MAMARONECK, N.Y. (PIX11) – A senior investigator from the Mamaroneck Police Department reached out to the Gilgo Homicides Task Force in Suffolk County this week, asking if murder suspect Rex Heuermann might have a connection to an unidentified murder victim known as “Cherries.”
“Maybe there’s some trophy that links our victim to him,” Lt. P.J. Trujillo told PIX11 News.
A black suitcase carrying a woman’s remains floated up on a beach in Mamaroneck, located in Westchester County, on March 3, 2007. The brand of the suitcase was InGear Protege, which was sold only at Walmart. The bag also contained a velvety red camisole, a long-sleeved t-shirt, and purple Champion sweatpants.
The victim had a tattoo of two cherries on a stem above her right breast.
On March 21, 2007, a fisherman found the woman’s right leg and a foot on the rocks of Cold Spring Harbor, which is located on Suffolk County’s North Shore across the Long Island Sound from Mamaroneck.
The next day, a groundskeeper at the North Shore estate of Madison Square Garden owner James Dolan discovered the same victim’s left leg on the shoreline in Cove Neck, which is located in Nassau County.
Mamaroneck Police — after consulting with Suffolk County investigators — believe the body parts and black suitcase may have been dumped on Long Island’s North Shore and a heavy storm pushed the bag across the Long Island Sound to Mamaroneck.
Heuermann, a 59-year-old architect from Massapequa Park on Long Island’s South Shore, was charged with three murders in the Gilgo Beach investigation on July 14. He is accused of dumping three women, bound in camouflage burlap, in the brush off Ocean Parkway in Gilgo Beach between 2009 and 2010. He’s also the prime suspect in the death of a fourth victim, Maureen Brainard-Barnes, who was last seen alive in 2007.
Heuermann has denied all of the allegations and pleaded not guilty to the charges.
The Mamaroneck Police investigator said it’s possible the accused serial killer could have started using Long Island’s North Shore as a dumping ground, noting, “We know he would go duck hunting, maybe leave at 5 a.m.”
At least three Jane Does have turned up on Long Island’s North Shore during the time the alleged Gilgo killer is believed to have operated.
On Nov. 10, 2001, hikers found a woman’s skeleton in the Muttontown Nature Preserve in Nassau County. The body had been there between one to five years, leaving open the possibility that this Jane Doe could have been the victim of serial killer Robert Schulman, a Hicksville postal worker who was captured in 1996 and lived 3 miles south of the preserve.
Schulman was convicted of five murders and died in prison.
“Cherries” Doe was discovered in March 2007.
Then, on Jan. 21, 2013, the skeleton of an Asian female was found in a plastic bag near a beach in Lattingtown, also on the North Shore. The victim was wearing a 22-carat gold pig on a necklace around her neck, leading investigators to believe she was born in the “Year of the Pig.” Detectives believed the woman was left on the beach before Superstorm Sandy in 2012. The bag was partially buried in the sand and roots from a tree were growing into it.
The 2013 case got more attention, as reporters and investigators wondered if the Gilgo Beach serial killer had found a new spot to leave victims.
Because the three women remain unidentified, investigators don’t know the people they associated with or their last movements in life.
The Mamaroneck Police Department submitted DNA retrieved from “Cherries” Doe to a federal lab last year.
“The DNA samples for the torso and legs were given to the FBI for genetic genealogy testing,” Lt. Trujillo said. “You have to find out who this person was.”
The Suffolk County Police Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment regarding the Mamaroneck Police Department’s inquiry about “Cherries” Doe.
