Florida man charged with murder in death of long-unidentified Gilgo Beach victim No. 3 or 'Peaches,' according to sources and court records

A Florida man has been arrested and charged with murder in the 1997 killing of Tanya Denise Jackson, the long-unidentified Gilgo Beach victim previously known as "Peaches," whose remains were found in Nassau County within miles of her toddler daughter's, according to sources and court records.

Andrew Dykes, 66, of Tampa, was indicted on a murder charge in Nassau County Wednesday, a source familiar with the investigation told Newsday. He’s being held in the Hillsborough County jail on a fugitive warrant from New York until he's cleared for extradition, records show.

Dykes, the biological father of the toddler whose remains were found, Tatiana Marie Dykes, made an initial appearance in Hillsborough County Court in Florida Thursday, court records show. He was arrested three hours after a grand jury indicted him, a source said.

The Nassau County District Attorney's Office declined to comment on the indictment. Officials with the Nassau County Police Department and FBI did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Jackson, a Gulf War veteran from Mobile, Alabama, was previously known as Gilgo Beach homicide victim Jane Doe No. 3, or "Peaches," whose mutilated torso was discovered in a wooded area at Hempstead Lake State Park in Lakeview on June 28, 1997, officials said at an April news conference in Mineola.

Toddler Tatiana was dumped along Ocean Parkway near Gilgo Beach in Suffolk County around the same time, though her skeletal remains would not be found until April 2011, the Nassau County homicide squad’s commanding officer said in April.

Det. Capt. Stephen Fitzpatrick described Jackson, who was last seen alive just days before the initial discovery of her remains in June 1997, as a single mother who is believed to have worked as a medical assistant.

The FBI made a rough identification of the mother and daughter in 2022, Fitzpatrick said. In 2023, they began to obtain additional DNA information and notified the family last year.

Fitzpatrick said in April that the father of the child, identified in birth records as Dykes, had already been questioned by detectives and was cooperating with the investigation. He declined at the time to say if the father, who did not live with Jackson, was a suspect in the slayings.

Texas Department of Health records show Tatiana was born there to Jackson and Dykes on March 17, 1995. Both parents were members of the Army living in Texas at the time, records show. Dykes moved from Brooklyn in May 2000, according to property records.

Fitzpatrick said because mother and child lived alone and she had a transient background in the Army, a long time passed without her being reported missing.

The remains of the mother and daughter, who were living in Brooklyn at the time they were killed, were buried earlier this year at Alabama State Veterans Memorial Cemetery at Spanish Fort near Mobile, records show.

Nassau police said they had "no clue" who Jackson was when her body, identifiable only by an abdominal scar believed to be from a Caesarean birth and the tattoo of a bitten peach on her chest, was found in a green Rubbermaid container discarded in a wooded area of the park by a man attending a fishing clinic with his young daughter and her friends on June 28, 1997, Newsday reported at the time.

Jackson had been dismembered and decapitated when the man discovered the unclothed remains in a bag inside the container on the west side of Lake Drive, about 200 yards north of Peninsula Boulevard. A day later police said they believed the remains belonged to an 18- to 30-year-old woman.

Suffolk prosecutors working on the Gilgo Beach homicide investigation announced in 2016 that DNA testing done by Nassau police previously established the woman was the mother of the toddler found more than 20 miles away in Suffolk County, closer to where additional skeletal remains of the mom would be found near Jones Beach in Nassau County. A source said Suffolk County law enforcement was not involved in Wednesday’s arrest.

Two gold bracelets were found with Jackson's extremities at Jones Beach, according to a case report shared in a public database, and a 16-inch gold-colored chain and two gold-colored hoop earrings were on her daughter's remains, which were found closer to other sets of human remains at Gilgo Beach. Rex A. Heuermann, 62, of Massapequa Park, has been charged with murder in seven killings, including six women whose remains were found near the toddler in 2010 and 2011. Heuermann has pleaded not guilty to all charges.

Jackson's peach tattoo was possibly made at a studio in Connecticut, police previously said. Sheets found along with the body were likely purchased at an Abraham & Strauss department store, which had locations in Brooklyn and Hempstead that became Macy’s stores shortly before the killings, police said at the time.

The FBI announced in 2022 the mother and daughter were possibly related to a man who died decades earlier in Mobile, Alabama, where police say Jackson was raised.