As police K-9 units scoured a heavily wooded area on Long Island for the fourth day in connection to the Gilgo Beach serial killings, a law enforcement source said state police teams focused their attention on an area near where a body was found more than 30 years ago in an unsolved murder.
Police have not officially explained why teams had been combing through woods in Manorville for days, though a source previously said the search was in connection with the Gilgo Beach murder investigation. That search expanded on Friday to the Southampton community of North Sea, about 30 miles away, according to a law enforcement source.
An unsolved murder there from 1993 has been linked to Manorville carpenter John Bittrolff, who was convicted in 2016 of killing sex workers Rita Tangredi and Colleen McNamee. Bittrolff's name has at times been mentioned in connection to the Gilgo case.
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Prosecutors wouldn’t say if the North Sea search was connected to the one going on in Manorville.
State and local law enforcement officers descended on Manorville starting Tuesday. An NYPD officer at the scene previously told NBC New York the search area was focused at Schultz Road and North Street. The officer said an NYPD K-9 unit was on the scene, on Wading River Road near the Long Island Expressway. Dogs were set to search what the officer described as a "large, wooded area." The officer didn't say what they thought they might find, nor was it known if anything was found.
Suffolk County Police confirmed its officers were assisting, along with members of the NYPD and the New York State Police. It said the department does not comment on active investigations, however.
According to an NYPD spokesman, Suffolk County law enforcement officials asked for the help because of the size of the area they wanted to search. But neither Suffolk police nor the county district attorney would confirm that it was part of the Gilgo murder investigation.
Manorville was home to the site where two sets of remains of young women, among others, were found during a parallel search along Gilgo Beach's Ocean Parkway. Those two women, Jessica Taylor and Valerie Mack, had remains dumped in both locations. They were found, in Mack's case, about 11 years apart.
Remains of a toddler and man were also among those found. Those cases are unsolved.
Authorities have said the cases involve at least two separate killers. Manorville had been a notorious dumping ground, appreciated for the privacy of its heavy woodlands. One man, a New York City architect from Long Island named Rex Heuermann, has been charged with murder in the cases of four women whose bodies were found on Ocean Parkway.
Mack was not among them. Heuermann has pleaded not guilty to the charges. His lawyer has focused on other potential suspects, including former Suffolk County Police Chief James Burke, who was arrested in a sex sting last year. He also blocked federal investigators from taking part in the Gilgo murder investigation during his time in office.
Police have said there’s an ongoing investigation to see if Heuermann is linked to six other Gilgo victims.
