Suspect taken into custody in Lengthy Island serial killings, AP supply says

NEW YORK — A suspect has been taken into custody on New York’s Lengthy Island in reference to a long-unsolved string of killings, generally known as the Gilgo Seashore murders, a regulation enforcement official instructed The Related Press on Friday.

The case has drawn immense public consideration since human stays have been discovered alongside a New York seashore freeway greater than a decade in the past. The thriller attracted nationwide headlines for a few years and the unsolved killings have been the topic of the 2020 Netflix movie “Misplaced Women.”

The suspect was taken into custody in Massapequa late Thursday and investigators have been at a house linked to the case on Friday, the official stated. The official was not licensed to publicly talk about particulars of the investigation and spoke to AP on situation of anonymity.

The suspect’s title was not instantly launched.

The deaths of 11 folks whose stays have been present in 2010 and 2011 have lengthy stumped investigators. Many of the victims have been younger ladies who had been intercourse employees. A number of of the our bodies have been discovered close to the city of Gilgo Seashore.

Figuring out who killed them, and why, has vexed a slew of seasoned murder detectives via a number of modifications in police management. Final yr, an interagency job drive was shaped with investigators from the FBI, in addition to state and native police departments, geared toward fixing the case.

The formation of the Gilgo Seashore job drive represents a renewed dedication to investigating the unsolved killings of principally younger ladies whose skeletal stays have been discovered alongside a freeway on Lengthy Island, Suffolk County Police Commissioner Rodney Harrison stated.

“We’re completely satisfied to see that they’re lastly energetic, the police, in carrying out one thing. Let’s wait and see what all of it results in,” stated John Ray, the lawyer for the households of two victims, Shannan Gilbert and Jessica Taylor.

Gilbert’s disappearance in 2010 triggered the hunt that uncovered the bigger thriller. A 24-year-old intercourse employee, she vanished after leaving a consumer’s home on foot within the seafront neighborhood of Oak Seashore, disappearing into the marsh.

Months later, a police officer and his cadaver canine have been on the lookout for her physique within the thicket alongside close by Ocean Parkway once they occurred upon the stays of a special lady. Inside days, three different our bodies have been discovered, all inside a brief stroll of each other.

By spring 2011, that quantity had climbed to 10 units of human stays — these of eight ladies, one man and one toddler. Some have been later linked to dismembered physique components discovered elsewhere on Lengthy Island, making for a puzzling crime scene that stretched from a park close to the New York Metropolis limits to a resort neighborhood on Hearth Island and out to far japanese Lengthy Island.

Gilbert’s physique was present in December 2011, about 3 miles (5 kilometers) east of the place the opposite 10 units have been found.

In speaking in regards to the our bodies close to Gilgo Seashore, investigators have stated a number of instances over time that it’s unlikely one particular person killed all of the victims.

Information of a suspect being taken into custody comes a day after state police responded to a report of skeletal stays present in a wooded space off the Southern State Parkway in Islip. Police deliberate a briefing close to the location on Friday afternoon. It wasn’t instantly clear if these stays have been linked to the Gilgo Seashore case.

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Balsamo reported from Washington. Related Press contributors embrace Jennifer Peltz in New York Metropolis and Sarah Brumfield in Silver Spring, Maryland.