Ms. Mack’s arrest record placed her in Philadelphia in the months before she vanished. There were six other sets of remains that were found months later and within five miles of the four victims pictured above. Not everyone was impressed. Mr. Burke pressured detectives who witnessed the beating to deny they saw the attack. California had a wealth of genetic material from suspects to sample from, much of it based on rape kits. “I always say I practiced law for six weeks, and then I got the call for the bureau,” she said. During the expanded search for Ms. Gilbert in 2011, more remains from Ms. Taylor and Ms. Mack were found along Ocean Parkway. It is possible, Ms. Hart has been thinking, that these four victims have the same killer — a different one from the four women found in 2010 in Gilgo Beach. 6’s identity was a revelation to Ms. Mack’s family. field office had been welcomed back into the case after Mr. Burke’s departure, said she saw an opportunity for “a clean slate.” Then, after barely two weeks on the job, on April 24, 2018, she learned that the authorities in California had charged a 72-year-old man named Joseph DeAngelo with eight counts of first-degree murder: After decades, the Golden State Killer had been caught. “The toddler and the Asian male are a little more challenging,” she said. soon after finishing law school. We're not just saying that. Remains continued to be found, but progress faltered after the initial discovery 10 years ago of four bodies wrapped in burlap on Long Island along a stretch of Ocean Parkway near Gilgo Beach. Even though the police had, Ms. Hart acknowledged, found it many years earlier, it was new to the public. Ms. Hart is trying to resuscitate the murder inquiry in part by engaging the public. And there was a reason for that, too: The Justice Department was investigating him for corruption. In late 2012, a year after assuming control of the Suffolk police, Mr. Burke assaulted a man being held for a parole violation. Hunters had first found parts of her body, in plastic bags, in the pine barrens in 2000; then, in 2011, after the discovery of several other victims, the Suffolk County police found more of her body near Gilgo Beach. New York has yet to allow its police departments to hire any private lab for this purpose. “It helps show the geographical footprint of this killer or killers is bigger than we think,” suggested Josh Zeman, a documentarian whose series, “Killing Season,” pushed the idea that the murderer traveled far and wide to find victims. every year looking for more information before her husband’s remains were found beneath the concrete of a Brooklyn parking garage. Ms. Gilbert was virtually forgotten until seven months later, when the Suffolk police discovered the four bodies draped in burlap along the side of Ocean Parkway, three miles from where Ms. Gilbert was last seen alive. But we are pursuing an alternative method on that.”, She already sees the benefit to giving names to the nameless. 6’s identity: She was Valerie Mack, a 24-year-old mother from southern New Jersey who had paid the bills as an escort and had been missing for 20 years. “Every police department should have a genetic genealogist on staff,” Mr. Jensen said. Especially her son. At least six of these new victims could not be identified by the traditional means of searching DNA databases of missing persons — a chilling lesson in just how far off the grid a person still can fall, even in the 21st century, even in the spotlight of New York. While the deaths stretch back more than 10 years, there might never have been a known Long Island serial killer case at all if it hadn’t been for Shannan Gilbert — like Valerie Mack, a 24-year-old woman working as an escort. Months passed, then years, with no comment from the department about the case. Before even being able to match DNA evidence with the genetic information held by private companies, the police would need to hire a private lab to process the DNA into a suitable sample. The Gilgo Beach Murders Were a Cold Case. There was nothing to connect her to Long Island. They all came from towns outside New York. She spent 15 years in the F.B.I.’s organized crime division in Queens, running several major investigations, including the infamous case of two New York police officers who moonlighted as contract killers for the mobster Anthony Casso, known as Gaspipe. Gilbert, a 24-year-old sex worker, vanished after leaving a client’s house on foot in the seafront community of Oak Beach, disappearing into the marsh. We are always on the lookout for talented candidates who are curious about the world around them and passionate about entertainment. Authorities in Suffolk County have identified the remains of a woman believed to be a victim of the Long Island Serial Killer. “I saw the movie,” she told me, “but I didn’t read the book.” (She was quick to add politely, “I heard it got excellent reviews.”). It's the truth. But there, in a video message released to the public on May 29, was Commissioner Geraldine Hart of the Suffolk County Police Department, standing behind a lectern and next to an American flag, making an announcement few people expected: a major break in a multiple-murder investigation that had confounded her predecessors for nearly a decade. Left to Right: Maureen Brainard-Barnes, Megan Waterman, Melissa Barthelemy and Amber Lynn Costello. Every employee plays a vital role in the future of our company. Johnny Milano for The New York Times “I … Mother and child were found miles apart. None of this escaped Ms. Hart’s notice. The media dubbed him the Long Island Serial Killer. That’s because John Bittrolff, a Long Island resident, was convicted in 2017 in the early 1990s beating deaths of two prostitutes, Rita Tangredi and Colleen McNamee. The evidence in the Long Island case, for starters, has little in common with what the police had in the search for the Golden State Killer. In June 2019, police proposed the use of genetic genealogy to identify the unidentified victims as well as the killer, the same tactic used to identify The Golden State Killer. That’s where her old colleagues at the F.B.I. 6’s DNA and prepare a sample for matching. One was a toddler, who would later be linked by DNA to yet another unidentified woman found in the bramble, whom the police would call Peaches, after a tattoo on her body.