Police identify Gilgo Beach victim but won’t comment on link to Rex Heuermann – live

Suffolk County officials revealed how investigators were able to identify Fire Island Jane Doe almost three decades after her remains were first discovered.

In August 2022 – around six months after the new Gilgo Beach taskforce was launched – a DNA profile suitable for genealogical comparison was developed from the remains of the victim.

The next month, the FBI was able to presumptively identify the victim using genetic genealogy as Karen Vergata.

Then, that October, investigators tracked down a relative of Vergata and take a buccal swab. Using this, they were able to definitively identity the victim as Vergata.

Karen Vergata was 34 years old at the time of her disappearance, according to officials.

Vergata lived on West 45th St in Manhattan and is believed to have been working as an escort at the time.

She went missing around 14 February 1996 – Valentine’s Day.

Police said that no missing persons report was filed at the time of her disappearance.

In the press conference Vergata’s identity, Suffolk County officials refused to take any questions.

The briefing was over in mere minutes and they would not comment on whether or not the victim is linked to serial killer suspect Rex Heuermann.

So far, Mr Heuermann is charged with the murders of three of the 11 victims whose remains were found along Gilgo Beach. He is also suspected in a fourth.

Fire Island Jane Doe has been identified as Karen Vergata.

Suffolk County District Attorney Raymond Tierney and other New York officials are holding a press conference to provide an update in the Gilgo Beach murders case.

His Manhattan business describes him as a registered architect with over 30 years’ experience.

His neighbours describe him as a “family man” living with his wife and two children in a tight-knit community in Suffolk County.

But now authorities are describing him as the suspected Gilgo Beach serial killer who unleashed terror along the shores of Long Island more than a decade ago.

Long Island officials are expected to announce the identity of a currently unnamed Gilgo Beach murders victim in a press conference today.

Suffolk County District Attorney Raymond Tierney and other New York officials have scheduled a press conference for 10.30am ET on Friday morning to announce new details over the murders.

A senior law enforcement source told NBC New York that investigators have been able to identity another victim – previously referred to as Jane Doe 7 or Fire Island Jane Doe.

The breakthrough comes almost three decades after some of her remains were first discovered.

It was 20 April 1996 when the woman’s legs were found wrapped in plastic at Davis Park on Fire Island’s Blue Point Beach.

Almost exactly 15 years later on 11 April 2011, the woman’s skull was then found off Ocean Parkway during the search for Gilgo Beach victims. The skull was located close to the remains of another also unidentified victim – Jane Doe 3, also known as Peaches.

To this day, investigators have been unable to identify Jane Doe 7, saying only that she was a white woman aged 18 to 50 years old who had several scars including evidence of surgery on her left ankle.