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Remains of a young mother and her child found decades later long Island – The victims were once believed to be possibly linked to gilgo beach murders – A Florida Man has been accused of their murder.
Andrew Dykes, 66, of Tampa, was arrested on two counts of murder on warrants from New York in connection with the 1997 deaths of 26-year-old Tanya Jackson and her two-year-old daughter Tatiana Dykes, law enforcement sources told multiple news outlets. Dykes is believed to be the child’s biological father.
The deaths of Jackson and Tatiana have been shrouded in mystery since the discovery of Jackson’s torso in June 1997, stuffed inside a green Rubbermaid container abandoned in a wooded part of Hempstead Lake State Park on Long Island. He was dismembered and decapitated.
Her daughter’s remains were found near several victims in the investigation of the Gilgo Beach massacre on Ocean Parkway in April 2011, leading to speculation for many years that mother and daughter were linked to that case.
Investigators said the girl was likely murdered in the same manner as her mother.
For years, Jackson was known only as “Peaches” because of the tattoo of a bitten peach on her chest. Their daughter became known as “Baby Doe”.
Earlier this year, with the help of advanced DNA technology, both mother and daughter were finally identified.
Investigators said Jackson, a U.S. Army veteran and single mother, was living in Brooklyn and working as a medical assistant at the time of her disappearance.
Born in Alabama, she had ties to Georgia, Texas, and Missouri. Records show that Tatiana was born in Texas in 1995, when both parents were serving in the military.
Date. Capt. Stephen Fitzpatrick said in April that Dykes, listed as her father on Tatiana’s birth records, had been questioned before and that he was cooperating with investigators at the time. He did not disclose whether Dykes was then considered a suspect.
The mother and daughter were identified in April amid ongoing court proceedings for Manhattan architect Rex Heuerman, who was arrested in connection with a string of murders at Gilgo Beach in 2023 and later charged with the murders of seven women. He has pleaded not guilty.
Heuerman was never charged in the deaths of Jackson or her daughter.
Since late 2010, police have been investigating the deaths of at least 10 people – mostly female sex workers – whose remains were found in the area where the child was found.
Despite those proximity-based theories, Suffolk authorities have said the murders of Jackson and her daughter were separate from the Gilgo case.
Dykes was arrested in Florida on Wednesday, just hours after the grand jury handed up the indictment, and is being held in the Hillsborough County Jail on a fugitive warrant pending extradition.
During his initial appearance in Hillsborough County Court on Thursday, Dykes told the judge: “I would like to go to New York to defend myself.”
Court documents indicate that Dykes fled to New York after the murders. Authorities have not disclosed the evidence that led to the indictment, nor clarified the relationship between Dykes and Jackson beyond sharing a last name and a child.
Mother and daughter were buried earlier this year at the Alabama State Veterans Memorial Cemetery in Spanish Fort.
Nassau County Police and the FBI did not immediately respond to requests for comment.