Florida Man Arrested in 1997 NY Mother-Daughter Murders

A 66-year-old Florida man has been arrested in connection with the 1997 murders of a young mother and her toddler daughter, whose remains were once believed to be linked to the Gilgo Beach serial killings on Long Island, New York. Andrew Dykes, a Tampa resident, was taken into custody on December 3 in Hillsborough County on a warrant from Nassau County, New York, and charged with two counts of murder. He is being held without bond as he awaits extradition to New York, where the killings are believed to have occurred.

The victims were identified earlier this year as Tanya Denise Jackson, a 26-year-old U.S. Army veteran of the Gulf War, and her 2-year-old daughter, Tatiana Marie Jackson. Sources familiar with the investigation, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the case involves a sealed indictment, said Dykes is Tatiana's biological father. Jackson, originally from Mobile, Alabama, had been living in Brooklyn and working as a medical assistant when she disappeared in 1997. Investigators believe she was killed shortly before her dismembered torso was found on June 28 of that year, stuffed in a plastic container in a wooded area of Hempstead Lake State Park in Lakeview,...