{"id":62169,"date":"2025-12-05T20:37:09","date_gmt":"2025-12-05T20:37:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/62169\/"},"modified":"2025-12-05T20:37:09","modified_gmt":"2025-12-05T20:37:09","slug":"florida-man-charged-with-killing-gilgo-beach-victim-peaches-reports","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/62169\/","title":{"rendered":"Florida man charged with killing Gilgo Beach victim ‘Peaches’: reports"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Florida man was arrested for\u00a0the killing of \u201cPeaches,\u201d<\/a>\u00a0the mom whose remains were discovered on Long Island and whose 1997 slaying was long-believed to be tied to the Gilgo Beach serial murders.<\/p>\n

Nassau County Police Department officials on Friday confirmed the arrest of\u00a0Andrew Dykes, 66, who was busted near Tampa on a warrant out of New York Wednesday\u00a0\u2014\u00a0just months after authorities finally identified the victim nicknamed \u201cPeaches\u201d as 26-year-old US Army veteran Tanya Jackson.<\/p>\n

Dykes is the father of Jackson\u2019s\u00a02-year-old daughter,\u00a0Tatiana Marie Dykes, whose scattered remains were found\u00a0in 2011,\u00a0miles away from where her mother\u2019s body parts were discovered,\u00a0law enforcement sources\u00a0told Newsday<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The identities of a dismembered woman dubbed \u201cPeaches\u201d and her 2-year-old daughter were finally revealed by cops on Wednesday as Tanya Denise Jackson and Tatiana Marie Dykes. Dennis A. Clark<\/p>\n

He was indicted on a murder charge by a grand jury and made an initial appearance in Hillsborough County Court in Florida on Thursday,\u00a0court records show.<\/p>\n

The Hillsborough County Sheriff\u2019s Office confirmed that Dykes had been picked up on a fugitive warrant for murder. He was awaiting extradition to New York.<\/p>\n

The Nassau County District Attorney\u2019s Office declined to comment on the arrest when contacted by the Post.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Jackson\u2019s torso was found stuffed into a container in a wooded part of Hempstead Lake State Park in June 1997. For decades, she was only referred to as \u201cPeaches\u201d due to a tattoo of the fruit found on her body.<\/p>\n

Andrew Dykes, 66, was arrested for the murders Wednesday.<\/p>\n

The remains of her daughter, formerly known as \u201cBaby Doe,\u201d were uncovered in 2011 near other bodies found during an investigation into the infamous\u00a0Gilgo Beach<\/a>\u00a0murders.<\/p>\n

Nassau County officials\u00a0identified the mother and daughter<\/a>\u00a0earlier this year,\u00a0using genetic genealogy.<\/p>\n

The Alabama native had been living in Brooklyn and working as a medical assistant at a doctor\u2019s office around the time she vanished, police said.<\/p>\n

Jackson was long dubbed \u201cPeaches\u201d due to a tattoo of the fruit found on her body. Mobile Police Department<\/p>\n

The mother and daughter were long-believed to be linked to the notorious Gilgo murders, in which the remains of at least 10 people \u2014 mainly female sex workers \u2014 were found strewn along a highway not far from the Long Island beach.<\/p>\n

Accused killer Rex Heuermann has been charged with seven murders, including six women whose bodies were found near Tatianna Dykes \u2014 but officials have said they believe the mother-daughter case is separate.<\/p>\n

Accused Gilgo Beach serial killer Rex Heuermann is escorted into the courtroom at Suffolk County Court in Riverhead on Tuesday, April 16, 2025. Newsday<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re not saying it\u2019s [Heuermann], but we\u2019re not saying it\u2019s not him,\u201d Nassau County Homicide Det. Lt. Stephen Fitzpatrick told reporters at an April press conference while announcing Jackson and her daughter\u2019s identities.<\/p>\n

Heuermann, an architect from Massapequa Park, was initially charged in 2023 in the\u00a0deaths of three of the victims<\/a>\u00a0discovered over the years \u2014 including Melissa Barthelemy, Amber Lynn Costello and Megan Waterman.<\/p>\n

While behind bars, he was charged in the deaths of four other women:\u00a0Valerie Mack<\/a>\u00a0in 2000,\u00a0Jessica Taylor<\/a>\u00a0in 2003,\u00a0Maureen Brainard-Barnes<\/a>\u00a0in 2007 and Sandra Costilla in 1993.<\/p>\n

Heuermann, who is scheduled to go to trial sometime next year, has pleaded not guilty to all counts and has maintained his innocence.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Florida man was arrested for\u00a0the killing of \u201cPeaches,\u201d\u00a0the mom whose remains were discovered on Long Island and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":62170,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[33014,33015,776,57,774,9,11,10,104],"class_list":{"0":"post-62169","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-gilgo-beach","9":"tag-gilgo-beach-murders","10":"tag-long-island","11":"tag-metro","12":"tag-nassau-county","13":"tag-new-york","14":"tag-new-york-headlines","15":"tag-new-york-news","16":"tag-police"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62169","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=62169"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62169\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/62170"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=62169"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=62169"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=62169"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}