NYPD, Suffolk PD and NY State Police seen scouring woods
On April 23 and 24, New York City police, New York State Police, and Suffolk County Police were seen along Schultz Road in North Manorville in Suffolk County. Remains thought to be related to the Gilg\o Beach case have been found in this area previously.
A mobile crime scene van entered one of the access gates around 9:30 a.m. and exited shortly before 1 p.m. A large police presence was set up around the gate on the west side of Schultz Road. Multiple K9 units were parked outside the various access points to the parkland that runs down both sides of Schultz Road, as well as Grumman Boulevard and Line Road. These roads are surrounded by a patchwork of state-owned land, county parks and private preserves, including the buffer of woods around Brookhaven National Laboratory to the west and the Enterprise Park of Calverton to the north. K9 units were also seen near the Maples restaurant on Ryerson Avenue. They had been using the Saints Peter and Paul Catholic church and the Manorville Fire Department as staging grounds. By April 27 the search had moved south, where New York State Police were seen searching along the Long Island Expressway and Silas Carter Road in part of Manorville Hills County Park.
It is worth noting that convicted murderer John Bittrolff lived on Silas Carter Road, where the torsos of two of his victims, Jessica Taylor and Valerie Mack, were recovered.
The Suffolk County District Attorney did not give any details as to the nature of the investigation, “We do not comment on investigative steps while they are underway,” Suffolk County DA Ray Tierney’s office said in a statement.
Manorville, sometimes called the gateway to the Hamptons, is a quiet, sprawling town that covers land both south and north of the Expressway. With a population of roughly 13,000, it is a combination of planned communities, modest homes on large lots and farms. Much of the area is part of the central pine barrens, a conservation measure intended to preserve the fragile pine barrens ecosystem. This has left large swaths of land undeveloped. Remains believed to be linked to the Gilgo Beach case have previously been found there multiple times from 2000 to 2011.
As of press time, this investigation is ongoing.
History
On Dec. 11, 2010, according to a Bail Application Form provided by the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office, Suffolk County Police Officer John Malia was conducting a training exercise with his K9 partner along Ocean Parkway in Gilgo Beach when the K9 located a set of human remains that were identified to be Melissa Barthelemy.
On Dec. 13, 2010, the Suffolk County Police Department continued to search in the proximity, and found three additional sets of human remains, identified to be those of Megan Waterman, Amber Costello and Maureen Brainard-Barnes within one quarter mile of the first discovery. They each appeared to have been placed in close proximity of each other, 22 to 33 feet off the parkway. According to the Suffolk County Police Department’s website about the case, the initial search took place eight months after the search began for 23-year-old Shannan Gilbert, who was last seen running through the community of Oak Beach after leaving a client’s house. She had made a haunting call to a 911 dispatcher which is now available to the public, stating “somebody’s after me,” asking the dispatcher to trace where she was and speaking in a frightful tone to her driver and client. Two residents also called the police after she knocked on their door.
Gilbert’s remains were found on Dec. 13, 2011 in a marshland near Oak Beach. The Suffolk County Police Department currently believes her death is an unfortunate accident, but is still evaluating any information the public may have.
Additional remains of victims found along Ocean Parkway were of Jessica Taylor (partial remains were also discovered in a wooded area of Manorville in 2003), Valerie Mack (partial remains were also discovered in a wooded area of Manorville in 2000), an unidentified person and an unidentified toddler which DNA analysis confirmed to be the child of an unidentified woman whose remains were found in Nassau County.
In July 2023, Rex Heuermann was arrested in Midtown Manhattan and charged in the murders of three of “the Gilgo Four” victims: Megan Waterman, Melissa Barthelemy and Amber Costello. He was also named as the prime suspect in the murder of the fourth of the “Gilgo Four”, Maureen Brainard-Barnes. In January 2024, Heuermann was charged with the murder of Brainard-Barnes.
