Suffolk Police Dept. To Create Gilgo Homicides Task Force

SUFFOLK COUNTY, NY—Continuing what he called a commitment to getting answers in the long-unsolved Gilgo Beach killings, on Tuesday Suffolk County Police Commissioner Rodney Harrison announced the creation of a new task force dedicated to the ten bodies found along Ocean Parkway over 10 years ago.

The task force will be compromised of homicide investigators from the Suffolk County Police Department (SCPD,) the FBI, the Suffolk District Attorney's Office and the Suffolk Sheriff's Office, according to a Tuesday news release from the SCPD.

"The formation of the task force represents the first time federal, state and local agencies will jointly dedicate investigators to solving one of the nation’s most well-known serial killer cases. The team will also continue to utilize new scientific techniques to advance this investigation and collaborate on evidence gathered throughout the decades-long case that spans from Manorville to Hempstead," the department wrote in the statement.

Harrison, who took over as commissioner in December 2021, spoke about renewing investigative efforts into the cold case in December, in his first news conference as head of the department.

"We will not rest until we bring those accountable to justice," he said, after touring the areas of Gilgo Beach where the bodies were found in 2010 and 2011.

Harrison has also said he may make Shannan Gilbert's 911 call tapes public, after years of the SCPD refusing to release the tapes, made the night Gilbert died in Oak Beach in 2010. The search for the New Jersey woman led to the discovery of what would eventually become 10 bodies along Ocean Parkway.

This week, Harrison echoed what he said in December, that he believes the case is solvable.

The deaths of sex workers Melissa Barthelemy, Amber Lynn Costello, Maureen Brainard-Barnes, Megan Waterman, Jessica Taylor, Valerie Mack, and an unidentified female toddler and her mother and an unidentified Asian male, have gone unsolved for 11 years. Shannan Gilbert's death is not included in the SCPD's official investigation into the serial killer case, but some, like Gilbert's family attorney, John Ray, have been pushing for her 911 calls to be released to the public.

"The families of the victims discovered in areas around Gilgo Beach deserve answers and to see their loved ones’ killer, or killers, face justice," Michael J. Driscoll, Assistant Director-in-Charge of the FBI New York said.