GILGO BEACH INVESTIGATION

News: Gilgo Beach Investigation

(Long Island, N.Y.) The search continues for evidence in the case of a Gilgo Beach serial killer as the number of remains found between the Robert Moses Causeway and Jones Beach has reached double digits. Police and authorities on the case are still approaching aspects of the investigation as a missing person's search for New Jersey woman Shannan Gilbert. Since the most recent finding of a skull and bones in Nassau County, nothing new has been discovered despite extensive searches in the area.

Though police have made ground searches, employed FBI high-resolution planes, and used Suffolk County divers, their investigation has not recovered any suspicious pieces of evidence. Nonetheless, Ocean Parkway remained closed for multiple hours during today's search. The specific spots that were pinpointed by Nassau County Police Department Helicopters and FBI planes were investigated, but no new sets of remains or evidence were collected among the areas.

The question now raised by recent developments in the investigation is where do authorities draw the line in the progression of their searches? Many Long Island residents are wondering at what point authorities will be satisfied with the amount of area that has been covered in the investigation. Long Islanders are also wondering if the upcoming beach season is going to put an immediate halt on police searches.

It's possible that police are going to extra lengths to search in present weeks because time is not on the side of the investigation. In addition to the approaching busy season, the spring vegetation is expected to play a negative factor in the search. Police and officials on the case once claimed that they would be doing everything, short of cutting down the terrain, to assist their investigation.

The fifty-two-year-old serial killer Joel Rifkin was interviewed by a source on Thursday based on allegations that some of his victims may have been among the recent remains. Rifkin is currently on year fifteen of a two-hundred-and-three year sentence. He was convicted of killing seventeen women in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Four of his victims were never found.

Rifkin, a former horticulturalist and East Meadow resident, is at a maximum-security prison at the Clinton Correctional Facility. The facility is located in Dannemora, New York, about twenty miles from the Canadian border. A report stated that Rifkin claims to be following the Gilgo Beach case and that none of the victims were his.

Rifkin dumped his victims in multiple areas across Long Island, New York City, and New Jersey. Most of his victims, some of whom were dismembered, were prostitutes, and Rifkin claims that there is a reason killers choose prostitutes for their crimes. Because of the nature of their jobs, very little ties can be made from prostitutes to their clients. Therefore, little can be tied between victim and killer.

The report stated that Rifkin also suggested that the man responsible for killing the four women found in December in Suffolk County could be a landscaper, fisherman, contractor, or someone with access to burlap. In a similar inference, original reports of the case stated that police believed a blue-collar man was behind the killings. Rifkin had stated that he doesn't believe the recent sets of remains are related to the original four.

Jessica Cappelli

April 15, 2011 5:20 PM Eastern

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