After 28 years, Long Island law enforcement has finally identified the remains of a mother and toddler discovered along an oceanfront highway not far from the victims of the infamous Gilgo Beach killings.
On April 23, Nassau County police publicly identified the mother as U.S. Army veteran Tanya Denise Jackson, 26, of Mobile, Alabama, and her daughter Tatiana Marie Dykes, two. They were living in Brooklyn when they were killed.
Jackson’s remains were discovered in pieces. On June 28, 1997, parts of her body were found inside a plastic tub in a West Hempstead state park. In April 2011, still more of Jackson’s remains and the skeleton of her daughter were found off Ocean Parkway.
Before the identification, police said investigators named Jackson “Peaches” after a tattoo they found on Jackson’s body. She is believed to have possibly worked as a medical assistant.
Police also said they are reluctant to link accused serial killer Rex Heuermann to the death of Jackson and Dykes even though some of his Gilgo Beach murder victims were found in the vicinity.
“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,” Nassau Police Det. Capt. Stephen Fitzpatrick said.
Heuermann has been charged in the deaths of seven women whose remains were found somewhere along the same beach road and other parts of Long Island. Those murders are commonly referred to as the Gilgo Beach serial killings.
An architect who lived on Long Island, Heuermann has maintained his innocence and pleaded not guilty. Suffolk County District Attorney Ray Tierney’s office is prosecuting Heuermann but declined to comment on “any topics even tangentially involved to the investigation.”
“I’m not saying it is Rex Heuermann and I’m not saying it’s not,” Fitzpatrick added. “We are proceeding as if it’s not, keeping our eyes wide open.”
Jackson, who served in the U.S. Army from 1993 to 1995 in Texas, Georgia, and Missouri, was estranged from her family and, as a result, it was some time before she was reported missing.
Law enforcement officials said at a press conference this week that advanced DNA and genealogy research helped them identify the pair.
“The reality is, our work has just begun,” Nassau County District Attorney Anne Donnelly said. “Knowing the identities of the mom and the little baby is just a first step to help us get to solving these murders.”
Jackson, who drove a black 1991 Geo Storm, received “full military honors” when she was laid to rest with her child, according to Fitzpatrick, while the toddler’s father is cooperating with the investigation and is not considered a suspect.
