She could possibly be No. 12.
There must be a extra thorough probe into the 2013 suicide of Queens girl Natasha Jugo, argued onetime prosecutor Raymond Zuppa, who believes she was murdered by the Lengthy Island Serial Killer.
“Given the geographical location, in addition to present and historic occasions … I consider the investigation into this matter needs to be reopened and competently investigated,” Zuppa acknowledged in a petition filed Wednesday in Manhattan Supreme Court docket that names the NYPD and Commissioner Jessica Tisch as defendants. “The realm of the prevalence is notorious.”
Zuppa instructed The Submit Friday he’d wish to see cops take a contemporary take a look at the case, significantly within the wake of accused Gilgo Seashore killer Rex Heuermann‘s 2023 arrest.
“That is Gilgo,” Zuppa mentioned, stopping simply wanting saying Jugo was a sufferer of the serial killer.
“I wouldn’t rule it out, it makes extra sense,” the “semi-retired” prosecutor added. “However they don’t need this to be a homicide. It was dominated a suicide on Could 2, 2013 — with out a physique.”
Jugo, 31, a identified schizophrenic, was final seen leaving her Bayside, Queens, residence the afternoon of March 16, 2013; she’d been despatched to a close-by pharmacy to choose up a prescription for her sickly father.
The following day, a lady strolling alongside Tobay Seashore in Massapequa discovered Jugo’s purse and a few clothes, and referred to as 911.
The NYPD and police from Suffolk and Nassau counties responded and situated Jugo’s 2009 Prius parked alongside the shoulder on Ocean Parkway. In addition they mentioned footprints main from the automobile to the surf had been discovered on the scene.
Gilgo Seashore is situated in Suffolk County, however not removed from the county line.
Her physique was finally found on June 24, 2013, little greater than three miles away washed ashore on Gilgo Seashore.
Zuppa, who relies in Lengthy Island, doesn’t consider Jugo drove half-hour from her dwelling to commit suicide by strolling into the Atlantic, and as a substitute thinks there’s a hyperlink between her demise and Heuermann‘s alleged victims.
Heuermann, 61, has been charged with the murders of seven of the 11 folks investigators discovered alongside Ocean Parkway close to Gilgo Seashore in Suffolk County between December 2010 and April 2011. Investigators have mentioned DNA proof straight hyperlinks the architect to the serial killings.
“Strolling into the Gilgo Surf as much as her head after which inhaling the ocean water would have been an excruciatingly painful manner for Ms. Jugo to commit suicide,” reads the petition, which argued footprints couldn’t have been discovered on the seaside because of the shifting tides.
“Ms. Jugo would have entered the water at low tide,” Zuppa reasoned in his petition. “The footprints would
have been washed away. And the clothes allegedly discarded on the water’s edge when Ms. Jugo
entered the water would have been out within the Atlantic.”
Zuppa’s petition additionally famous Jugo’s physique “confirmed no indicators of trauma,” making it simply identifiable to the cops at Gilgo — they notified her household inside hours.
“The interactions between currents, waves, and the seabed creates a considerable amount of seen trauma to a human physique when the physique is on the seabed for a chronic interval,” he wrote. “Moreover, sea creatures resembling fish and crabs feed on human our bodies, turning mentioned our bodies into bones.”
Zuppa had been making an attempt since 2023 to acquire the case information from three completely different companies. What he did obtain confirmed discrepancies in what Jugo was discovered carrying between the Nassau County investigator’s account — the place she was clad in denims, a bra and shirt over her head — and the one written by Suffolk County detectives, who discovered her with a bra solely.
He additionally claimed {a partially} redacted photograph from the crime scene confirmed the presence of a rope “round both the decedent’s legs, waist, or neck.”
Of the seven Gilgo victims Heuermann’s been charged with killing, 4 had been found sure with belts or tape.
“She floated ashore proper throughout the road from the place the Gilgo 4 had been discovered,” Zuppa added. “Two years later, is that this Rex? Did he seize her and maintain her for a protracted time period?”
Heuermann has entered not responsible pleas to the seven murders he’s alleged to have dedicated.
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