The site where Tanya Denise Jackson was found

Crime scene

This police photograph of the crime scene was taken in 1997. The photographer was standing on Lake Drive, facing southward towards Peninsula Boulevard.

The Google Street View image at the bottom was captured in August 2022.

As you can see, the treeline at the side of Hempstead Lake State Park has been trimmed back.

Notably, the street lights that exist today were not present back in 1997. This means that this particular stretch of road would have been pretty dark at night.

It is unknown whether the tire tracks in the crime scene photo belong to the serial killer.

Hempstead Lake State Park

The killer dumped the container in a wooded area that was roughly 200 yards north of Peninsula Boulevard.

Using Street View and the Google Maps measurement tool, we were able to narrow down the dump site to this general area.

The authorities estimated that Jackson was murdered less than three days before her body was discovered. This means that she probably went missing at some point between June 25th (Wednesday) and June 27th, 1997 (Friday).

Aerial image

This is an aerial image of the wooded area at Hempstead Lake State Park in Lakeview. McDonald Pond is visible in the top-left corner. In the bottom-right corner, we've added a crime scene photograph of the green container that was used to conceal the victim's torso.

On June 28th, 1997, the Department of Environmental Conservation held a fishing clinic for children at McDonald Pond.

In attendance that Saturday were Lynbrook resident Shel Basch, his daughter, a family friend, and his friend's kids.

After some time passed and the group failed to catch anything, the children became bored and restless.

At around 1 p.m., they decided to wander away from the fishing clinic and walk northbound along the trail beside Lake Drive. However, as they were walking along the trail, Basch smelled a strong odor coming from the wooded area on his left.

After venturing into the woods to investigate, he saw a green container that had been partially covered by a black plastic bag. At the time, the area was swarming with flies.

Upon realizing that something dead was inside the container, he decided to return to McDonald Pond and fetch one of the DEC officers from the fishing clinic.

When they returned to the scene, the DEC officer ripped a section of the plastic bag and saw the left side of a bloated human torso.

Tatiana Marie Dykes' jewelry

Tatiana Marie Dykes (Baby Doe) was wearing two gold hoop earrings and a 16-inch chain.

Map

This map shows the various locations where the killer dumped the remains of Tanya Denise Jackson (Peaches) and Tatiana Marie Dykes (Baby Doe). We have included the Gilgo Four site as a reference.

As you can see, he used three different dump sites during the crime. He may have also used a fourth site, as the victim's skull has never been recovered.

Jackson's jewelry

The gold-colored bracelets above were found on Jackson's legs and arms. This jewelry was extremely common, making it impossible to trace.

Bracelet

The bracelet was a gold "XO" link bracelet (top-left corner). Judging by similar bracelets that we found on jewelry websites, this "X and O" design was extremely popular during the 1990s.

Evidence photos

The victim had a tattoo of a heart-shaped peach with a bite taken out of it. Two green leaves can be seen on either side. The killer placed her torso inside a green Rubbermaid Keepers "rough tote" container and then covered it with plastic bags.

Rough tote containers are used to store bulky items such as household items and tools. They are marketed for heavy-duty use. A pillowcase and a red towel were also found inside the container. The design of the pillowcase looks similar to a vintage Wamsutta "Supercale Coordinates" "80s pattern" fabric.

Jones Beach State Park

On April 11th, 2011, a search team discovered Jackson's legs and arms at this roadside in Jones Beach State Park. The remains were found about 1.5 miles east of the Jones Beach tower.

Her killer had wrapped her extremities in a plastic bag and thrown them into the bushes, roughly 30 feet north of Ocean Parkway.

View Location

Baby Doe

The skeletal remains of Tatiana (Baby Doe) were discovered at a site that is roughly 575 feet (175 meters) east of the entrance to Overlook Beach. There were no visible signs of trauma.

The infant's body was wrapped in a blanket. It is unclear whether this blanket was part of the same set as the pillowcase in the Rubbermaid container.

Tatiana was found just 250 feet away from the partial remains of a sex worker named Valerie Mack. However, markers on the roadside indicate that the killer, or killers, stopped within 180 feet of each other.

The killer, or killers, had dumped their remains in the same general area—roughly three years apart.

View Location

Vernon Geberth

Retired NYPD Lieutenant-Commander and author, Vernon Geberth, spoke about Peaches' case in the documentary The Killing Season:

"If you get called to do a trick and you have nobody to watch the baby, it's not unlikely that you will take the baby with you. Or maybe you'll have a significant other come with you to watch the baby while you do the trick, and then you go home.

With a serial killer... no one's going home."

As of yet, there is no evidence linking Jackson to the sex trade. However, very little is known about her activities in Brooklyn.

Lakeview

This Google Street View image of Lake Drive was taken in April 2023.

Back in 1997, the treeline was much closer to the road. There were also no streetlights.

The killer pulled his vehicle over onto the shoulder and then tossed the container into the bushes.

Jackson and her daughter are the only known Black Gilgo Beach victims. Furthermore, Jackson's torso was dumped markedly further west than the rest of the victims, in an area that doesn't seem to have any other connections to the Gilgo case. This is the only known dump site outside of Gilgo or Manorville.

Interestingly, Lakeview is predominantly African American (84.95% in the 2000 US Census). In fact, it has the highest percentage of Black residents on Long Island.

During an interview with the Daily Blu in December 2013, former SCPD Commissioner Richard Dormer said that the Long Island serial killer (LISK) is methodical and puts effort into covering his tracks.

This raises the possibility that he purposely selected this location in an effort to mislead the investigation. In other words, he may have wanted them to believe that this unidentifiable Black female was from Lakeview or that she had been killed by someone who lived there.

Tattoo

Image source: Newsday

Judging by newspaper archives, Peaches Doe's murder didn't garner a huge amount of attention at the time (this was long before it became apparent that Long Island had an unidentified serial killer).

A few newspaper articles were published in the days following the killing. However, they were nowhere near the front page.

For example, the clipping above appeared on page 39 in the July 1st, 1997, edition of Newsday.

The police published a photograph of the victim's tattoo in the local newspaper in the hope that someone would recognize it.

Following this development, LISK started concealing his victims' tattoos—a sign that he may have read this article and learned from his mistake. If this is true, then he was paying close enough attention to see the public appeal.