MINEOLA, N.Y. (AP) — A woman and toddler whose remains were discovered scattered along an oceanfront highway not far from the victims of Long Island’s infamous Gilgo Beach killings were identified Wednesday as a U.S. Army veteran from Alabama and her daughter.
Tanya Denise Jackson, 26, of Mobile, had been living in Brooklyn with her 2-year-old daughter, Tatiana Marie Dykes, at the time of their deaths, Nassau County police announced.
Jackson, who police say may have worked as a medical assistant, had been previously nicknamed “Peaches” by investigators after a tattoo on her body.
Her identity had been a mystery for nearly 28 years. For roughly half that time, investigators have sought to determine whether she and her daughter were victims of the same killer, or killers, who left the bodies of several other people strewn in the sand along the parkway that runs the length of Jones Beach Island.
Police said Wednesday that they had no evidence at this point linking the mother and daughter’s deaths to Rex Heuermann, who has been charged in the deaths of seven women whose remains were discovered elsewhere on the beach road and other parts of Long Island.