Last week, the man suspected of killing four women and dumping their bodies on Gilgo Beach in New York was charged with the murders of two more women.
The accused, who is not being named by The Daily Wire, was charged with two additional murders occurring a decade apart. Their remains were not found near the original four victims. Here’s how police connected the 59-year-old architect to the two new victims, according to a bail application filed by the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office.
Jessica Taylor
In July 2003, a person walking their dog found the remains of Jessica Taylor in the Long Island, New York, village of Manorville. The remains were identified as Taylor, even though the head was missing and the arms had been removed below the elbows. A tattoo on her torso was also mangled with a sharp object.
The missing body parts were not found until March 29, 2011, on the same side of the road and less than a mile from where the remains of Maureen Brainard-Barnes, Megan Waterman, Melissa Barthelemy, and Amber Costello were found. The suspect had already been charged with their murders and pleaded not guilty.
Taylor was a sex worker in the area near where the Gilgo Beach serial killer suspect worked. He was present in the area on the day Taylor disappeared, according to evidence seized during one of the searches of the suspect’s home.
During the initial investigation after Taylor’s remains were found in 2003, a witness said they saw a dark-colored Chevrolet pickup truck backed up to the woods where the body was found. The current suspect had purchased such a vehicle in March 2002, more than a year before the remains were discovered.
When investigators analyzed digital devices taken from the suspect’s home in the past year, they found that shortly after Taylor’s body was discovered two decades earlier, the suspect had read a Newsday article about the remains and began searching for a new vehicle. The suspect attempted to delete this online activity.
When examining Taylor’s body, a male human hair was recovered from a surgical drape that had been underneath the victim. At the time, DNA testing could not be done due to the limitations of the lab, but in August 2023, the hair was tested against the DNA taken from the suspect. Results from an outside lab excluded 99.96% of the American population but could not exclude the suspect. The hair was also sent to another outside lab, which found that it was 1.847 x 10603 times more likely that the hair came from the suspect than from someone else.
Investigators also found that the suspect’s family was out of town during the time Taylor is believed to have been murdered, which aligns with his family’s absence during other murders with which he has been charged.
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Sandra Costilla
Costilla’s remains were found in November 1993 in the Long Island hamlet of North Sea. During the initial investigation, three hairs were found on the victim, including two male hairs from a tape-lift on the victim’s search.
In 2014, DNA profiles were developed from the hairs, and 10 years later, after the suspect was charged in the murders of four women, his DNA was compared to the DNA profile. The outside lab that determined the hair found on Jessica Taylor’s body likely belonged to the suspect made the same conclusion for the male hairs found on Costilla.
The third hair, which belonged to a female, was matched to a woman who had been living with the suspect at the time of Costilla’s disappearance, but she has not been charged in connection with the murder, nor is she suspected of assisting in the crime.
During multiple searches of the suspect’s home in Massapequa, New York, investigators found more than 350 electronic devices and began attempts to extract and analyze the data on those devices. On one hard drive, investigators were able to recover a deleted document that appeared to have been used as a way for the suspect to “plan out” his “kills,” according to the bail application filed by the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office.
This document mentioned that the suspect needed to avoid leaving behind hairs that could connect him to the case.
If convicted, the suspect faces multiple life sentences without the possibility of parole.
