Craigslist Ripper
Craigslist Ripper (also known as Long Island Ripper or Long Island Killer , LISK for short) is the pseudonym of an unknown serial killer who is believed to have killed at least eleven people since 1996. The previous victims were found between December 2010 and December 2011 in the marshland on Long Island in the US state of New York . Among them are a man and a small child. The name Craigslist Ripper is due to the fact that several of the prostitutes killed advertised their services on the Craigslist Internet platform . A bounty of US $ 25,000 was placed on the murderer or killers.
timeline
Police officer and dog handler John Mallia found the first remains of a corpse on December 11, 2010 between Cedar Beach and Gilgo Beach when he was on Long Island for training purposes with his police dog "Blue". Two days later, three more bodies were found off a road that leads to Jones Beach on Long Island. These were the bodies of Melissa Barthelemy (24), Maureen Brainard-Barnes (25) and Amber Lynn Costello (27), who were officially identified by the authorities in January 2011. The remains of the four victims, wrapped in sackcloth, were each about 150 meters apart.
In March and April 2011, after extensive searches, another six remains of bodies were found. Among them was the body of Jessica Taylor (20). The remains of another woman, an Asian man in women's clothes and those of a one to two year old child have not yet been identified. The police assume that these murders precede the bodies found in December 2010 and may possibly be the work of a second serial killer.
The police are also investigating whether there is a link to a streak of prostitute murders in Atlantic City , New Jersey, in 2006. It was then that the bodies of prostitutes Kimberly Raffo, Barbra Breidor, Tracy Ann Roberts and Molly Jean Dilts were found. If there is a connection, the total number of victims to date is 15.
The authorities assume that the perpetrator could be an active or former police officer. The reason for this is that Melissa Barthelemy's 16-year-old sister Amanda received several strange calls after the crime (presumably from the perpetrator). These calls were dropped every three minutes, so it seemed to the caller that it would take the police between three and five minutes to trace a call. In addition, there could be several perpetrators.
In early April 2011, Albuquerque Police Department announced that they were investigating possible links with the West Mesa Bone Collector , another series of serial killings in the US state of New Mexico .
In mid-April 2011, the New York pimp Akeem Cruz's laptop was confiscated by the police. Although he was linked to the victim Megan Waterman (22), he is excluded as a perpetrator. He is currently in custody in Maine, USA, on a drug offense.
On December 12, 2011, the day before a planned memorial service for the bereaved at the scene, the police found another body. She was provisionally identified by investigators as 24-year-old Shannan Gilbert, who had been missing since May 1, 2010.
On December 10, 2015, the Police Commissioner of Suffolk County, Tim Sini, announced that the FBI had officially joined the investigation. The previous day, his predecessor James Burke, who resigned in October, had been charged with alleged police brutality and other problems. He is said to have blocked the FBI's involvement in the LISK cases for years. The FBI had previously been involved in the search for victims but was never officially involved in the investigation.
On September 12, 2017, the Suffolk County District Attorney announced that John Bittrolff, a carpenter from Manorville, Long Island, was convicted in May 2017 and convicted of the murder of two prostitutes in September 1993. He was a suspect in at least one of the LISK murders in 1994 and had been linked to the 1990s murders through DNA. The investigators of the LISK murders did not comment on this due to the ongoing investigation.
Victim
The first victim was Maureen Brainard-Barnes, 25, who was last seen alive in Manhattan on July 9, 2007. Almost exactly two years later to the day, 24-year-old Melissa Barthelemy disappeared. The 27-year-old Amber Lynn Costello disappeared without a trace in early September 2010. Another body was identified in January 2011 as that of 22-year-old Megan Waterman, who had been missing since June 2010.
When a human skull was found right next to a street on February 10, 2011 and another corpse on March 29, 2011, the authorities prompted the search area to be extended by eleven kilometers. In a further expansion of the search by 25 kilometers along the streets, six more corpses have so far been recovered in the entire search area, although these have not yet been identified. Two of these victims are a man and a child, assuming these two did not fall victim to the Craigslist ripper.
It is now believed that some of the bodies could be attributed to serial killer Joel Rifkin . Rifkin, who confessed to killing 17 prostitutes in 1993, testified that he had disappeared some bodies on Long Island. Three of them were never found. A source from investigative circles described the discovery of the bones as follows:
“These [bones] are so old that roots were growing around the vertebrae and the skull. These could be one or two of Joel Rifkin's victims who were never found, or the work of another killer. "
“These [bones] were so old that roots grew around the vertebrae and skull. It could be one or two of Joel Rifkin's victims who were never found, or the work of another murderer. "
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c New corpse find on Long Island: Cold trace of the dune killer - SPIEGEL ONLINE - Nachrichten - Panorama
- ^ Twelfth victim of the Long Island Ripper is a child | Irish News | IrishCentral
- ↑ a b 8 Sets Of Remains Recovered From Beach ( Memento from April 7, 2011 in the Internet Archive )
- ^ Police Say Slain Women Worked as Prostitutes
- ^ Body found in New York is ID'd as Maine woman - The Boston Globe
- ↑ a b c Could it be 13? Craigslist Ripper police now looking at four unsolved murders in Atlantic City | Mail online
- ↑ One person positively identified from Gilgo Beach remains - Long Island Headlines | Examiner.com
- ↑ Latest Remains Found On NY Beach Could Be Victims Of Another Long Island Serial Killer | Fox News
- ^ Corpse finds on Long Island: police overturn theory of lone perpetrators - SPIEGEL ONLINE - Nachrichten - Panorama
- ↑ Craigslist Ripper: New theory that he 'may be a cop' | Mail online
- ↑ a b c d Long Island serial killer: Pimp Akeem Cruz's computer seized in 'Craigslist ripper' hunt | Mail online
- ↑ Unearthed bodies in NY could reopen West Mesa murders case | KOB.com
- ↑ corpse finds of Long Iceland: New York investigators hunt the dunes Killer - SPIEGEL ONLINE - News -