Possible break in probe of prostitute killings
Bodies were found during search for missing former Ellenville woman
Ten bodies were found during the search for a former Ellenville woman who went missing in mid-2010.
A carpenter who recently was convicted of murdering two prostitutes in the 1990s may be responsible for at least one of the 10 unsolved killings of people whose bodies were found in recent years along a Long Island beach highway, a prosecutor said Tuesday.
Those bodies were found during the search for a missing former Ellenville woman.
Suffolk County Assistant District Attorney Robert Biancavilla made the stunning revelation Tuesday following the sentencing of 51-year-old John Bittrolff.
Bittrolff, of Manorville, received consecutive sentences of 25 years to life in prison for the beating deaths of two prostitutes. A jury deliberated for seven days before convicting him in May. Bittrolff denied killing the women and said he intends to appeal.
The nude bodies of 31-year-old Rita Tangredi and 20-year-old Colleen McNamee were found 9 miles apart in late 1993 and early 1994. Both women had been strangled and suffered severe head injuries. Testimony during the trial revealed the women were drug addicts and prostitutes.
Bittrolff was arrested in 2014 after DNA evidence linked him to the victims.
Police on Long Island still are investigating the unsolved killings of 10 victims of an apparent serial killer or killers. The bodies were found with a couple of miles of one another, and several of the victims have been identified as prostitutes. Until Tuesday, no suspects had been identified in any of the deaths.
But Biancavilla said after Tuesday’s sentencing that remains of some victims found along Gilgo Beach “may be attributed to the handiwork of Mr. Bittrolff.” He said the investigation was ongoing.
A spokesman for the Suffolk County Police Department said detectives do not comment about ongoing investigations, and Bittrolff’s attorney did not immediately return a call for comment.
A prostitute and former Ellenville resident named Shannan Gilbert was found dead on Long Island in December 2011, some 19 months after she vanished in the wake of fleeing from a sex client’s home. Gilbert’s family has maintained Shannan’s death was connected to the other 10, but investigators disagree.
The search for Shannan Gilbert led to the discovery of the other people who had been killed. Eight of the 10 were women, and at least three of the women were prostitutes, authorities have said.
Gilbert’s mother, Mari, was fatally stabbed in July 2016 in Ellenville by another daughter, Sarra.
Sarra Gilbert mounted an insanity defense but was convicted of second-degree murder in April 2017. She was sentenced in August to 25 years to life in state prison.