The site where Jessica Taylor was found

Crime Scene Location Manorville, New York

This is the site where Jessica Taylor was found.

It is located on Halsey Manor Road in Manorville, New York.

On July 26th, 2003, a dog walker discovered the 20-year-old's naked torso at the end of this paved access road. By that stage, she had been dead for approximately 2–3 days.

Jessica Taylor was from Poughkeepsie, New York. The 20-year-old was petite, standing at just 5 ft. 3 inches tall. Her family and friends often called her "Lala." She became involved in the sex industry after her boyfriend and pimp, Khalil White, isolated her from her family.

Taylor is believed to be a victim of suspected Gilgo Beach serial killer Rex Heuermann. Heuermann was indicted for her murder on June 6th, 2024, more than 20 years later.

Her remains were found lying on a surgical drape that had been placed on top of a pile of tree branches and scrap wood. A male hair underneath her body was found to be a match with Heuermann's DNA.

A witness said that they saw a dark-colored Chevrolet pickup truck on this access road at around 10.30 p.m. on July 25th, 2003, which was roughly 13 hours before the body was discovered.

Tire tracks were found on the access road.

Heuermann did an online search for a new Chevy truck following the murder. He also accessed a Newsday article about the murder.

His wife and children were on vacation in Jeffersonville, Vermont, when the killing occurred.

Manorville site — The site was visited in the documentary "The Bad Place (The Hunt For The Long Island Serial Killer)".

Taylor's killer made no effort to conceal her body.

He placed it out in the open, just yards away from the treeline.

Halsey Manor Road — A dog walker discovered Taylor's body at approximately 11 a.m. By that point, she had been dead for a number of days.

During a press conference about the murder, a police spokesperson said:

"It doesn't really seem like they were concerned that the body would have been found. It certainly would not be a place to put a body if you were looking to hide it."

Taylor's mother, Elizabeth Baczkiel, filed a missing person report after she failed to return to Poughkeepsie on July 25th to celebrate her birthday. Her pimp, Khalil White, and a fellow sex worker named "Crystal" also claimed to have reported Taylor missing.

At the time of her murder, she frequently traveled between Washington, D.C., and Manhattan. She had also spent time in Atlantic City, North Carolina, Long Island City, Cheverly in Maryland, and the East Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn.

Taylor left Khalil in the early hours of July 15th, 2003, after the pair had a fight. When her car broke down at a gas station, a group of people agreed to bring her to Bushwick in Brooklyn.

She stayed with her new acquaintances in Bushwick in the days leading up to her disappearance. During this period, she reportedly cut her hair short and dyed it, possibly red.

When her acquaintances last saw her, she was leaving their apartment with a cellphone, red-heeled sandals, and a purse containing a bible.

The police stated that Taylor was last seen working the streets near the Port Authority Bus Terminal in Manhattan between July 18th and July 21st, 2003. She made her last phone call at 10.22 p.m. on July 21st.

This means that she was likely picked up by the killer on the 21st or 22nd.

Taylor's killer removed her head and hands in an attempt to hinder her identification. He also mutilated a tattoo on her lower back.

The tattoo consisted of a red heart with angel wings, which had the words "Remy's angel" written across them.

Remy was the nickname of her pimp and boyfriend, Khalil White, who was a Brooklyn-based gang leader from Harlem. White isolated Taylor from her family and manipulated her into working in the sex trade. Taylor worked alongside a sex worker named Crystal. In October 2017, Crystal said that White was a violent man who regularly abused them. Image credit: The Killing Season.

Although the killer damaged the tattoo with a sharp object, he was not thorough enough. As a result, the medical examiner's office was able to piece the tattoo back together and release a photograph of it.

Shortly afterwards, a detective who had previously arrested Taylor in Washington, D.C., saw the image and realized that it was hers.

At that stage, the authorities tracked down members of Taylor's family and confirmed her identity using DNA testing.

This article appeared in Newsday (Suffolk Edition) on Febuary 4th, 2004.

Her relatives initially suspected that her pimp may have been involved in her murder. However, that belief was shattered in 2011.

In December 2010, the police found the bodies of four missing sex workers at a roadside near Gilgo Beach. This discovery led to a broader search of the bushes along Ocean Parkway.

On March 29th, 2011, investigators found a skull and two hands at a site that was just one mile east of the location where the other women had been dumped.

Subsequent DNA tests confirmed that the skull belonged to Taylor.

Ocean Parkway — Her identifying remains were found 0.95 miles east of the Gilgo Four and 0.61 miles east of an unidentified victim called Asian Doe (Asian Male).

This was a crucial discovery, as it indicated that the killer had been operating in both Manorville and Gilgo Beach.

Jessica Taylor Manorville map — Although the access road in Manorville is close to the Long Island Expressway, accessing it from the highway requires a detour through wooded residential roads. The photograph of Taylor on the left was taken just days before her disappearance.

The Manorville connection was significant because three years prior to Taylor's murder, a group of pheasant hunters had discovered the torso of Valerie Mack in a wooded area off Mill Road.

Jessica Taylor and Valerie Mack — In 2000, the killer dumped Mack's torso at a site near the Peconic River in Manorville. Roughly three years later, he left Taylor's remains at the end of this access road on Halsey Manor Road. Both sites are accessible via Mill Road. His decision to reuse this part of Manorville indicated that he was familiar with the area.

In July 2024, prosecutors announced that a deleted Word document had been recovered from one of Heuermann's hard drives. The document, which he allegedly used to plan out his crimes, had a section called DS.

Investigators believe that the acronym refers to "dump site."

Under DS, Mill Road was listed as DS-1 (dump site one).

A forensic analysis of one of Heuermann's computers showed that he searched for a new Chevrolet Avalanche on July 29th, 2003, which was just three days after Taylor's remains were found.

Heuermann's decision to search for a new truck with a different color may indicate that he was aware of the presence of a witness near the site.

He may have also been worried that the authorities were starting to notice a pattern, as the media highlighted a possible connection between Taylor, Mack, and an earlier 1997 victim named Tanya Denise Jackson (Peaches).

Newspaper article — During a search of Heuermann's home, the police found an old New York Post newspaper from July 29th, 2003. Inside was an article about the discovery of Taylor's remains.

Notably, the above article was published on the same date that Heuermann searched for a new truck.

Location

The address and GPS coordinates for the site are as follows:

Address

Halsey Manor Road, Manorville, New York, NY 11949, USA

GPS Coordinates

40.878734, -72.782170

40°52'43.44"N 72°46'55.81"W

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Area Information

Manorville is a hamlet on the western edge of the Long Island Central Pine Barrens.

📍 The entrance is just 300 feet north of where Halsey Manor Road crosses over the Long Island Expressway.

Photos

Photos of the site and other related images.

Dump site

The Google Street View image above was taken in July 2012.

The red arrow is pointing towards the general area where a dog walker made the discovery.

Access road

Image source: The Bad Place (The Hunt For The Long Island Serial Killer)

The road provides access to a sump on Halsey Manor Road.

Taylor's remains were dumped in two different locations

This aerial image shows the two locations where Taylor's remains were found.

It seems as though the killer quickly arrived at the conclusion that Gilgo Beach on Jones Beach Island was a safer place to dump identifying body parts such as skulls and hands.

By the time 2003 rolled around, he had already hidden the identifying remains of four victims among the thick bushes and brambles beside Ocean Parkway.

As time wore on and the body parts near Gilgo remained undiscovered, it is likely that his confidence in the area continued to grow.

Her killer made no attempt to hide the body

Image source: The Bad Place (The Hunt For The Long Island Serial Killer)

The road sits between a low-lying water sump (top) and a wooded area (bottom).

Despite having a number of options, the Long Island serial killer made no attempt to hide Taylor's body.

Halsey Manor Road

The area is eerily quiet, even during the day.

Manorville

Image source: The Killing Season

LISK placed her torso at the end of this access road in Manorville. A dogwalker found the remains lying on a surgical drape.

Taylor was last seen near the Port Authority Bus Terminal

Taylor was last seen working the streets near the Port Authority Bus Terminal in Manhattan between July 18th and July 21st, 2003.

At the time, the area around 8th Avenue and 42nd Street was a popular spot among sex workers. Locals called it "the Forty-deuce" or simply "the Deuce".

Taylor ran away from her pimp a few weeks before she went missing. This means that she was most likely working the streets by herself.

Those who spoke to her during this period said that she had grown tired of the lifestyle and was intending on returning home to Poughkeepsie.

Taylor, Maureen Brainard-Barnes, and Melissa Barthelemy were all apparently picked up in Manhattan. The family of Valerie Mack said that she was going to New York. Karen Vergata was living on West 45th Street when she disappeared.

All of this indicates that the Long Island serial killer was familiar with this section of New York City.

This isn't surprising, as the authorities believe that he was a regular "john" who only killed when the circumstances were right.

It is likely that LISK had been picking up sex workers in Manhattan for quite some time before he eventually crossed paths with Taylor. He may have realized his opportunity when he noticed that she was by herself, with no pimp or fellow working girls.

Taylor was alone, and the pickup occurred in a busy city that was miles away from Long Island. Despite this, he still had to approach her in public, in plain view of potential witnesses. By 2003, public security cameras in Manhattan were also more widespread.

For this reason, it is likely that her identification came as an unwelcome shock. This would explain why he stopped dismembering his victims and leaving their torsos out in the open.

Engaging in this behavior seemed like a good idea until he started envisioning police cars pulling up outside his house.

Coordinates: 40.757224, -73.989749

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