The site where Rita Tangredi was found

Crime Scene Location in East Patchogue, New York

This is the site where Rita Tangredi's body was discovered.

It is situated on Esplanade Drive in East Patchogue, New York.

On November 2nd, 1993, Tangredi's naked remains were discovered half-buried in a wooded area at this location.

The 31-year-old sex worker had been strangled and beaten to death. Although most of her clothes were found at the crime scene, her left shoe and underwear were missing.

This aerial photograph from 1980 gives us an idea of what the wooded area looked like before it was developed. Newspaper reports indicate that locals used the pathways to cut between Country Road and Summit Street.

Tangredi's killer strangled her, shattered her skull, spread her legs apart, and then positioned both of her arms above her head.

Although there was alcohol in her stomach, the levels in her bloodstream were negligible. This led the medical examiner to conclude that she had consumed it very shortly before she was killed.

At the time, Esplanade Drive was a popular place for sex workers to bring their clients, as it was a secluded wooded area that contained an abandoned housing development.

The houses that are present today were not built until the late 1990s and early 2000s.

Detectives believe that Tangredi was murdered at this location, as parts of the ground were soaked in blood.

On the day of her disappearance, the 31-year-old was last seen walking along the Montauk Highway in East Patchogue, which is only two miles away.

Rita Tangredi — Tangredi was last seen walking on Montauk Highway, which is just two miles from the location where her body was discovered. It is likely that she was picked up at that location and then immediately brought to Esplanade Drive, as it was a popular spot for sex workers and johns to "conduct business."

More than two decades after her body was discovered, a familial DNA match linked 48-year-old Long Island resident John Bittrolff to the crime.

DNA evidence also linked him to the 1994 murder of Colleen McNamee.

The victim also went by the surname Tangredi-Beinlich. Newspapers reported that she was of "no known address." At the time of her death, she had an 11-year-old son called Anthony Beller. The police quickly realized that the murders of Tangredi and McNamee were connected, as the two sex workers had been murdered and then "posed" in a similar fashion. Both were missing their underwear and a left shoe, a sign that the killer may have taken them as trophies. Detective John Gierasch expressed his belief that the killer might also be responsible for the 1993 murder of Sandra Costilla. However, that turned out to be incorrect. In July 2024, the authorities announced that they were charging Gilgo Beach serial killer suspect Rex Heuermann for Costilla's murder.

Forensic scientist Thomas Zaveski said that tiny particles resembling wood chips were found on Tangredi's body. The chips, which were no longer than a millimeter, looked like "specks" to the human eye.

This piece of evidence was particularly damaging to Bittrolff, as he had worked as a carpenter throughout his adult life.

During the trial, forensic scientist Robert Baumann testified that DNA samples found in Tangredi's fingernail clippings were a partial match with the accused. In his estimation, the profile was so similar that there was only a 1 in 608 quadrillion chance that it had come from someone else.

In addition to this, semen found on the victim's body was also found to be a match with Bittrolff.

On July 5th, 2017, Bittrolff was found guilty of both murders. Two months later, he received two consecutive 25-year-to-life sentences.

Location

The address and the GPS coordinates for this location are as follows:

Address

Esplanade Drive, East Patchogue, New York, NY 11772, USA

Map

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GPS coordinates

The latitude and longitude coordinates for the site are:

40.758018, -72.968802

Directions

The entrance can be found on South Country Road, half-way between Orchard Road and Furman Avenue.

This location belongs to the following categories:

Crime Scenes

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The site where Rita Tangredi was found