Gilgo Beach murders - update: Police identify victim Karen Vergata but won’t comment on Rex Heuermann link

Fire Island Jane Doe has been identified as Karen Vergata.

She is pictured here:

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.

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.

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.

Long Island officials identified the victim in October but kept the major breakthrough under wraps until now, citing both the investigation into Rex Heuermann and the need to contact Karen Vergata’s family members.

“Prior to disclosing, we needed to contact all Vergata’s family members and around the same time we were beginning the grand jury confidential investigation into the murders of the victims known as the Gilgo 4,” said Suffolk County DA Rodney Tierney.

”So we decided not to make it public... until the results of that investigation became public and we had made notice to Vergata’s family.”

He added: “Today we are here to announce that as part of the Gilgo taskforce’s reexamination of all evidence in the case we are able to identify Fire Island Jane Doe as Karen Vergata.”

The DA said that “it is important that we remember and honour not only Ms Vergata but all the vicitms on Gilgo Beach”.

At this time, no one has been charged with the murder of Karen Vergata.

Suffolk County DA Rodney Tierney said that there are “no charges at this time” but that the “confidential investigation” is ongoing.

He would not confirm or deny any ties to accused killer Rex Heuermann – or say if there was a suspect on his radar.

“We are going to continue to work this particular case as we did the Gilgo Four investigation,” he said.

“We’re not going to comment on what – if any suspects – we developed at this time. This is a confidential investigation so I’m not going to be taking any questions.”

The Gilgo Beach murders victim previously known only as Jane Doe 7 has finally been identified more than 26 years after her partial remains were first discovered along the Long Island shores.

Karen Vergata, a 34-year-old woman who was last seen alive in Manhattan in 1996 while working as an escort, was named on Friday by Long Island officials.

The huge breakthrough in the case comes almost three decades after some of her remains were first discovered – and weeks after 59-year-old father-of-two architect was arrested and charged with the murders of three other victims.

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

Read the full story:

“While news of the arrest of Long Island resident Rex Heuermann on multiple counts of murder may have sent ripples of shock through his community, the revelation that a “normal” man was capable of such heinous acts of violence was hardly surprising for sex workers and their advocates. Violence – including infrequent but horrendous instances of serial predators and killers – is too often a reality for those engaged in sexual labour.

“Media coverage has typically focused on dissecting the police investigation, and now the killer’s biography. Of course, the media has long been interested in stories of serial killers preying on sex workers, and there has been no shortage of such cases. From the sensationalist reporting of Jack the Ripper in Victorian-era London to the Yorkshire Ripper case in 1970s England, from Robert Pickton’s terrorising of Indigenous women in Vancouver (1990s) to Seattle’s “Green River Killer” (1980s-90s), serial predators have long targeted people in the sex trades. The Dallas police have just arrested a man on suspicion of the murders of three sex workers.”

Dr Jayne Swift writes: