Mum and daughter murdered nearly 30 years ago are finally identified (2025)

The identities of two victims who were killed in a mysterious beach attack have been revealed 27 years later.

Jane Doe No 3, also referred to as Peaches, was named as US Army veteran Tanya Denise Jackson, 26, in the Gilgo Beach serial killings.

Nassau County officials during a press conference in Long Island on Wednesday also identified Jackson’s two-year-old daughter as Tatiana Marie Dykes.

The identifications of the mother and daughter were made previously, but not disclosed in light of the ongoing investigation. Officials speaking from Mineola said that Jackson, who had a peach tattoo, was a black woman.

Jackson’s dismembered torso was discovered inside a Rubbermaid container at Hempstead Lake State Park in Lakeview, New York, in 1997.

Tatiana’s skeletal remains were found in 2011 near Ocean Parkway. It was not until five years later that the girl was linked to her mother through examining DNA.

Jackson was a single mother from Alabama and was living in Brooklyn, where she was believed to be employed at a doctor’s office. She had served in military bases in Texas, Georgia and Missouri from 1993 to 1995.

Suspected Gilgo Beach serial killer Rex Heuermann has not been charged in connection with Jackson and her daughter’s deaths. Heuermann has been charged with murdering seven women from 1993 to 2010 in Long Island.

Officials said the ‘are not discounting’ that the murders of Jackson and her daughter could be not related to the cases Heuermann was allegedly responsible for. Heuermannhas pleaded not guilty to all charges against him.

Nassau County Homicide Detective Captain Stephen Fitzpatrick told the Daily Mail: ‘I am not say it is Rex Heuermann and I am not saying it is not. We are proceeding that it is not and keeping our eyes wide open.

‘I am not saying it is him. I am not saying it is not him.’

A $25,000 reward is being offered for information leading to Jackson and her daughter’s killer.

Jackson and her daughter were publicly identified more than a year-and-a-half after officials identified Gilgo Beach victim ‘Fire Island Jane Doe’ as Karen Vergata, 34, of Manhattan.

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