bruce Barket, a former prosecutor in the Nassau County district attorney’s office. “Because the investigators know much more than they have revealed publicly, they’re sitting there chuckling at this theory and that theory. Because it really is irrelevant to what they are doing.”

The biggest tabloid sensation to hit Long Island since Amy Fisher shot Joey Buttafuoco’s wife in the ’90s began to unfold in December. That’s when a police officer and his cadaver dog happened upon the first set of remains while searching for a 24-year-old New Jersey prostitute last seen in the area a year ago.

Two days later, police found three more bodies; all four were women in their 20s who booked clients for sex on the Internet. Suffolk County Police Commissioner Richard Dormer said at a news conference that a serial killer could be at work.

The New York Daily News quickly dispatched a reporter to an upstate prison to interview Rifkin on his “expert” thoughts since he admitted killing 17 prostitutes in a murder spree in the late 1980s and ’90s. Four of his victims have never been found. The New York Post immediately hung the moniker “The Ripper” on the killer.

Dormer tried to calm the chatter, telling reporters days later: “I don’t want anyone to think we have a Jack the Ripper running around Suffolk County with blood dripping from a knife. This is an anomaly.”

Months passed with few updates on the case — until the snow melted in late March. Police found one, then three more, then two more sets of remains not far from where the first four were discovered. None of the recent six have been identified or linked to the deaths of the four women found in December.

The New York Times cited experts as speculating the culprit may have a law enforcement background because he has managed to elude capture for so long. The experts noted that relatives of one victim had gotten brief, taunting phone calls from the possible killer — perhaps an indication that he knew how to avoid having the calls traced. Police tracked the calls to busy Penn Station and the Port Authority bus terminal in Manhattan — crowded areas that made it hard to hear the caller — before the signal went dead, a law enforcement official told The Associated Press.

Other reports suggested that some investigators believe some of the newly found remains, which police would describe only as having been there for “some time,” may have been Rifkin’s work. He denied that in a Newsday prison interview this week.

Franny Louis, a Carle Place, N.Y., resident, said she agreed with Rifkin when he told Newsday that the killer could be someone nearby. “Someone who works along the shoreline and may have access to burlap bags and things of that nature,” she said.

Police have not commented on various reports that the first four women were found in burlap, while the most recent remains were not. They have also left open the possibility that more than one killer could be dumping bodies.

Xavier Molina of Lake Grove, N.Y., wasn’t buying that theory: “It’s really hard to find two serial killers out there dumping bodies in the same spot.”

One blogger on the site The Stir theorized the killer could be a real-life Dexter, the TV character who works as a blood-splatter analyst for the Miami Metro Police Department and in his free time kills people he believes have eluded justice.

“There are a few differences, of course,” according to a recent blog. “Dexter only kills those who deserve it. And in this case no one would ever argue that the women targeted by the Long Island Serial Killer deserved to be killed.”

Carina Atteritano of Oceanside, N.Y., said she suspects someone in law enforcement could be involved, since the killer hasn’t been caught.

“I definitely have friends who are up late at night because they are concerned about it. We joke about it that it could be somebody in our town, but it really could be and that’s scary,” she said. “Nobody really knows.”

___(equals)

Associated Press Colleen Long contributed to this report.

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I do not think that the bodies found are victims of Rifkin. If nothing else he is too critical of this killer. Serial killers have big egos and there is no way he would call his own work sloppy.

I also do not think that there are 2 serial killers dumping bodies within this short of a distance of each other. It is possible but I doubt it is happening here.

The 4 identified victims were asphyxiated (strangled most likely) but the cause of death of the other 6 has not been released.

I doubt that these victims are linked to the New Jersey victims  Then again there is so little information there is nothing to really base an opinion on. I guess since the police have not been linking them I will have to say I do think that it is 2 different killers.

I did find an article that also reports that there are 2 different killers.

Police said on Wednesday that the bodies of four prostitutes found around Atlantic City, New Jersey back in 2006 do not seem to have anything to do with the eight bodies (and maybe ninth and tenth sets of remains) found on Long Island, near Gilgo and Jones Beach, since late 2010. Thought to be the work of a serial killer, four of the latest bodies have been identified as belonging to women who worked as prostitutes on Craigslist and were all found near Ocean Parkway in Suffolk County. The other bodies and remains have yet to be identified, and may not even be connected to the first four.

But on Wednesday, the Suffolk County police commissioner, Richard Dormer, said there seemed, at this time, to be no connection with the bodies found in Atlantic City. Mr. Dormer said there were “items connected with the two cases” that indicated the same killer was not involved, but he declined to elaborate. There have been no links established between the four bodies discovered in Suffolk in December and the four sets of remains found more recently, which have not yet been identified. Increasing differences are emerging that set the two groups apart, officials have said.

Evidence that may separate the two sets of bodies includes the burlap sacks, which held the first four bodies, but not the rest, and the fact that some remains are thought to belong to a child, which complicates the question of motive. The F.B.I. is now assisting on the case as searches of the area continue.

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I just hope that with all of the publicity and the speculation the murdered women, the dead girls, daughters, mothers and sisters do not get forgotten.

The named victims so far

2011
04/17
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