Updated Information On 1997 Probe Of LI Homicide Victim, 'Peaches,' To Be Released: Police

LONG ISLAND, NY — Nassau County police brass will hold a news conference Wednesday featuring updated information about the 1997 homicide of a woman nicknamed "Peaches" for the only identifier she had — a unique drawing of a peach tattooed on her torso — a police spokeswoman told Patch on Tuesday night.

Nassau Police Commissioner Patrick Ryder and Homicide Det. Lt. Stephen Fitzpatrick are expected to speak in the Donald Kane Auditorium of the department's headquarters in Mineola at 11 a.m.

No further details were immediately released.

Newsday is reporting that multiple law enforcement sources have confirmed the agency will reveal the identities of "Peaches" and her daughter.

Patch has previously reported that on April 11, 2011, Suffolk investigators found two additional sets of remains along Ocean Parkway in Nassau County, as part of the Gilgo serial killings probe, and one set was confirmed by DNA analysis to be the mother of a female toddler found nearby on April 4, 2011, police said.

The mother's torso was discovered in a green Rubbermaid container in Hempstead Lake State Park in 1997 and she has become known as “Peaches” because of a heart-shaped tattoo of a peach with a bite mark drawn on it that was inked above her left breast, according to police.

In 2022, the Federal Bureau of Investigation was pursuing a new lead in Alabama they hoped would help identify two victims in a Long Island serial killer case, the Mobile Police Department said in a Facebook post.

In a statement to Patch at the time, then Suffolk County Police Commissioner Rodney Harrison told Patch that FBI "investigators are following a lead" in Mobile, Alabama, to "potentially identify a victim."

The agency hoped it would help find the identities of "Peaches" and her daughter.

Investigators were looking for possible relatives in the area.

The other set of remains found with Peaches were identified as those of Karen Vergata, whose partial remains were first found on Davis Park on Fire Island in 1996. She was identified in 2023.

Patch has reached out for comment.

This is a developing story and will be updated.