Craigslist is key to finding Long Island serial killer says top Irish cop

Another body has been found in the search for victims of ther Long Island Ripper as the search for a New York serial killer continues.

The police investigation, headed by Irish-born Police Commissioner Richard Dormer, is continuing on Long Island, moving into Nassau County in the hope of finding more physical evidence to nab the serial killer who is believed to have taken at least 12 lives.

ABC News quoted police sources as saying they have several suspects, most of them local and some connected to law enforcement in the killings.

The latest body parts found may be of one or two victims as a skull was discovered some distance away.

Commissioner Dormer said that while waiting for the forensics on the bodies they are focusing on a "common denominator," the reality that the first four women all advertised on Craigslist.

"Suffice it to say we're checking into any contacts [the identified victims have had] over the last years and months. Technology certainly is something we're looking into," said Dormer.

"If the killer was stupid enough to use his own IP address, as in his own laptop or computer, then eventually they'll catch him," Kevin Perham, a retired New York Police Department inspector who served as head of the department's Crime Scene Unit told the Wall Street Journal.

Police now believe that the murderer who has become known as the 'Long Island Ripper' and the 'Craiglist Killer' is connected to four murders in Atlantic City, in 2006 and nine murders in Long Island.
As the search continuespolice are hoping the sick phone calls received by one of the victims sisters could be shed some light on the killings.

Just days after the disappearance of Melissa Barthelemy (24) from Maine on July 10, 2009, six calls were made from her cell phone to her 16-year-old sister. New York police have been able to pinpoint the phone call to midtown Manhattan. Unfortunately the caller did not stay on the line long enough to be traced.

When the 16-year-old girl answered the phone the man said "Is this Melissa's little sister?" a man asked.

"Yes," replied the 16-year-old girl.

"Do you know what your sister is doing?...She's a whore."

Melissa went missing from her Bronx apartment in New York on July 10, 2009. She had not told her family that she had been turning tricks on Craigslist to pay the bills for more than a year. She had told her mother that she was working as an exotic dancer.

This phone call the new information about Melissa's profession shed some light on the psyche of the predator that has choked to dead up to 12 prostitutes in the last five years.

Although the police have no strong leads they have been observing a Long Island resident closely for the last couple of days.

Megan Waterman also used Craigslist to sell her services. When she went to work she would drop her four-year-old daughter with her grandparents and borrow her friend's Ford Explorer or catch the bus from Maine to Long Island.

She was being pimped out by her boyfriend Akeem Cruz aka 'Vibe'. He would accompany her to the Holiday Inn Express in Hauppauge and visit his family nearby. She was last seen on June 5, 2009 leaving the hotel. Her body was the first to be identified from the remains found near Gilgo Beach.
'Vibe' is not a suspect but has not cooperated. Three weeks ago his laptop was seized.

Maureen Brainard-Barnes got the train from Connecticut to Long Island with friends on July 9 2007. That night she called a friend from the New York Port Authority Bus Terminal. She was upset and said she had been robbed of the money that she earned that day. She told her friend she was coming home. She never made it.

Amber Lynn Costello (27) vanished on September 2 2010. Costello from North Caroline was a drug addict. She moved to North Babylon last year after a divorce cause her to spiral further into drug and alcohol abuse.

Since December 11, 2010 the police have found eight bodies. They were initially looking for Shannan Gilbert, a prostitute who was spotted in the area and reported missing in May 1. She has not been located. All four of the women found in December worked as prostitutes and advertised on Craigslist.

They were all buried and wrapped in burlap.

In a search at the end of March four other bodies were discovered. A source told Newsday that there are big discrepancies between the first four bodies and these four. It has also been revealed that they believe one of this group of four is an infant.

The last four victims have not been identified.

In 2006 the bodies of Barbara Breidor (42), Molly Jean Dilts (20) Kim Raffao (35) and Tracy Ann Roberts (23) were found floating face down in a drainage ditch behind the Golden Key Motel in West Atlantic City. Their murderer was never found.

All of these women worked as prostitutes. Two of the women were strangled while the other two had been in the water for too long for a cause of death to be established.

Although the police have still not found a substantial connection between the eight bodies found on Long Island and those four found in 2006 in Atlantic City locals are once again feeling that fear of a killer on the loose.

Felix Hutchinson (30) drives a rickshaw along the Atlantic City boardwalk. He told Newsday "It's something that haunts people…It's something that a lot of the girls are aware of. They know this guys is on loose."

Hutchinson said that many of the women working the streets use the rickshaws, taking a break from walking the streets. The prostitutes working in Atlantic City have upped their security especially when returning to the area around the Golden Key Motel.