8 LONGISLANDPRESS.COM • DECEMBER 2020
IN THE NEWS
WEB BRIEFS LI AT A GLANCE
COPS MUM ON MANORVILLE MURDER ID
Seventeen years ago Nov. 10 a mushroom hunter
reported finding in Manorville the remains of
a murder victim who Suffolk County police say
they’ve since identified, but whose name has not
been released, the Press has learned.
The victim’s family asked authorities not to release
the man’s name when he was identified in 2015, but
the case remains an active homicide investigation, a
Suffolk police spokeswoman recently told the Press.
Experts say withholding a murder victim’s name
is rare and will likely make it more difficult for
detectives to find the killer.
“Often the public holds the keys
to these cases,” says Joseph
Giacalone, a retired New
York Police Department
homicide detective who
commanded a cold case
squad in the Bronx.
“Sometimes a photograph,
sometimes a name can jog
someone’s memory.”
The remains were uncovered in a wooded area
about 400 yards south of the Long Island Expressway
near Toppings Path and more than a mile west
of exit 71 in 2003.
-Timothy Bolger
LI’S COHEN CLOSES ON $2.4B METS BUY
Billionaire Long Island native Steve Cohen completed
his purchase of the New York Mets on Nov.
6, closing a $2.4 billion deal with the team’s previous
owners, Fred and Jeff Wilpon, and ushering in a new
era for the Flushing faithful.
“This is a significant milestone in the history of this
storied franchise,” Cohen said upon completion of
the deal, his first official statement as the Mets’ majority
owner. “I want to thank everyone who helped
make this happen. The 2021 season is right around
the corner and we’ve got a lot of work to do, so I’m
excited to get started. Let’s go Mets.”
The deal ends the Wilpons’ 18-year sole ownership
of the city’s National League franchise, and Fred
Wilpon’s 40-year association with the ball club. The
elder Wilpon and Nelson Doubleday had purchased
the Mets back in 1980 for $21.1 million.
-Robert Pozarycki
PECONIC SCALLOP HARVEST A BUST
Baymen who ply the waters off the East End suffered
a major blow to their harvests when most adult
Peconic Bay scallops died off last year and this
harvest season, which started Nov. 2, looks equally
unpromising, experts say.
Concerns are growing over the lack of adult bay
scallops found in Town of Southampton bays.
Biologists from the Cornell Cooperative
Extension (CCE) say that most Peconic
Estuary scallops
died this summer. Rising
water temperatures and a parasite
found in the kidneys of adult and juvenile
scallops are believed to be the cause.
“The discovery of a protozoan parasite in bay
scallops from Peconic Bays represents a significant
threat to this commercially important fishery,”
Commissioner Basil Seggos of the Department of
Environmental Conservation said.
This summer, Dr. Stephen Tettelbach, a shellfish ecologist
from the CCE, and his researchers found similar
indicators of issues that led to the deaths of the previous
scallop population. Surveys conducted showed
that 95 percent of the bay scallops died last year.
-Maia Vines
NYPD COP FROM LI NABBED FOR DRUGS
A New York City police officer from Hauppauge was
among five people arrested Nov. 9 for being part
of an international cocaine trafficking ring that
shipped more than 350 kilos of narcotics into the
nation, federal prosecutors said.
A federal grand jury indicted Amaury Abreu, an
officer assigned to the 113th Precinct in Queens,
on charges of conspiring to import and distribute
cocaine. He was arrested at his home. His attorney
Matthew Galluzzo said he “vehemently denies his
involvement” and pleaded not guilty in Brooklyn
federal court before Judge Sanket J. Bulsara, who
set his bail at $1 million with home detention as a
condition.
“By joining forces with his co-conspirators, Abreu
has allegedly committed serious crimes, disgraced
his NYPD badge, and betrayed the public trust as
well as fellow members of law enforcement who put
their lives on the line to interdict drugs that endanger
our communities,” said Seth D. DuCharme, acting U.S.
Attorney for the Eastern District of New York.
Prosecutors said Abreu and his
accomplices imported multikilogram
quantities of cocaine
into the United States by sending
drug couriers on flights,
through the mail, on tractor trailers
from Mexico, and in produce shipments.
-TB
GILBERT GETS LIFETIME TREATMENT
The unsolved Gilgo Beach serial murders will be
the focus of a made-for-TV movie on Lifetime, the
network announced Nov. 12.
Kim Delaney, who won an Emmy for her role as Detective
Diane Russell on the ABC drama NYPD Blue, will
pay Mari Gilbert in the Lifetime original movie, The
Long Island Serial Killer: A Mother’s Hunt for Justice.
Mari Gilbert is the mother of Shannan Gilbert, whose
disappearance led to the discovery of 10 sets of human
remains along Ocean Parkway a decade ago,
“Mari Gilbert singlehandedly brought closure to
families who never knew what happened to their
missing sisters and daughters,” said executive producer
Deborah Norville, an anchor of TV’s Inside
Edition. “To law enforcement she was ‘just a mom,’
but her tenacity led to the discovery of a serial killer
who may still be roaming free.”
Set to premier in winter 2021 as part of the network’s
“Ripped From The Headlines” series, the movie will
be the second on-screen portrayal of Gilbert’s saga
in two years. In March, actress Amy Ryan of The
Office fame played Mari in the Netflix movie Lost
Girls based on the Robert Kolker book of the same
name that chronicles the lives of the victims.
In the Lifetime version, actress Katharine Isabelle, whose
credits include the series Hannibal, plays Shannan. The
Clark Sisters: First Ladies of Gospel actor Eugene
Clark is cast as private investigator “Herc” Zinneman.
The script is written by John Pielmeier, who previously
penned The Capture of the Green River Killer.
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