A decade after the discovery of 11 bodies near Gilgo Beach sparked the search for one of America’s most elusive serial killers, a Long Island district attorney’s office turned its attention to an aging former police officer.
the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office analyzed old cellphone data to home in on a shrinking list of suspects who had lived in one sleepy neighborhood not far from the shore — chief among them the former officer, whose initials matched those on a belt used to bind one of the victims. By 2021, excitement grew among prosecutors that they were on the verge of finally closing the case.
Among current and former elected officials and investigators in this affluent, insular county of 1.
Shannan Gilbert, 23, was last seen alive by residents of the gated Long Island community of Oak Beach, having fled screaming from the house of a man who was paying for her sexual services.
“It just raises questions about the adequacy of the initial investigation, and whether a full-court press was done,” Eugene O’Donnell, a professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice and former NYPD officer and New York City prosecutor, said of the lost statements. He said it cast doubt on whether the victims “received the kind of investigation that they deserved.”In 2012, James Burke took over as chief of the 2,500-officer police department — and inherited the Gilgo Beach case.
According to the bail application, the four women Heuermann is accused of murdering each had contact with a person using an unregistered, or “burner,” phone shortly before their disappearances. In 2011, before Burke became chief, the federal agent started an analysis of related cell-site records, Tierney said. That report, completed in 2012, first suggested that the killer lived in Massapequa Park and commuted to Midtown Manhattan.
Sini attempted to reinvolve the FBI in the case. His office recruited experts in technical investigations and bought expensive, Former law enforcement officials aligned with Sini said that homicide detectives failed to perform basic investigative tasks to reduce the pool of potential suspects. One former official said that when prosecutors pushed the homicide squad to produce long-requested dossiers on the residents in the area where they were focused, the detectives gave them a couple of recent printouts from a law enforcement search program.
Law enforcement officials said that a homicide supervisor finally removed Portela after the supervisor was threatened with demotion by his own higher-ups.The break that led to Heuermann’s arrest came quickly after Tierney took office last year. He assigned a task force from four law enforcement agencies, who conducted a “comprehensive review of every item of evidence and information in this investigation,” according to the bail application.
But two current law enforcement officials with direct knowledge of the case against Heuermann said that investigative findings from Sini’s tenure played no significant role in finding him. They said the case against Heuermann consisted of the old witness statements leading them to him, the FBI cell data
in January detailing his administration’s use of cell-site data. Tierney’s office responded by sending out letters to dozens of former law enforcement officials in the case — including Sini — ordering them not to discuss confidential information.
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