Long Island Serial Killer's Victims Are Not Disposable

A serial killer is currently operating on the South Shore of New York's Long Island who has left at least ten dismembered bodies dating back to 1996 on a deserted stretch of beach along Ocean Parkway. It's grisly stuff.

The murders of eight women, one man and a baby are unsolved. Each body was dumped along the beachfront road that runs the length of Gilgo Beach. A few of the victims' dismembered body parts were discovered on Fire Island in Eastern Long Island. Some have speculated that the killer is well versed in law enforcement procedures, while others have speculated that the killing spree is the work of more than one individual.

Still confused by these unsolved murders, I set out to locate an expert. I interviewed Dr. Scott Bonn, a criminologist and professor at Drew University in New Jersey. He is a noted expert in the patterns and causes of crime and deviance with particular focus on serial killers.

“If you have not heard of this predator," Bonn says, "it is probably because he specializes in killing sex workers, including prostitutes he contacts using Craigslist, a classified advertising site on the Internet. The ongoing investigation has received modest media attention and mostly in the New York area. However, if the killer was not focusing on marginalized members of society—that is, mostly female sex workers—this case would be a national media phenomenon."

My question is how does anyone get away for so many years with one murder after the other without being caught? Are there other bodies yet to be unearthed or linked to these unsolved cases? Does the Long Island area hold importance or significance to the killer? I am reminded of something Sheryl McCollum, director at the Cold Case Investigative Research Institute, regularly says: “A killer will always go where they are familiar.”

Of the ten bodies or sets of remains found since late 2010, the four discovered in December 2010 have been identified as missing prostitutes who all advertised their services on Craigslist. Each had been strangled and their bodies wrapped in burlap bags. According to the medical examiner, all are believed to have been killed in another location and then taken to Long Island where they were buried. Victims' whose remains have been identified so far are" Maureen Brainard-Barnes, 25; Melissa Barthelemy, 24; Megan Waterman, 22; Amber Lynn Costello, 27; and Jessica Taylor, 20.

The four sets of remains discovered on March 29 and April 4 were all within two miles and to the east of those found in December. They included two women, a man, and a toddler related to one of the sets of remains. A skull and a partial set of remains were found on April 11 after the search expanded into Nassau County.They were found about one mile apart, approximately five miles west of those found in December of 2010.

Here is my remaining interview with Dr. Scott Bonn:

Susan Murphy-Milano: Why aren't these murders on the national radar?

Dr. Scott Bonn: I am a criminologist specializing in serial homicide and media depictions of perpetrators and their victims, (and) I can state with conviction that female victims of violence and sexual assault, especially when they are identified as sex workers, are generally portrayed in unflattering terms by the news media and sometimes are even blamed for their own victimization. Such negative media depictions are part of a patriarchal and often callous value system in our society which assumes that a murdered sex worker should have known better and was simply "asking for it."

Implicitly the message is that such victims are not really victims at all and, therefore, are not entitled to the normal amount of concern or media attention that a so-called decent person deserves. For example, the reopening of the Natalie Wood cold case decades after her disappearance has garnered far more national media exposure than the Long Island serial killer and his 10 victims.

Murphy-Milano: Just how does one operate as a serial killer?

Dr. Bonn: Significantly, serial killers often select sex workers as their victims precisely because they are marginalized or disvalued members of society. Joel Rifkin, the most prolific serial killer in New York history, who murdered 17 prostitutes in the early 1990s, has stated from his prison cell that he knew his victims’ murders would not generate much initial attention. In fact, Rifkin has said prostitutes are the perfect prey for a serial killer because, first, they are willing to meet strangers alone in isolated settings, and, second, their disappearances can go unreported for weeks or even months since they are often estranged from their families and friends.

Murphy-Milano: Based on each of the 10 crime scenes, who is the serial killer?

Dr. Bonn: Based on my professional experience, I believe that the Long Island serial killer is intelligent, middle-aged, a perfectionist and disarming, perhaps even charming. He is coldly psychopathic and he is evolving—that is, transitioning from a highly meticulous "organized" killer into a more risk-taking "disorganized" killer in terms of his homicidal behavior and practices. The bodies of the killer's first victims—prostitutes whose murders date back as far as 15 years—were deliberately dismembered and scattered to avoid detection. The bodies of the four prostitutes killed more recently (but who were actually found first) were intact and dumped in burlap sacks. Given that his earliest murders went unsolved and even unreported for years, the killer has learned that meticulous dismemberment and disposal of the bodies is unnecessary. Perhaps, too, it did not gratify his emotional needs, which all serial killers have in one form or another.  This is a patient but brutal and unremorseful power and control killer who is becoming more daring over time.His increased risk taking intensifies the excitement that he experiences through his killings. Like an addict, he needs progressively more of the drug to achieve the same high.

Moreover, this serial killer may be transient and perhaps a seasonal (summer) visitor to the South Shore beaches of Long Island. I suggest this because all of the prostitute victims identified were reported missing between Memorial Day and Labor Day. This is not really surprising. Two of the characteristics of organized, psychopathic serial killers are repetitious, compulsive or cyclical behavior and the ability to blend back into their seemingly normal lives between killings.

Murphy-Milano: Can there be any prospect more frightening than that of a careful and compulsive sexual killer who is compelled to murder and absolutely will not stop until he is apprehended?

Dr. Bonn: Although it seems unlikely given the apparent lack of progress made by law enforcement, let’s hope that he is apprehended quickly and before another innocent life is taken. Although this killer disposes of his victims like garbage, and despite the fact that they may be sex workers, these victims are real human beings who are entitled to all of the compassion and sensitivity that society and the media lavish on so-called decent folks. No one is disposable.

To know that the person responsible is still free, living among us, yet to be apprehended sends chills down my spine. The Long island serial killer is a dangerous predator scoping out his next move literally as I prepare this article. As Dr. Bonn states, “No one is disposable.”

Scott Bonn is currently writing a book on the public’s fascination with serial killers, and he is the author of the critically acclaimed book Mass Deception: Moral Panic and the U.S. War on Iraq.  You can follow him on Twitter at @DocBonn.


Susan Murphy Milano is a nationally recognized intimate partner violence prevention specialist, with over 20 years work in the field, an author and radio host. A defende...