The Gilgo Beach victims known only as ‘Peaches’ and her toddler daughter ‘Baby Doe’ have finally been named almost three decades after some of their remains were first found on Long Island.
US Army veteran Tanya Denise Jackson, 26, and her two-year-old daughter Tatiana Marie Dykes were identified in a bombshell press briefing held by Nassau County officials Wednesday.
The huge breakthrough comes after Tanya’s dismembered torso – with ehr distinctive peach tattoo – was found in a Rubbermaid container in Hempstead Lake State Park, Lakeview, in 1997.
Around 14 years later – at the height of the search for Gilgo Beach serial killer victims – more of her remains and little Tatiana’s skeletal remains were found along Ocean Parkway near Gilgo Beach.
Now, 27 years on, the victims have names. Tanya was a 26-year-old single mother and US Army veteran originally from Alabama and living in Brooklyn, New York, at the time of her murder.
She served honorably in the military for years, including at Army bases in Georgia and Missouri, before leaving in February 1995.
While living in Brooklyn, she is believed to have been working at a doctor’s office, officials said. She drove a black 1991 Geo Storm.
Her daughter Tatiana was born in Texas and was just two years old at the time of her death.
Suspected Gilgo Beach serial killer Rex Heuermann – who has so far been charged with the murders of seven women on Long Island between 1993 and 2010 – has not been charged in connection to their deaths.
Tanya Denise Jackson, 26, (left) and her two-year-old daughter Tatiana Marie Dykes (right) were identified in a bombshell press briefing
The woman had this distinctive heart-shaped tattoo of a peach on her left breast, earning her the nickname ‘Peaches’
Officials said at Wednesday’s briefing that, while the victims have long been linked to the Gilgo Beach serial killer case due to where their remains were found, ‘we are not discounting that [the murders] could be unrelated.’
A $25,000 Crimestoppers reward is now being offered for information leading to the perpetrator responsible for the mom and daughter’s deaths.
Nassau County officials said they will continue to work closely with local and federal law enforcement agencies on the case, including Suffolk County – the jurisdiction leading the Gilgo Beach case.
‘The reality is our work has just begun,’ Nassau County District Attorney Anne Donnelly said at the briefing.
‘Knowing the identifies of the mother and the baby is just a first step.’
She urged anyone who knew Tanya ‘if you worked with her, if you met her at the grocery store, if you had an interaction with her please let us know.’
Officials also urged anyone who might have served with Tanya in the military to get in contact. She also had ties to Georgia.
‘Help us solve this horrific, horrific crime,’ DA Donnelly said.
A $25,000 Crimestoppers reward is now being offered for information leading to the perpetrator responsible for the mom and daughter’s death. Pictured: Nassau County officials at the press conference
Nassau County officials revealed that the mom and daughter had been identified 27 years on from their murders thanks to Investigative Genetic Genealogy (IGG) – an investigative method first made famous in the Golden State Killer case.
The use of IGG eventually led investigators to family members who were able to be interviewed and additional DNA testing was then carried out.
The father of the child has also been identified, officials said.
At the time of their murders in 1997, Tanya was estranged from her family and the father of her child and so neither she nor the infant were reported missing.
‘Today is a bittersweet day. Today after decades we are finally going to be able to tell you the identities of two victims back from 1997,’ DA Donnelly said at the briefing.
‘The mother’s name was Tanya. The baby’s name was Tatiana.’
When asked how long investigators had known the identities of Peaches and the toddler, Nassau County Commanding Officer of the Homicide Squad Stephen Fitzpatrick told DailyMail.com before the briefing: ‘We had it for a while and been catching up on 27 years of investigation.’
It was June 28, 1997, when a hiker found the dismembered torso of a woman inside a black plastic bag in a Rubbermaid container dumped in a wooded area of Hempstead Lake State Park, Lakeview.
The woman’s torso was found in this Rubbermaid container in June 1997. More of her remains were found in 2011
Inside the Rubbermaid container was a floral patterned pillowcase and a red towel (pictured top). Similar gold jewelry was also found with both the mom and child’s remains
She was estimated to have been killed around three days earlier.
The woman had a distinctive heart-shaped tattoo of a peach on her left breast, earning her the nickname ‘Peaches’ or ‘Jane Doe 3.’
Inside the container was also a floral patterned pillowcase and a red towel.
In 2011, some of the victim’s other body parts were found off Ocean Parkway, in Jones Beach State Park, during the search for victims in the Gilgo Beach investigation. Her skull has never been found.
The skeletal remains of a toddler girl – dubbed Baby Doe – were also found along Ocean Parkway in April 2011.
DNA testing later determined that the infant was the woman’s young daughter.
Similar gold jewelry was found with both victims’ remains.
For decades, both of their identities remained a mystery with local police and the FBI seeking the public’s help in identifying them.
Peaches was said to be black, aged 20 to 30 years old and had what appeared to be a Cesarean section scar.
In 2022, there appeared to be a lead in the quest to identify them when authorities in Alabama sought relatives of a dead man – Elijah ‘Lige’ Howell – in connection to the victims.
Accused serial killer Rex Heuermann appears in Suffolk County Court in Riverhead, New York, on April 15, 2025
Prior to this, a tattoo artist in Connecticut came forward to say they recalled the woman with the distinctive design.
The announcement comes amid a legal battle between Heuermann’s defense attorneys and Suffolk County District Attorney Ray Tierney’s office over crucial DNA evidence in the case.
The DA’s office told Newsday he would not comment on the development while the Frye hearings about the DNA evidence are still ongoing.
‘I’m not going to speak on any topics even tangentially related to the Gilgo Beach investigation until our hearings are concluded,’ he told Newsday.
Tanya’s remains were found in Nassau County, while the other victims were found across the county line in Suffolk County.
With the mom and daughter finally given their names, only one of the 11 victims found along Gilgo Beach is yet to be identified.
Investigators are still seeking the public’s help in identifying the victim known as ‘Asian Doe.’
The Gilgo Beach serial killer case haunted the Long Island community for more than a decade, ever since the first of multiple bodies were discovered along Ocean Parkway in December 2010.
After 27 years, the victims known only as ‘Peaches’ and ‘Baby Doe’ have finally been identified
More than a decade later, in July 2023, Massapequa Park local Heuermann was then dramatically arrested as he left his office in midtown Manhattan.
Heuermann was initially charged with the murders of three women: Amber Costello, Melissa Barthelemy and Megan Waterman.
Since then, he has been charged with the murders of four more victims: Maureen Brainard-Barnes, Sandra Costilla, Jessica Taylor and Valerie Mack.
All the victims were working as sex workers when they vanished after going to meet a client.
Their bodies were found dumped along Ocean Parkway near Gilgo Beach and other remote spots on Long Island.
Some of the victims had been bound, others had been dismembered and their remains discarded in multiple locations.
The 61-year-old has pleaded not guilty to all the charges against him.
Heuermann was linked to the murders following a tip about a pickup truck.
Melissa Barthelemy (top left), Amber Costello (top right), Megan Waterman (bottom left), and Maureen Brainard-Barnes (bottom right) became known as the ‘Gilgo Four’
Valerie Mack (left) disappeared in 2000 and parts of her body were discovered in Long Island that November. Jessica Taylor (right) vanished in 2003 with some of her remains being found in Manorville that year
Sandra Costilla (left) was murdered in 1993, making her the earliest known victim. Karen Vergata’s (right) remains were identified in 2023. Heuermann has not been charged in connection to her death
According to a witness, Costello had disappeared after going to see a client who drove a green Chevy Avalanche in September 2010.
Following the launch of a new taskforce, investigators learned that Heuermann drove that same type of vehicle at the time of the murders, prosecutors say.
He also matched the description of the client seen by the witness.
As well as the DNA evidence, prosecutors said investigators also found a chilling ‘planning document’ on a hard drive in the basement of Heuermann’s family home in Massapequa Park.
In the haunting document, he allegedly had a section detailed ‘PREP’ and noted that ‘small’ women were preferred.
Heuermann has lived his entire life in Massapequa Park and would commute to his architecture job in Midtown Manhattan, where some of the victims worked and were last seen alive.
He was especially familiar with Ocean Parkway, where the victims’ bodies were dumped, thanks to a job he had at Jones Beach in his 20s, according to prosecutors.
Fears that a serial killer or killers were at large on Long Island began back in May 2010, when Shannan Gilbert vanished in bizarre circumstances one night.
Police search a marsh in Oak Beach for the remains of Shannan Gilbert in December 2011
The 24-year-old, who was working as an escort, had gone to see a client in the Oak Beach Association community when she made a terrifying 911 call, saying that someone was trying to kill her.
During a search for Gilbert in December 2010, officers came across the body of Melissa Barthelemy in the marshes by Gilgo Beach.
Within days, three more bodies – Amber Costello, Maureen Brainard-Barnes and Megan Waterman – had been found.
The four victims, who became known as the Gilgo Four, had been dumped within a quarter mile of each other, some of them bound and wrapped in burlap.
Over the following months, the remains of seven other victims were found.
Gilbert’s body was found last. Investigators maintain that she was not a victim, but died by accidental drowning after she fled into the dense thicket that night.
Heuermann has not been charged in connection to the deaths of the other four victims: Karen Vergata and three still-unidentified victims, known only as ‘Asian Doe,’ ‘Peaches,’ and Peaches’ toddler daughter.
Costilla, meanwhile, had never been linked to the Gilgo Beach serial killer case until Heuermann was hit with charges for her murder in 2024.
Her murder expands the timeline that the accused serial killer is alleged to have been actively preying on victims.
Heuermann has pleaded not guilty to all the charges.
