Fire Island Jane Doe ID’d

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While the investigation to identify Vergata was conducted by the Gilgo Task Force, the DA did not say if Rex Heuermann, the Massapequa Park resident and Manhattan architect charged with the murders of three of the four women whose bodies were found at Gilgo Beach, is suspected of her death.

Heuermann pleaded not guilty to first and seconddegree murder charges in the killings of Megan Waterman, Melissa Barthelemy and Amber Lynn Costello. He is considered a prime suspect in the death of BrainardBarnes, according to police.

Newsday reported that a source familiar with the task force told them that investigators have not been able to link Vergata’s suspected killing to Heuermann, 59.

“We are going to continue to work this particular case, as we did the Gilgo Four investigation,” Tierney said.

The DA said the confidential investigation is ongoing. He would not provide any comment on whether there are any suspects at the time.

Vergata went missing around Feb. 14, 1996 at the age of 34. At the time she was living on West 45th Street in Manhattan and Tierney said officials believe she was working as an escort.

Newsday reported that Vergata’s stepsister, Brenda Breen. said Vergata was raised in Glen Head and attended North Shore High School. Vergata was born in Roslyn, according to court documents.

The newspaper said Vergata underwent struggles as an adult and was incarcerated multiple times. She lost custody of her two sons, according to court documents.

Her father, Dominic Vergata, last heard from his daughter on Feb. 14, 1996 when she called him from prison on his birthday. He had said she seemed “very troubled,” according to Newsday.

Tierney said no missing person complaint was filed at the time of her disappearance. Newsday reported her father attempted to report Vergata as missing, but his request was denied by the NYPD since she was an adult.

Newsday reported that Dominic Vergata hired a private investigator and submitted DNA to the investigator to aid in finding his daughter. Nothing resulted until 27 years after her disappearance when the FBI was able to extract DNA and identify the Jane Doe.

Dominic Vergata died in December before his daughter’s remains were identified.

Breen told Newsday that “it’s nice to have closure.” at which the student has the right to be represented by counsel, to question witnesses who testify against the student, and to present witnesses and other evidence on his or her own behalf.”

At the hearing, the student admitted to walking one of the intruders to a room but said, “If I went anywhere, if I told anybody, if I, you know, escaped from them per se, they might have tried to hurt me later on, like, they had said they would. And they told me to bring him to the locker room. I didn’t go on my own will.”

Thompson said during the hearing that the student’s claim was “not believable.”

Rosa wrote in her ruling that Thompson’s findings are “grounded in unsupported assumptions about what a reasonable student should have done rather than the evidence in the record.”

She also wrote at the end of her ruling that the student was under no legal duty to inform an adult of the non-students presence. And that, “his culpability in this incident was minimal. His escorting of a single non-student under threat of violence pales in comparison to respondent’s inability to prevent, or discover, the unauthorized entry of nine non-students into one of its high schools.”