http://topics.wsj.com/article/SB20001424052748704694004576020014107458084.html
What started as a routine weekend training run for a police dog named Blue has become a top-priority search for a possible serial killer in Long Island.
Having found the skeletal remains or cadavers of four people in a quarter-mile stretch of brush off the shoulder of Ocean Parkway near the town of Babylon over the previous three days, police closed down the roadway and searched all day Tuesday for more possible victims. The operation started at sunup and was stopped around 5 p.m. No more bodies were found, according to Suffolk Police Commissioner Richard Dormer.
Because of the proximity of the bodies, police are working under the assumption the suspicious deaths are connected, he said. "Having four bodies that appear to be dumped in the same area would lead us to believe that it was done by the same person or persons," Mr. Dormer said.
The first body was found on Saturday by Officer John Mallia, of the Suffolk County Police Department's canine unit, and his German shepherd named Blue while searching brush along Ocean Parkway between Cedar Beach and Gilgo Beach around 2:45 p.m.
Mr. Mallia was training the dog and chose to search the area because it is relatively close to the last place a New Jersey woman was reportedly seen before disappearing.
The missing-person report Mr. Mallia was following up on described how on May 1 a 24-year-old prostitute from Jersey City named Shannon Gilbert disappeared after being driven by a man acting as her pimp and bodyguard to meet a client she met through her advertisement on Craigslist. They were supposed to meet on Fire Island.
Detectives have since spoken with the pimp and the client, said Mr. Dormer. He declined to comment when asked if the men have been ruled out as suspects.
On the location of Saturday's search, Mr. Mallia said, "I was just trying to pick spots and I happened to get lucky." His subsequent search for more evidence was cut short Saturday by darkness and delayed all day Sunday by heavy rains.
As the medical examiner worked to identify the skeletal remains of what police said was a woman, on Monday Mr. Mallia and Blue returned to the beach-area looking for more evidence in that case. He said he didn't expect to find more bodies.
In brush between Ocean Parkway and Giglo Beach, about 500 feet from where the skeletal remains were found on Saturday, a decomposing body was discovered. Two other skeletons were subsequently detected by Blue not far from that body.
The bodies all appeared to be there a minimum of a month and some might have been there for as long as two years, police said.
Mr. Dormer said it appears the bodies could have been thrown from a vehicle.
Authorities haven't made any identifications yet, including determining if one of the bodies is Ms. Gilbert.
Ms. Gilbert was arrested on prostitution charges in an undercover sting operation conducted by the Hoboken Police in June 2009 while working for a now-defunct escort service called Lace Party Girls. One of her aliases was "Sabrina," according to police reports. Efforts on Tuesday to reach Ms. Gilbert's relatives in upstate New York and Brooklyn were unsuccessful.
Mr. Mallia said that nothing in the more than 20 years he has worked with cadaver-detecting dogs, like Blue, compared with the past couple of days. "This is a once in a lifetime thing," he said. "Hopefully, I will never have to got through this again."
