News Timeline
Gilgo Beach Murders News Coverage Timeline

February 6, 2011
Det. Lt. Gerard Pelkofsky who commands Suffolk County Police Homicide told PIX 11 News “it’s definitely one person doing this. There is a pattern. It’s localized. Common sense dictates it would be one person.”

March 17, 2011
Police say 4 bodies found on Long Island with Gilgo Beach, may be the work of a serial killer. Dr. J. Buzz Von Ornsteiner was asked to give his psychological insights on the matter. Dr. Buzz is a project director and licensed psychologist for a Brooklyn, N.Y. mental health court that works with prostitutes.

March 30, 2011
Detectives and K-9 Unit officers with cadaver sniffer dogs scoured an area near Oak Beach throughout the afternoon and into the night. Authorities stumbled across the remains during a search for missing New Jersey woman Shannon Gilbert, who has been described by police as a prostitute and was reportedly last seen screaming and running into the brush May 1, 2010 after meeting a client who she knew from Craigslist.

April 5, 2011
One of the four victims found dead and buried on secluded Gilgo Beach New York’s Suffolk County is a missing young woman from Maine. Megan Waterman

April 10, 2011
Investigators on New York’s Long Island are intensifying their hunt for a possible serial killer who has claimed as many as eight victims. Tony Guida reports.

May 10, 2011
Authorities say there could be multiple killers in the Long Island murders after no evidence was found to link the human remains to one serial killer. Elaine Quijano reports on the latest of the new evidence.

September 17, 2011
Search For A Serial Killer. A documentary produced by News 12 Long Island. Producers: Lauren Sivan and Debi Gade. Photography by Brian Jingeleksi. Edited by Glenn Garthwaite.

September 17, 2011
A documentary produced by News 12 Long Island. Producers: Lauren Sivan and Debi Gade. Photography by Brian Jingeleksi. Edited by Glenn Garthwaite.

May 10, 2011
Valerie Mack was 24 years old when she abruptly disappeared from Edwin and JoAnn Mack’s lives around October 2000.
Her adoptive parents and other relatives futilely searched for her for years, fearing something terrible had happened to the young mother they said had been trying to turn her life around.
In February 2020, their worst fears became a reality: Suffolk County detectives called to tell them Valerie was dead and had been identified as a victim in the Gilgo Beach serial killings.

April 20, 2011
Nassau County detectives are hoping that a chest tattoo of a peach will help them identify the headless naked torso of a woman found in a state park.
Police think the tattoo artist or someone close to the mutilation victim will recognize the design and step forward to identify the woman, whose partial remains were found in Hempstead Lake State Park by a hiker on Saturday.
The woman’s head, arms and her legs below her knees had been hacked off and have not been recovered.

February 17, 2012
Man Walking his dog discovered human remains. Law Enforcement belives the remains were there for at least five years its the same area of Manorville where two other sets of remains were found.
Suffolk County Police Department, the victim died of “homicidal violence” and the skeletal remains found wrapped in a bed sheet, and in a plastic garbage bag body was bound with duct tape. Later determined it was a male.

December 11, 2011
OAK BEACH, N.Y. — It’s the largest murder investi gation ever on New York’s Long Island – 10 people slain and strewn along a remote beach highway over 15 years, possibly all victims of the same serial killer. But it’s not the first time the New York suburbs have been in the national spotlight for its homicides.
April 24, 2011
A man who goes through daily life un-noticed. Possibly even married and with children. With social skills sufficient to get these Craigslist escorts to meet him with their guard down. A man who gets some sick thrill from
his murderous spree, making taunting phone calls to a victim’s family from locations carefully chosen for their difficulty to trace.
April 17, 2011
Talk on longislanderotic.com shows members were outraged when one of their cronies claimed he had paid Amber Lynn Costello $200 for sex, only to be robbed by men who barged into her West Babylon home. “Tell her we are all coming over there with baseball bats,” threatened one member, a self-declared ex-con known as “Morrie.”