A cranium that was present in 2011 close to Gilgo Seashore on Lengthy Island has been recognized as that of a 34-year-old girl who went lacking in 1996, the authorities mentioned on Friday.
The loss of life of the girl, Karen Vergata, has not been linked to Rex Heuermann, a Lengthy Island architect who final month pleaded not responsible to killing three girls whose our bodies had been discovered alongside the seaside. Mr. Heuermann, 59, is the prime suspect within the loss of life of a fourth girl. The authorities on Friday didn’t title a suspect in Ms. Vergata’s loss of life.
The cranium of Ms. Vergata, who investigators mentioned had labored as an escort, was found on Tobay Seashore across the similar time that investigators found the stays of 11 different folks alongside the stretch of the South Shore that features close by Gilgo Seashore.
Ms. Vergata’s legs washed up on the shore in Davis Park on Hearth Island in April 1996, officers mentioned. For years, she was often known as “Hearth Island Jane Doe” because the police labored to determine her.
In August 2022, about six months after a job pressure was fashioned to resolve the Gilgo Seashore killings, officers developed a DNA profile from the stays. A month later, the F.B.I., utilizing genetic family tree, made a presumptive identification. The company confirmed the stays belonged to Ms. Vergata in October, after evaluating her DNA to genetic materials from a relative who offered a pattern.
Raymond A. Tierney, Suffolk County’s district legal professional, mentioned on Friday that “the required notifications” had been made to Ms. Vergata’s household. No lacking individuals report was filed when she disappeared.
“There aren’t any prices at the moment,” Mr. Tierney mentioned. “We’re going to proceed to work this explicit case as we did the Gilgo 4 investigation.”
He declined to take questions concerning the growth, and didn’t say how Ms. Vergata died.
Ms. Vergata was final seen alive on Valentine’s Day 1996 and had lived on West forty fifth Road in Manhattan earlier than she disappeared, Mr. Tierney mentioned.
Her father, Dominic Vergata, mentioned in a courtroom submitting in 2017 that he had final heard from his daughter in February of that 12 months when she referred to as him on his birthday.
Earlier than her disappearance, Ms. Vergata would name her father periodically, in response to a petition he filed in New York Surrogate’s Courtroom, which hears circumstances regarding wills, the administration of estates and belief proceedings. Mr. Vergata, who mentioned he was making an attempt to gather two insurance coverage insurance policies on his daughter’s life, filed the petition to declare her lifeless.
He mentioned that he had employed an investigator and contacted regulation enforcement businesses and individuals who knew her, however that nobody had ever discovered her. “Her absence can’t be satisfactorily defined,” the petition mentioned.
Mr. Vergata died on Dec. 22, 2022, and his obituary described his daughter as “the late Karen Vergata.”
On Friday, officers displayed an undated image of a younger Ms. Vergata that confirmed her darkish hair in two ponytails tied with crimson ribbons.
The killings close to Gilgo Seashore have drawn worldwide consideration and throngs of vacationers and curious onlookers to Mr. Heuermann’s ramshackle home in Massapequa Park, the place neighbors mentioned they lengthy prevented the architect, who hardly ever greeted them and saved his house in disarray, a stark distinction to the well-manicured homes round it.
Prosecutors in courtroom this week turned over proof to Mr. Heuermann’s attorneys, together with the post-mortem reviews of Amber Lynn Costello, 27; Melissa Barthelemy, 24; and Megan Waterman, 22. Mr. Heuermann was charged final month with three counts of first-degree homicide and three counts of second-degree homicide of their deaths.
He’s the prime suspect within the loss of life of the fourth girl, Maureen Brainard-Barnes, 25, who went lacking in July 2007.
Like Ms. Vergata, Ms. Costello, Ms. Waterman, Ms. Barthelemy and Ms. Brainard-Barnes all labored as escorts, and their our bodies had been discovered shut collectively.
Susan C. Beachy contributed analysis.
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