The first public sign that a missing East Patchogue teen had been found played out over a police radio shortly after 11:45 a.m. on Jan. 3, 25 days after she disappeared.
“Do you have the girl and the father there as well?” a Suffolk police dispatcher can be heard asking an officer in a transmission of the call archived on broadcastify.com. “I got a call that she was going to be there.”
Seconds later, the officer responded with the radio code investigators were waiting to hear: “10-4.”
“They’re here,” the officer said. “On a boat.”
“We can’t lose her,” another officer chimed in a short time later, before a detective asked the responding officer to secure the scene, according to the recording.
In the four weeks since, authorities have begun to lay out a chilling sequence of events for the 14-year-old girl. Her accused captors moved her between several homes and a luxury boat as they offered her for sexual encounters in exchange for drugs and money. She was never more than 25 miles from home. To date, Suffolk police have arrested eight people in connection with her disappearance, and it is unclear if more arrests are to come.
The court filings show that investigators believe the teen, who Suffolk police had said was last seen at her home at 5 p.m. on Dec. 9, was held in four different South Shore hamlets before she was ultimately found on a 56-foot boat docked at White Cap Marina in Islip.
Four men have been charged with kidnapping and two women are accused of child sex trafficking for allegedly soliciting the teen for sex in exchange for drugs and money, court records show. Six men have been charged with rape in connection with the case, according to the criminal complaints.
Newsday is not naming the girl because she is a minor and an alleged victim of a sex crime.
Federal authorities rank Long Island among the top 20 destinations in the country for sex trafficking because it is a transportation hub and sex workers are highly mobile. Authorities have seen a sharp increase in sex trafficking in recent years. Fueled by the opioid epidemic and facilitated by social media, traffickers have moved the business largely online — dramatically increasing their profits with little fear of arrest.
The problem is so significant on Long Island that Suffolk County opened the state’s first court focused on children who have been or are being trafficked. The new court followed Newsday reporting on bureaucratic obstacles that block state-mandated services for sex trafficking victims, particularly children.
“Most of the adults I work with started when they were very young,” said Feride Castillo, director of programming and education for ECLI-VIBES, a nonprofit that works with victims of sex trafficking.
A combination of factors makes certain children vulnerable. Often, they have a weak family foundation, substance abuse in the home and have been victims of childhood sex abuse, she said.
Suffolk County District Attorney Ray Tierney has said he is limited in what he can say about cases involving minors. He has declined to discuss the specific individuals involved in the 14-year-old's case, saying a grand jury indictment will be unveiled soon.
"I can tell you that if people think that they could engage in this type of behavior with regard to a child and not have ramifications, well, we'll see what the grand jury thinks about that," Tierney said earlier this month.
The following is a timeline based on court records and arraignments that show the girl's movements during the 25 days she was missing.
The girl was picked up from her house in a car driven by Alton Harrell, 35, who is alleged to have taken her to an abandoned house on Doane Avenue in Bellport, where he is accused of having sex with her, court records show.
Prosecutors allege Harrell held the teen for 24 hours at the house, where they allege she was “not likely to be found and her parents did not give her permission to be with the defendant nor know where she was,” according to a transcript of his arraignment on charges of second-degree kidnapping, second-degree rape and endangering the welfare of a child.
Harrell’s court-appointed attorney, Jeremy Scileppi, of Commack, denied the charges, saying his client, who prosecutors described as an "acquaintance" of the teen, has cooperated with Suffolk police detectives since they first questioned him Dec. 15, according to the arraignment transcript.
"I don’t think the kidnapping case stands on all four legs," Scileppi told the judge at arraignment.
Scileppi said his client advised the teen to go home, according to the transcript.
Distance from home: 3.5 miles east
The next location the court records show the teen being is two blocks west of Doane Avenue, on Michigan Avenue in Bellport with 20-year-old Kevin McDonald, of Medford.
Charging documents do not make clear how she ended up in a new location with a different person, but McDonald allegedly smoked marijuana and had sex with the girl in the back seat of a 1998 Honda Accord between 5 and 6 p.m. A criminal complaint has charged him with second-degree rape and endangering the welfare of a child.
After that, McDonald drove her to a motel in Bohemia, prosecutors said in court.
McDonald’s court-appointed defense attorney, Richard Kaufman, of Port Jefferson, said he believes the allegations “merit further investigation.”
Distance from home: 8.4 miles west
Prosecutors allege the girl spent the next several days at locations in Bohemia and Islip.
Daniel Burke, 63, is accused of abducting the teen and holding her in his mobile home on Valley Forge Drive in Bohemia for “more than 12 hours” between the evenings of Dec. 10 and Dec. 13.
A criminal complaint charged him with first-degree kidnapping, second-degree rape and endangering the welfare of a child.
The teen is also alleged to have been held in a detached garage behind a home on Monell Avenue in Islip during the same time period.
A resident of the house, Robert Eccleston, is accused of having sex with the teen twice. He is charged with second-degree kidnapping, second-degree rape and endangering the welfare of a child.
Attorneys for Burke and Eccleston, who have both denied the charges, have declined to comment.
Distance from home: 14.2 miles west
Court records show the teen spent much of the final three weeks of her disappearance less than a mile from Eccleston’s house in a 56-foot 1988 Ocean Alexander boat owned by Francis Buckheit, 64, of East Islip. He has been charged with first-degree kidnapping and second-degree rape in connection with her disappearance.
Buckheit, the first person charged in the case, is alleged to have kept the teen behind netting covering the hull of his boat, which law enforcement sources said was in poor condition, at the Main Street marina until she was found the morning of Jan. 3.
Prosecutors told the judge at Buckheit’s arraignment that investigators believe he intended to take the teen by boat "to the Carolinas," according to a transcript of his Jan. 4 arraignment obtained by Newsday.
Buckheit's court-appointed defense attorney, Danielle Papa, has denied the charges, telling Newsday her client provided the teen with a phone and clothing while she was on the boat.
"There’s more to this particular story than what’s been reported," Papa said following a Jan. 8 court conference on Buckheit’s case.
Elizabeth Hunter, 34, of Islip, is alleged to have spent a week on the boat with the teen from Dec. 13 through Dec. 20, court papers show.
While on the boat, Hunter is accused of taking nude and sexually explicit photographs of the girl to "advertise [her] for commercial sex" in exchange for drugs and money, prosecutors said at her arraignment. Court records allege those photos were "taken and sent" to "various individuals," but it is not stated how those images were distributed.
Hunter was charged with child sex trafficking, promoting a sexual performance by a child and endangering the welfare of a child. Hunter is also listed as a witness in the criminal complaints charging Buckheit, Burke and Eccleston.
Hunter’s court-appointed attorney, Joseph Hanshe, of Sayville, said his client denies the allegations and they "intend to vigorously defend against [the charges]."
Distance from home: 14.3 miles west
Jacquelyn Comiskey, 52, of Bellport, is also charged with child sex trafficking and endangering the welfare of the child in connection with the missing teen. She is alleged to have taken the girl to a home on Jervis Avenue in Copiague between 5 and 6 p.m. on Jan. 2, hours before she was discovered back on the boat. Comiskey is alleged to have traded the teen to a resident of the Copiague home for crack cocaine.
The Copiague man, Bunice Knight, 47, was arrested Jan. 13 and charged with rape and three counts of criminal sale of a controlled substance.
Attorneys for Comiskey and Knight have said their clients deny the allegations.
Suffolk County District Court Judge Alonzo Jacobs, who handled Knight’s arraignment, called the allegations contained in statements shared with the court "shocking to the conscience," according to a transcript of the proceeding.
Distance from home: 24.2 miles west
Suffolk police, in an effort to find the teen, included information about her on three different social media posts about missing persons in Suffolk County beginning Dec. 16.
Some of the other teens whose photos appeared alongside her have not yet been found, including a 15-year-old girl from Huntington Station whose missing poster has been shared by police every week since. This past week, police also shared a poster of a 16-year-old Lindenhurst girl who was last seen in July.
But as the police radio chatter on the morning of Jan. 3 showed, sometimes an officer is able to confirm "they're here."
Nine hours later, court records show, police made the first arrest in the case.
With Sandra Peddie
The first public sign that a missing East Patchogue teen had been found played out over a police radio shortly after 11:45 a.m. on Jan. 3, 25 days after she disappeared.
“Do you have the girl and the father there as well?” a Suffolk police dispatcher can be heard asking an officer in a transmission of the call archived on broadcastify.com. “I got a call that she was going to be there.”
Seconds later, the officer responded with the radio code investigators were waiting to hear: “10-4.”
“They’re here,” the officer said. “On a boat.”
“We can’t lose her,” another officer chimed in a short time later, before a detective asked the responding officer to secure the scene, according to the recording.
In the four weeks since, authorities have begun to lay out a chilling sequence of events for the 14-year-old girl. Her accused captors moved her between several homes and a luxury boat as they offered her for sexual encounters in exchange for drugs and money. She was never more than 25 miles from home. To date, Suffolk police have arrested eight people in connection with her disappearance, and it is unclear if more arrests are to come.
The court filings show that investigators believe the teen, who Suffolk police had said was last seen at her home at 5 p.m. on Dec. 9, was held in four different South Shore hamlets before she was ultimately found on a 56-foot boat docked at White Cap Marina in Islip.
Four men have been charged with kidnapping and two women are accused of child sex trafficking for allegedly soliciting the teen for sex in exchange for drugs and money, court records show. Six men have been charged with rape in connection with the case, according to the criminal complaints.
Newsday is not naming the girl because she is a minor and an alleged victim of a sex crime.
Federal authorities rank Long Island among the top 20 destinations in the country for sex trafficking because it is a transportation hub and sex workers are highly mobile. Authorities have seen a sharp increase in sex trafficking in recent years. Fueled by the opioid epidemic and facilitated by social media, traffickers have moved the business largely online — dramatically increasing their profits with little fear of arrest.
Suffolk County District Attorney Ray Tierney inside the Suffolk County office building in Hauppauge. Credit: Newsday/Steve Pfost
The problem is so significant on Long Island that Suffolk County opened the state’s first court focused on children who have been or are being trafficked. The new court followed Newsday reporting on bureaucratic obstacles that block state-mandated services for sex trafficking victims, particularly children.
“Most of the adults I work with started when they were very young,” said Feride Castillo, director of programming and education for ECLI-VIBES, a nonprofit that works with victims of sex trafficking.
A combination of factors makes certain children vulnerable. Often, they have a weak family foundation, substance abuse in the home and have been victims of childhood sex abuse, she said.
Suffolk County District Attorney Ray Tierney has said he is limited in what he can say about cases involving minors. He has declined to discuss the specific individuals involved in the 14-year-old's case, saying a grand jury indictment will be unveiled soon.
"I can tell you that if people think that they could engage in this type of behavior with regard to a child and not have ramifications, well, we'll see what the grand jury thinks about that," Tierney said earlier this month.
The following is a timeline based on court records and arraignments that show the girl's movements during the 25 days she was missing.
5 p.m., Dec. 9
The girl was picked up from her house in a car driven by Alton Harrell, right, who is alleged to have taken her to an abandoned house on Doane Avenue in Bellport, left, where he is accused of having sex with her, court records show. Credit: Tom Lambui; Suffolk County Sheriff
The girl was picked up from her house in a car driven by Alton Harrell, 35, who is alleged to have taken her to an abandoned house on Doane Avenue in Bellport, where he is accused of having sex with her, court records show.
Prosecutors allege Harrell held the teen for 24 hours at the house, where they allege she was “not likely to be found and her parents did not give her permission to be with the defendant nor know where she was,” according to a transcript of his arraignment on charges of second-degree kidnapping, second-degree rape and endangering the welfare of a child.
Harrell’s court-appointed attorney, Jeremy Scileppi, of Commack, denied the charges, saying his client, who prosecutors described as an "acquaintance" of the teen, has cooperated with Suffolk police detectives since they first questioned him Dec. 15, according to the arraignment transcript.
"I don’t think the kidnapping case stands on all four legs," Scileppi told the judge at arraignment.
Scileppi said his client advised the teen to go home, according to the transcript.
Distance from home: 3.5 miles east
5 p.m., Dec. 10
The next location the court records show the teen being is two blocks west of Doane Avenue, on Michigan Avenue in Bellport with 20-year-old Kevin McDonald, of Medford.
Prosecutors say Kevin McDonald, right, allegedly smoked marijuana and had sex with the girl in the back seat of a 1998 Honda Accord on Michigan Avenue in Bellport on Dec. 10, and then took her to a Bohemia motel. Credit: Dean Dusharme
Charging documents do not make clear how she ended up in a new location with a different person, but McDonald allegedly smoked marijuana and had sex with the girl in the back seat of a 1998 Honda Accord between 5 and 6 p.m. A criminal complaint has charged him with second-degree rape and endangering the welfare of a child.
After that, McDonald drove her to a motel in Bohemia, prosecutors said in court.
McDonald’s court-appointed defense attorney, Richard Kaufman, of Port Jefferson, said he believes the allegations “merit further investigation.”
Distance from home: 8.4 miles west
6 p.m., Dec. 10
Daniel Burke, of Bohemia, who allegedly kept the teen at his mobile home, was charged with kidnapping. Credit: Suffolk County Sheriff
Prosecutors allege the girl spent the next several days at locations in Bohemia and Islip.
Daniel Burke, 63, is accused of abducting the teen and holding her in his mobile home on Valley Forge Drive in Bohemia for “more than 12 hours” between the evenings of Dec. 10 and Dec. 13.
A criminal complaint charged him with first-degree kidnapping, second-degree rape and endangering the welfare of a child.
The teen is also alleged to have been held in a detached garage behind a home on Monell Avenue in Islip during the same time period.
A resident of the house, Robert Eccleston, is accused of having sex with the teen twice. He is charged with second-degree kidnapping, second-degree rape and endangering the welfare of a child.
Attorneys for Burke and Eccleston, who have both denied the charges, have declined to comment.
Distance from home: 14.2 miles west
Midnight, Dec. 13
Court records show the teen spent much of the final three weeks of her disappearance less than a mile from Eccleston’s house in a 56-foot 1988 Ocean Alexander boat owned by Francis Buckheit, 64, of East Islip. He has been charged with first-degree kidnapping and second-degree rape in connection with her disappearance.
The teenager was found on a boat in a canal outside White Cap Fish Market in Islip. Credit: John Roca
Buckheit, the first person charged in the case, is alleged to have kept the teen behind netting covering the hull of his boat, which law enforcement sources said was in poor condition, at the Main Street marina until she was found the morning of Jan. 3.
Prosecutors told the judge at Buckheit’s arraignment that investigators believe he intended to take the teen by boat "to the Carolinas," according to a transcript of his Jan. 4 arraignment obtained by Newsday.
Buckheit's court-appointed defense attorney, Danielle Papa, has denied the charges, telling Newsday her client provided the teen with a phone and clothing while she was on the boat.
"There’s more to this particular story than what’s been reported," Papa said following a Jan. 8 court conference on Buckheit’s case.
Elizabeth Hunter at First District in Central Islip as she signs a stay away order from the victim. Credit: Newsday/James Carbone
Elizabeth Hunter, 34, of Islip, is alleged to have spent a week on the boat with the teen from Dec. 13 through Dec. 20, court papers show.
While on the boat, Hunter is accused of taking nude and sexually explicit photographs of the girl to "advertise [her] for commercial sex" in exchange for drugs and money, prosecutors said at her arraignment. Court records allege those photos were "taken and sent" to "various individuals," but it is not stated how those images were distributed.
Hunter was charged with child sex trafficking, promoting a sexual performance by a child and endangering the welfare of a child. Hunter is also listed as a witness in the criminal complaints charging Buckheit, Burke and Eccleston.
Hunter’s court-appointed attorney, Joseph Hanshe, of Sayville, said his client denies the allegations and they "intend to vigorously defend against [the charges]."
Distance from home: 14.3 miles west
5 p.m., Jan. 2
Prosecutors allege that Jacquelyn Comiskey, left, brought the teen to this home on Jervis Avenue in Copiague on Jan. 2 and traded the girl to a resident of the home, Bunice Knight, for crack cocaine. Credit: James Carbone; Rick Kopstein
Bunice Knight, of Copaigue, was charged with rape and three counts of criminal sale of a controlled substance. Credit: Suffolk County Sheriff
Jacquelyn Comiskey, 52, of Bellport, is also charged with child sex trafficking and endangering the welfare of the child in connection with the missing teen. She is alleged to have taken the girl to a home on Jervis Avenue in Copiague between 5 and 6 p.m. on Jan. 2, hours before she was discovered back on the boat. Comiskey is alleged to have traded the teen to a resident of the Copiague home for crack cocaine.
The Copiague man, Bunice Knight, 47, was arrested Jan. 13 and charged with rape and three counts of criminal sale of a controlled substance.
Attorneys for Comiskey and Knight have said their clients deny the allegations.
Suffolk County District Court Judge Alonzo Jacobs, who handled Knight’s arraignment, called the allegations contained in statements shared with the court "shocking to the conscience," according to a transcript of the proceeding.
Distance from home: 24.2 miles west
11:30 a.m., Jan. 3
Suffolk police, in an effort to find the teen, included information about her on three different social media posts about missing persons in Suffolk County beginning Dec. 16.
Some of the other teens whose photos appeared alongside her have not yet been found, including a 15-year-old girl from Huntington Station whose missing poster has been shared by police every week since. This past week, police also shared a poster of a 16-year-old Lindenhurst girl who was last seen in July.
But as the police radio chatter on the morning of Jan. 3 showed, sometimes an officer is able to confirm "they're here."
Nine hours later, court records show, police made the first arrest in the case.
With Sandra Peddie
Grant Parpan covers Suffolk County courts and federal courts for Newsday. A Long Island native, he joined Newsday in 2022.
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