The search for human remains continued Tuesday along a deserted stretch of Ocean Parkway while investigators said they are considering the possibility that a serial killer may have dumped the four bodies they found in three days.
A Long Island Serial Killer? The Possibilities, The Speculation
Suffolk County police were looking for a prostitute who was reported missing in May from nearby Fire Island when they turned up three bodies Monday and skeletal remains Saturday—all along the same quarter-mile stretch of roadway in Gilgo Beach on the eastern end of Jones Beach Island. A Canine Section officer combing sections of beach with a cadaver dog made the initial discovery.
It appears all four bodies were thrown from a vehicle, in some cases about 500-feet apart, Suffolk County Police Commissioner Richard Dormer said. Forensic experts have determined that at least two of the four bodies are female, but identifying them through DNA samples and examining dental records could take weeks, he added.
“We’re looking at that — that we could have a serial killer,” Dormer said in response to a reporter’s question during a news conference on the side of the parkway Tuesday morning. “Even though they were far apart, it looks like there is a common denominator here.”
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The commissioner said the victims appeared to have been killed elsewhere and then brought to this section of wind-swept barrier island less than 1,000 yards wide that divides the Great South Bay from the Atlantic Ocean.
The remains were badly decomposed, but appeared to have been dumped within the past year ½ to two years, Dormer said. The westbound lanes of the parkway were closed once the investigation picked up again Tuesday morning after the police work wound down overnight.
Police had been looking for 24-year-old Shannon Gilbert, of Jersey City, N.J., who was last seen in the residential section of Oak Beach on May 1, when her pimp escorted her to Fire Island to meet a client she met on Craigslist. Fire Island is a 32-mile-long neighboring barrier island that is home to 17 resort communities with a transient summertime population.
But Gilbert is not the only prostitute to have gone missing on Long Island this year. Megan Waterman, 22, of Maine, vanished June 6 from a Hauppauge hotel after she also advertised on Craigslist.
There was no immediate indication that either woman was among the four bodies.
Dormer said police are working with the FBI because the victims may have been from out-of-state. The stretch of roadway is not far from the county line, but Nassau County police have said they have not dispatched canine units to that side of the island. New York State police, the agency that typically investigates cases involving homicide victims found on parkways, did not return a call seeking comment.
The commissioner added that his officers have assured him that the snow and freezing cold will not inhibit the dogs’ ability to search for more bodies—an extensive search he said “is going to continue for some time.”
The discovery drew comparisons to a 4-year-old New Jersey case in which four prostitutes’ bodies were found in a drainage ditch in Egg Harbor Township, just outside Atlantic City and about a mile from the beach. Those killings remain unsolved.
Atlantic County Prosecutor Theodore Housel said Tuesday that Atlantic County detectives were still investigating the bodies found in November 2006 and had spoken with Suffolk County authorities about their case.
“We have been in contact with authorities in Suffolk County,” he told The Associated Press. “It would not be fair for us to comment on their investigation.”
-With Associated Press and Jaclyn Gallucci