Tina Elizabeth Foglia
Tina Elizabeth Foglia
was 19 years old, 5-foot-2, 185 pounds, with brown eyes and brown shoulder length hair she resided with her mom, brother and sister on Lloyd Drive in Brentwood. Tina’s father Joseph Foglia lived in the Bronx. Tina dropped out of
high school and was taking might classes for equivalency diploma. During the day Tina was a home health aide.
On January 31, 1982, Tina’s father watched as she left their home wearing a white, waist-length hooded jacket, black slacks, and brown suede shoes. She was heading out to spend the evening at Hammerheads nightclub on Sunrise Highway. Tina was last seen alive at 3:00 AM on Monday, February 1, 1982, leaving Hammerheads. This was her final known sighting before her remains were discovered. Concerned, her family reported her missing on Wednesday, February 3, 1982.
Race: White
Gender: Female
DOB: November 12, 1962
Height: 5′ 2″
Weight: 185 pounds
Eyes: Brown
Tina’s family informed the police that she had wanted to go to Hammerheads that night to see the band “Equinox,” as she had a friend in the band. However, they couldn’t provide her with a car, so she had to find her own way there and back.
She was known to hitchhike and frequent nightclubs in Suffolk County, particularly clubs in the towns of Islip and Babylon.
Police at the time discovered that Foglia was last seen leaving Hammerheads Bar, then located on Sunrise Highway in West Islip, at 3 a.m. on Feb. 1, 1982.
On February 3, 1982, state highway workers discovered Tina Foglia’s partial remains in several plastic bags along an exit ramp from the Southern State Parkway to the Sagtikos State Parkway in North Bay Shore, Suffolk County, NY. A senior investigator mentioned that a Department of Transportation worker suspected the bags contained a body due to their shape, and upon closer inspection, he saw human hair.
The location where Tina’s remains were found is just a few miles north of the Robert Moses Causeway, which leads to Gilgo Beach and Oak Beach—the area where the remains of victims linked to the unidentified Long Island Serial Killer were also discovered. At least four of the Long Island Serial Killer’s victims were found in this general area, with their remains similarly dismembered. While police haven’t actively pursued a connection between Tina’s murder and the Long Island Serial Killer, they haven’t ruled it out either. Could Tina’s case be connected to the Long Island Serial Killer?
State police shared a photo with the media that showed a footprint left by the killer in the mud, along with a diamond ring Tina was known to wear. The ring, Tina’s always wore, was not found with her body, leading police to believe that the motive was not robbery or theft but rather a sexual assault followed by homicide to cover up the crime.
On February 6, 1982, four days after Tina’s remains were found, Michael Baden, the Suffolk County Chief Deputy Medical Examiner, reported that Tina died by asphyxia from smothering, caused by the blocking of her nose and mouth. The following day, an unnamed source close to the investigation told the media that Tina’s body had been dismembered with precision, as if by a butcher’s knife, rather than with a hatchet or similar instrument. However, police and the medical examiner refused to comment further on the details of Tina’s death.
Suffolk County police tried to link the case to a Sayville man who had been charged in the 1981 murder of a local female bartender — and who detectives said was a suspect in six murders, including that of Foglia. That suspect, Timothy O’Toole, was convicted in 1983 of second-degree murder in the shooting death of the bartender, Patricia Finn, 31.
The conviction was overturned on appeal, and O’Toole, then 34, pleaded guilty to first-degree manslaughter in the case in 1989. O’Toole was paroled in 1993, according to state prison records, and died when he was 62.
In 2017 The DNA of an unknown male was found on the garbage bags
