Remains of dismembered mother, daughter found near Gilgo Beach identified almost 30 years later

NASSAU COUNTY, N.Y. (TCN) -- Authorities announced they positively identified a woman and her daughter after their remains were found several years apart on Long Island, not far from Gilgo Beach.

Nassau County Police Department officials announced the news in a press conference Wednesday, April 23. According to Det. Capt. Stephen Fitzpatrick, on June 28, 1997, a human torso was located in Hempstead Lake State Park. The victim had a tattoo of peaches on her chest, so she became known as "Peaches" as authorities worked to positively identify her. Over a decade later, investigators discovered additional human remains that they linked to Peaches, as well as another victim they named Baby Doe, near Ocean Parkway in Gilgo Beach.

In 2015, DNA analysis linked Peaches and Baby Doe as mother and daughter, though their actual identities remained a mystery. In 2020, Nassau County Police worked with the FBI to create DNA profiles of the victims.

Nearly 28 years after Peach’s torso was discovered, she was positively identified as 26-year-old Tanya Jackson. Baby Doe was named as 2-year-old Tatiana Dykes.

Fitzpatrick said Jackson was born Oct. 22, 1970, in Alabama, and was living in Brooklyn at the time she was killed. She was a U.S. Army veteran who served from 1993 to 1995. Fitzpatrick said she was "estranged" from a lot of people, including her family, which is why she wasn’t immediately reported missing.

Police are offering a $25,000 reward for information leading to the prosecution and conviction of Jackson and Dykes' killer. The mother and daughter were buried in Alabama with full military honors.

Although their bodies were found in the same areas as other victims in the Gilgo Beach killings, investigators have not linked their deaths to Rex Heuermann, the Long Island man charged with seven counts of murder.

Fitzpatrick said at the press conference, "Although Tanya and Tatiana have commonly been linked to the Gilgo Beach serial killings because the timing and locations of their recovered remains, we are not discounting the possibility that their cases are unrelated from that investigation."

Fitzpatrick explained, "I’m not saying it is Rex Heuermann and I’m not saying it’s not."

For more on the other Gilgo Beach killings, check out the "True Crime News" video below.

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