Police find more victims of suspected Long Island serial killer

[News_Editor]

Police find more victims of suspected Long Island serial killer

2011-04-05 16:41:54 GMT+7 (ICT)

SUFFOLK COUNTY, NEW YORK (BNO NEWS) -- Three more victims of a suspected serial killer were found along a remote beach in Long Island, New York on Monday, raising the number of suspected victims to at least 8.

The first victims were found in mid-December when police found the skeletal remains of a woman along a road in Babylon, a town in Suffolk County on Long Island. Two days later, three more bodies were found in the same area as police were investigating the first remains.

Authorities previously said the murders are believed to be the work of a serial killer who used the road to dump his victims, and at least one of victims may have been at the location since July 2007.

Last week, on March 29, Suffolk County police announced they had found a fifth body at Gilgo Beach on Long Island. And on Monday, police found three more sets of human remains in the same area, raising the total number of victims to 8.

The identities of the latest victims were not immediately known, but police previously identified the other four victims as 25-year-old Maureen Brainard-Barnes of Norwick, Connecticut, 24-year-old Melissa Barthelemy of Erie County, New York, 22-year-old Megan Waterman of Hauppauge, Maine, and 27-year-old Amber Lynn Costello of North Babylon, New York.

Brainard-Barnes went missing on July 9, 2007 and is believed to have been the first victim, while Barthelemy went missing about 2 years later. Waterman was last seen on June 6, 2010 when she was staying at the Holiday Inn Express in Hauppauge, which is just a 20 minute drive from Babylon.

Waterman, the mother of a young girl, had placed advertisements on Craigslist as an escort and told her 20-year-old boyfriend Akeem Cruz on June 5 that she would be going out and call him later. She was never heard from again.

The fourth victim, Costello, was also a prostitute and disappeared in September 2010. Meanwhile, there are also fears for 24-year-old prostitute Shonnan Gilbert who went missing in May 2010. She had traveled to Fire Island, about a 40 minute drive from Babylon, to meet with a client.

The New York Field Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is assisting in the investigation.

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