Prosecutors Identify Human Remains Found in 2011 Near Gilgo Beach

A skull that was found in 2011 near Gilgo Beach on Long Island has been identified as that of a troubled 34-year-old woman who went missing in 1996 and whose family had little contact with her before she disappeared, according to the authorities and relatives.

The death of the woman, Karen Vergata, has not been linked to Rex Heuermann, a Long Island architect who last month pleaded not guilty to killing three women whose bodies were found along the beach. Mr. Heuermann, 59, is the prime suspect in the death of a fourth woman. The authorities on Friday did not name a suspect in Ms. Vergata’s death.

The skull of Ms. Vergata, who investigators said had worked as an escort, was discovered on Tobay Beach around the same time that investigators discovered the remains of 10 other people along the stretch of the South Shore that includes nearby Gilgo Beach. Ms. Vergata’s legs had been found in Davis Park on Fire Island in April 1996, according to officials. For years, she was known as “Fire Island Jane Doe” as the police worked to identify her.

In August 2022, about six months after a task force was formed to solve the killings, officials developed a DNA profile from the remains. In October, the F.B.I. confirmed they were hers, thanks to genetic material from a relative who provided a sample.

Raymond A. Tierney, Suffolk County’s district attorney, said on Friday that “the necessary notifications” had been made to Ms. Vergata’s family.

“We’re going to continue to work this particular case as we did the Gilgo Four investigation,” said Mr. Tierney, who declined to take questions and did not say how Ms. Vergata died.

Ms. Vergata was last seen alive on Valentine’s Day 1996 and had lived on West 45th Street in Manhattan, Mr. Tierney said. No missing persons report was filed when she disappeared.

That April, her legs were found in a black trash bag, according to Othram, a forensic DNA and genetic genealogy firm that helped the F.B.I. and the Suffolk County Police Department identify the remains.

Before her disappearance, Ms. Vergata would call her father, Dominic Vergata, periodically, according to a petition he filed in 2017 in New York Surrogate’s Court, which hears cases concerning wills, the administration of estates and trust proceedings. Mr. Vergata, who said he was trying to collect two insurance policies on his daughter’s life, filed the petition to declare her dead.

Mr. Vergata said in the filing that he had last heard from his daughter in February 1996 when she called him on his birthday.

He added that he had hired an investigator and contacted law enforcement agencies and Ms. Vergata’s acquaintances, but that “her absence cannot be satisfactorily explained.”

Mr. Vergata died on Dec. 22, 2022, and his obituary described his daughter as “the late Karen Vergata.”

Ms. Vergata was born and raised in Glen Head on Long Island and attended North Shore High School, said her stepsister, Brenda Breen. Ms. Vergata’s mother died in 1977, according to an obituary. Her father married Ms. Breen’s mother in 1983, a wedding Ms. Vergata attended alone.

Ms. Vergata was a quiet woman who would go long stretches of time without calling her family, Ms. Breen said.

Between 1991 and 1995, Ms. Vergata was arrested more than a dozen times in Manhattan, Queens and Brooklyn, most often for possession of drugs, prostitution and loitering for the purposes of prostitution, according to her criminal record.

After she vanished, her father rarely spoke of her, though he kept her photographs, Ms. Breen said on Friday.

“He couldn’t talk about it,” she said.

Ms. Breen said the police had come to her home a few days earlier and reported the identification of Ms. Vergata’s remains to Ms. Breen’s mother.

“It really wasn’t shocking, OK?” Ms. Breen said. “I’m glad that she’s found.”

On Friday, officials displayed an undated picture of a young Ms. Vergata that showed her dark hair in two ponytails tied with red ribbons.

The killings near Gilgo Beach have drawn international attention and throngs of tourists and curious onlookers to Mr. Heuermann’s ramshackle house in Massapequa Park, where neighbors said they long avoided the architect, who rarely greeted them and kept his home in disarray, a stark contrast to the well-manicured houses around it.

Prosecutors in court this week turned over evidence to Mr. Heuermann’s lawyers, including the autopsy reports of Amber Lynn Costello, 27; Melissa Barthelemy, 24; and Megan Waterman, 22. Mr. Heuermann was charged last month with three counts of first-degree murder and three counts of second-degree murder in their deaths.

He is the prime suspect in the death of the fourth woman, Maureen Brainard-Barnes, 25, who went missing in July 2007.

Like Ms. Vergata, Ms. Costello, Ms. Waterman, Ms. Barthelemy and Ms. Brainard-Barnes all worked as escorts, and their bodies were found close together.

Susan C. Beachy contributed research.