The site where Tanya Denise Jackson was found

This is the location where Tanya Denise Jackson was found.

It is situated in Hempstead Lake State Park, off Lake Drive in Lakeview, New York.

The coordinates are: 40.67284, -73.64772.

Jackson, 26, and her two-year-old daughter, Tatiana Marie Dykes, were murdered in June 1997.

For years, it was believed their deaths were linked to the Gilgo Beach serial killer case. However, that changed in December 2025, when Tatiana's father, Andrew Dykes, was charged with Jackson's murder.

Discovery

On June 28, 1997, the Department of Environmental Conservation hosted a children's fishing clinic at McDonald Pond in Rockville Centre.

Among those attending that Saturday were Lynbrook resident Shel Basch, his daughter, a family friend, and his friend's children.

At around 1 p.m., the group left the clinic and began walking north along one of the nearby trails. As they passed this section of Lake Drive, Basch noticed an odor coming from the woods on his left.

After walking into the treeline to investigate, he spotted a large plastic container surrounded by flies.

Suspecting that something dead was inside, he notified one of the DEC officers at the fishing clinic. When they returned to the scene, the officer tore open the plastic bag and saw the left side of a human torso.

Peaches Doe

When investigators arrived, they found a green Rubbermaid tote lying on a slope just inside the treeline.

Inside the container was the torso of a woman who had been partially concealed by a black plastic bag. Her head, hands, and lower legs were missing.

The medical examiner estimated the victim was a Black or mixed-race woman between 16 and 30 years old. She had a tattoo of a peach on her left breast and a six-inch abdominal scar, possibly from a C-section or another surgical procedure.

It was estimated that she had been dead for less than three days, which placed her murder between Wednesday, June 25, and Friday, June 27, 1997.

The police later released a photograph of the victim's tattoo in an attempt to identify her, but the photo failed to generate any credible leads.

Consequently, the case went cold.

Gilgo Beach case

In December 2010, the authorities uncovered the skeletal remains of four women near Gilgo Beach on Jones Beach Island.

The following spring, they launched an extensive search of the brush along Ocean Parkway.

On April 4, 2011, the search team located the skeletal remains of a female toddler near Overlook Beach. The child's killer had wrapped her body in a blanket and placed her in the thicket.

Approximately 250 feet away, they also found the skull, hands, and lower leg of an adult woman.

Initially, investigators presumed that the two sets of remains belonged to a mother and child. DNA analysis, however, revealed they were unrelated.

One week later, the police uncovered another set of skeletal arms and legs in a plastic bag near Jones Beach State Park, at a site roughly eight miles west of Overlook Beach.

The remains matched Peaches Doe, whose torso had been dumped in Hempstead Lake State Park 13 years earlier. Further DNA testing also confirmed she was the mother of the toddler found near Overlook Beach.

Despite this development, both victims remained unidentified. For the next 14 years, the mother and child were known only as Peaches and Baby Doe.

The killer went to great lengths to hinder their identification.

Peaches' remains were dumped at two locations roughly 14 miles apart. She was also separated from her child.

Her skull was never recovered, suggesting that the killer used a fourth disposal site following the murders.

Between December 2010 and April 2011, the search operation discovered the remains of ten people in the bushes off Ocean Parkway.

The majority of the victims were sex workers who vanished between 1996 and 2010. Like Peaches, three of them had been dismembered and dumped at multiple locations.

Due to their proximity, the timeline, and the manner in which they were found, investigators initially believed they were the work of a single offender.

Identification

In 2020, the Nassau County Police Department partnered with the FBI, which began using genetic genealogy to track down the identities of Peaches and Baby Doe.

On October 7, 2022, the FBI issued a public appeal that included a photograph of Peaches' tattoo and asked relatives of a man named Elijah "Lige" Howard to come forward.

Soon after, investigators identified Tanya Denise Jackson and Tatiana Marie Dykes as possible matches. In 2023, they confirmed their identities by conducting DNA tests with their relatives.

Tanya Jackson and Tatiana Dykes

On April 23, 2025, the Nassau County Police Department announced at a press conference that Peaches and Baby Doe had been identified as Tanya Denise Jackson and Tatiana Dykes.

Jackson was born on October 22, 1970, in Mobile, Alabama. She graduated from W.P. Davidson High School in May 1990.

She served in the U.S. Army from 1993 to 1995 and was deployed to the Persian Gulf. Following her deployment, she lived at various military installations around the United States.

Jackson met a medical sergeant named Andrew Dykes while she was stationed at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio, Texas. Dykes was a medical instructor who was married with two sons.

Jackson became pregnant with his child in 1994.

Their daughter, Tatiana Marie, was born on March 17, 1995, in Bexar County, Texas.

Dykes' wife, Joyce, did not learn about his affair until the night of Tatiana's birth.

Brooklyn

Dykes reportedly continued his extramarital affair with Jackson, but she wanted more from the relationship.

Shortly after Tatiana's birth, he transferred to the Fort Hamilton base in Brooklyn.

Wanting a life with him, Jackson moved to New York and found work in a doctor's office.

At the time of their murders, Jackson and her daughter were living in an apartment in the Sunset Park neighborhood of Brooklyn.

Dykes lived with his wife and two sons at an apartment on Sterling Drive at Fort Hamilton.

Jackson's disappearance went unnoticed because she was largely estranged from her family in Alabama.

Andrew Dykes' arrest

On December 3, 2025, the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office in Florida arrested Dykes at his home on Glenn Cross Drive in Ruskin.

The 66-year-old was taken into custody on a murder warrant issued by the Nassau County District Attorney.

Police say Dykes was linked to the crime after his DNA matched semen recovered from a vaginal swab of Jackson's remains.

During the 1990s, he worked as an operating room technician and anatomy instructor. Prosecutors contend that he used his medical knowledge to dismember Jackson's remains.

Nassau County District Attorney Anne T. Donnelly said there was insufficient evidence to charge him with Tatiana's murder.

Dykes is a native of Dawson, Georgia. After leaving the military in 2001, he moved to Nashville, Tennessee, where he worked as a corrections officer and a Tennessee Highway Patrol trooper. Later, he became a security guard for the state Department of Labor.

Dykes formally waived extradition on December 8, 2025. He pleaded not guilty to Jackson's murder on December 18.