Megan Waterman Confirmed Among 4 Bodies Found at Gilgo Beach

Megan Waterman

Suffolk County medical examiners confirmed Tuesday that Megan Waterman, a 22-year-old mom from Maine reported missing from a Hauppauge hotel seven months ago, was one of the four bodies found on Gilgo Beach in December.

“To let all know … the remains found have been confirmed to be my daughter, Megan Waterman … a very sad day,”  Megan’s mother, Lorraine Ela, wrote on her Facebook page Wednesday morning.

Suffolk County Police Commissioner Richard Dormer told reporters the cause of death is homicide, but would not discuss how she was killed. He added that forensics experts are “very close” to identifying the other three bodies found on Ocean Parkway on the east end Jones Beach Island.

Waterman’s remains were found Dec. 13, dumped in thick brush on a desolate stretch of the barrier island about 500 feet from two other bodies. Those remains were found two days after another set of skeletal remains were found nearby.

Suffolk County District Attorney Tom Spota would not say if there are any suspects in the case, but said, “progress is being made” in the investigation. Police have formed a special task force on the case.

Waterman disappeared from the Holiday Inn Express in Hauppauge in June. She had advertised in the “Erotic Services” section of Craigslist. The section of the website has since been removed.

Police discovered the four bodies while searching a section of beach three miles west of where another prostitute, 24-year-old Shannon Gilbert of New Jersey, was last seen May 1—one month prior to Waterman’s dissapearance. Gilbert was was reported missing after meeting an Oak Beach man she also met on Craigslist.

The possible link led investigators to consider that the dumped bodies could be the work of a serial killer, but three days after the making discovery, police confirmed by comparing medical records Gilbert was not among the remains. That led investigators to doubt whether Waterman was among the bodies too—until this week.

Waterman was last seen by her boyfriend, Akeem Cruz, between 8 and 9 p.m. on June 5, according to police reports, and he spoke with her on the phone for the last time at around 1:30 a.m. June 6.

This wasn’t Waterman’s first trip to Long Island with Cruz, a Brooklyn transplant she met at a Portland nightclub 11 months before she went missing.

Cruz was arrested in Portland and charged with criminal menacing with a dangerous weapon after he allegedly threatened a woman with a knife during an altercation, slashed her tires and told her, “You better stop talking about me or I’ll kill you,” according to police.

Cruz has been in and out of jail for unrelated crimes before and after Waterman’s disappearance, but police say he was, and still is, considered a witness, not a suspect.

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Waterman leaves behind a 4-year-old daughter. It was not immediately clear when her remains would be returned to her family in Maine for burial.

If you have any information leading to the arrest of the person(s) responsible, please call the Scarborough Police Department at 207-883-6361, or their anonymous tip line at 207-730-4200, ext 3093, or the Suffolk County Police Department at 631-854-8400.

-With Timothy Bolger