Fire Island Jane Doe Identified, Gilgo Task Force Investigation Continues

Long Islanders on the edge of their seats for any information about the Gilgo murders received heartbreaking news Friday with the identification of “Fire Island Jane Doe” whose body parts washed up along separate stretches of the Atlantic.

At a press conference attended by nearly two dozen reporters, Suffolk District Attorney Raymond Tierney, flanked by members of his Gilgo Task Force, announced that advanced DNA techniques matched samples from the victim to Karen Vergata, a former Glen Head resident.

Vergata’s severed legs were discovered in a black plastic garbage bag at Davis Park beach in 1996. Nearly 15 years later, her skull was found at Jones Beach near the remains of a victim referred to as “Peaches” by investigators because of one of her distinctive tattoos.

Tierney said he cannot link the murder of Vergata at this time to Rex Heurmann, a Massapequa Park architect arrested by the task force for the alleged killing of three of the 11 victims connected to Gilgo Beach. “I think it’s important that we remember and honor not only Ms. Vergata but all the victims on Gilgo Beach,” the prosecutor said.

In a murder mystery that unnerved Long Islanders for more than a decade; the bodies of Amber Lynn Costello, Melissa Barthelemy, and Megan Waterman were found in the heavy brush off Ocean Parkway near Gilgo. Heuermann has been charged in their deaths in a case Tierney said revolves around hair found with the victims traced by DNA to the suspect and his wife, along with phone records linking him to the victims and other evidence. He is suspected in the death of a fourth Gilgo victim, Maureen Brainard-Barnes, which Tierney said the task force is actively investigating. All four of the women were found wrapped in burlap and bound around their ankles.

Vergata’s sudden disappearance when she was 34 and living in Manhattan puzzled her family, which hired an investigator in an attempt to locate her. She had two children and led a troubled life, according to news accounts. A cheek swab from a relative processed by the FBI, a partner in Tierney’s task force, matched a DNA profile that was created from Vergata’s remains.

District Attorney Ray Tierney holds a press conference announcing the identity of “Fire Island Jane Doe" File Photo

“We are going to continue to work this particular case as we did the Gilgo Four investigation,” Tierney told the media throng outside his office in Hauppauge. “It’s important to note there are no charges at this time,” Tierney said. “Miss Vergata’s disappearance was in 1996, which was 27 years ago. We’re going to have no comment on what, if any, suspects we’ve developed.”

Heuermann, 59, has pleaded not guilty to first and second-degree murder charges in the Gilgo case and remains incarcerated. At a hearing last week, Tierney, who said he will try Heuermann himself, started the process of turning over voluminous evidence to his defense, which includes about 2,500 documents and hundreds of hours of video footage taken at his residence and his office. “We’re prepared to go forward," his attorney, Michael Brown, said. "We will defend this case in the court of law and we will go to trial.”