'It's just not possible,' says son of man charged with murder of Gilgo Beach victim

A son of the Florida man arrested in the 1997 killing of a woman whose remains were found close to their toddler child near Gilgo Beach said his father says he is innocent as he awaits extradition to face a murder charge in Nassau County.

Aundrey Dykes, 43, of Orlando, Florida, told Newsday his father, Andrew, is a loving dad and retired Army veteran and Tennessee state trooper whose family was aware of his relationship with the woman he is now accused of killing and the child they shared.

Andrew Dykes, 66, of Ruskin, has been held in Hillsborough County since his Dec. 3 arrest in the killing of Tanya Denise Jackson, whose scattered remains were found first in Hempstead State Park in Lakeview in June 1997 and off Ocean Parkway near Jones Beach in April 2011. A Florida judge on Monday approved Dykes’ signed waiver of extradition, court records show.

“None of it makes sense,” Dykes said of his father’s arrest. “He’s a teddy bear, my dad. It's just not possible. I can't even imagine something like this being done by him.”

Aundrey Dykes said he spoke with his father while in custody on Monday and Tuesday; Newsday has been unable to find an attorney representing Andrew Dykes.

“He said that he feels like they've been wanting to arrest him ever since they talked to him [more than a year ago],” Dykes said. “They’re just trying to see if something sticks.”

Nassau police officials and the Nassau District Attorney’s Office have declined to comment on the indictment while the arraignment is pending.

Texas birth records show Andrew Dykes is the father of Tatiana Marie Dykes, who police have said was 2 years old when she and Jackson were killed, their remains dumped miles apart from each other in Nassau and Suffolk counties. A law enforcement source said Dykes has not been indicted in the killing of the toddler.

Aundrey Dykes said he was contacted by an investigator the day after his father’s arrest.

“[The detective] said there was DNA at the scene and that he was 100% certain that my dad committed the murders,” the son said.

Andrew Dykes was at home cooking dinner when police arrived to make an arrest more than a year after they first contacted him in connection with the case, his son said.

For more than a decade, the identities of the mother and daughter were unknown to investigators in both Nassau and Suffolk counties but their familial connection to each other was established through DNA analysis.

They were often referred to as “Peaches,” due to a tattoo on the mother’s torso, and “Toddler Doe” before the FBI made a rough identification of the mother and daughter in 2022 and obtained further DNA in 2023, Nassau police announced in April.

Jackson and Tatiana have often been associated with the Gilgo Beach serial killings case due Tatiana’s remains being found in close proximity to the remains to six alleged victims of Rex A. Heuermann, 62, of Massapequa Park. Tatiana was located about 700 yards from alleged Heuermann victim Valerie Mack and more than 4 miles from her mother, records show.

Jackson was 26 when she died, a veteran of the Gulf War originally from Mobile, Alabama, officials said. She had been living in Brooklyn with her daughter at the time of her disappearance and was largely estranged from her family, Nassau police previously said. She was not reported missing at the time.

Dykes said his father denies any involvement in the killings and is holding out hope he will ultimately be acquitted.

“He just said as long as there's one person on the jury that's a good person and they're honest, that he'd be OK,” the son said.

Dykes said investigators questioned him a year ago, about two months after first approaching his father. They asked if he knew he had a sister who was killed. They also brought up his father’s relationship with a different woman he has a daughter with, suggesting the two affairs overlapped in 1997.

Dykes said his father and Jackson shared posts at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio, Texas, while both serving in the Army. He said his mother, Joyce Dykes, learned of his father’s relationship with Jackson at the hospital on the night Tatiana was born.

Dykes said the Army was also aware of the relationship and Tatiana was covered by his father’s military health insurance.

“The whole narrative that my dad was trying to, or he killed her to keep it from my mother is not true, because my mother obviously knew,” Dykes said. “The military knew.”

Dykes described his father, a native of Dawson, Georgia, as an “active parent” who “raised two good men.” He said his father also maintains a relationship with his other daughter, keeping a bedroom for her at his Tampa-area home where he otherwise lives alone.

Records show Andrew Dykes retired from military service in 2001 after more than two decades in the Army. He then moved to Nashville, Tennessee and worked in state government for nearly 15 years, according to the Tennessee Department of Human Resources. Dykes was first hired in a corrections position before serving nearly five years as a state trooper with the Tennessee Highway Patrol and more than eight years in a security position with the Department of Labor, state records show.

Aundrey Dykes said his parents separated several years ago though their divorce was never finalized after his mother was diagnosed with dementia. The couple was married in October 1978, according to Georgia state marriage records.

Dykes said he did not know what happened to Jackson or Tatiana before police approaching him last year, but that he sometimes wondered about his sister and once reached out on social media to a woman he thought might be her, receiving no response. He hadn’t heard of the Gilgo Beach serial killer investigation until he happened upon a Netflix documentary earlier this year, he said.

Dykes said it “bothered” him to hear police suggest his father was a “liar.” 

“There were no secrets when it came to my dad,” he continued. “He just was bad at being faithful in a marriage, but that's not a crime. It's morally wrong, but it's just not a crime.”

Newsday's Janon Fisher contributed to this story.