Who are Tanya Denise Jackson, Gilgo Beach victim No. 3, and Baby Doe?
Tanya Denise Jackson, left, and her 2-year-old daughter Tania Marie Dykes. Credit: NCPD
For years, she was known as "Peaches," with law enforcement displaying a tattoo of a heart-shaped peach on her chest as they sought to identify the woman whose dismembered body was found in two Nassau parks.
Wednesday, the public found out who she was in life.
Tanya Denise Jackson, 26, was identified as a single mother and U.S. Army veteran who served in the Persian Gulf War, worked briefly in a medical office and lived in Brooklyn at the time of her death almost 28 years ago, law enforcement officials who helped solve the mystery said Wednesday.
Investigators with both the Nassau County Police Department and FBI said "tedious work" from multiple agencies gave the Gilgo Beach homicide victims Peaches and Baby Doe their names back, nearly three decades after they were killed.
"Quite simply, this case would still be unknown victims had these partnerships not existed," FBI Assistant Director in Charge Christopher Raia said of the collaboration between Nassau and Suffolk County law enforcement and his agency.
Jackson's dismembered torso was found by a passerby inside a green Rubbermaid container, alongside gold jewelry, a red towel and a floral pillowcase in a wooded area at Hempstead Lake State Park in Lakeview in the summer of 1997.
Jackson had a tattoo on her chest of a heart-shaped peach with a bite taken out and drops coming from it. The woman's severed arms and legs were later recovered in Jones Beach State Park.
The body of Jackson's 2-year-old daughter, Tatiana Marie Dykes, meanwhile, was dumped along Ocean Parkway near Gilgo Beach, likely in mid-1997, police said, although her remains would not be found until April 2011.
Jackson was born on Oct. 22, 1970, in Alabama and is a graduate of W.P. Davidson High School in Mobile, records show.
There are limited details available about Jackson's life and authorities said she was estranged from much of her family, who did not report her missing. Efforts to reach Jackson's relatives Wednesday were not successful.
Jackson was a signal support system specialist who served in the Army from July 1993 through February 1995 at three military installations: Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio, Texas, Fort Gordon in Augusta, Georgia, and Fort Leonard Wood in the Missouri Ozarks. She also served in the Gulf War, records show.
Christopher Surridge, an Army spokesperson, said Jackson left the military with the rank of private first class and obtained several awards including the Army Service Ribbon and National Defense Service Medal.
Details about Jackson's post-military life are incomplete but property records show she briefly lived in San Antonio, Texas, and at several addresses in Brooklyn beginning in 1996 and drove a black 1991 Geo Storm.
Texas Department of Health records show Tatiana was born in the city of Bexar on March 17, 1995.
The toddler's father was identified in records as Andrew Dykes, now 66, of Ruskin, Florida. The couple were not married and did not live together at the time of the deaths, police said.
Efforts by Newsday to reach Dykes on Wednesday were not successful.
Det. Capt. Stephen Fitzpatrick, commanding officer of Nassau police department's Homicide Squad, said the child's father has been questioned by detectives and is cooperating with the investigation. He declined to say if the father is a suspect in the slayings.
Jackson was employed as a medical assistant at a doctor's office while living in Brooklyn, Fitzpatrick said. A female friend or neighbor, he said, would watch Tatiana while Jackson was working.
The remains of both Jackson and Tatiana were recently buried at Alabama State Veterans Memorial Cemetery at Spanish Fort with military honors, records show.
Douglas Mathie, director of Horton-Mathie Funeral Home in Greenport, said he took the remains of mother and daughter and helped facilitate their return to Alabama. There was no funeral, he said.
With Grant Parpan
Robert Brodsky is a breaking news reporter who has worked at Newsday since 2011. He is a Queens College and American University alum.
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