Cops say Gilgo tips emerging

Suffolk police said last night detectives investigating the Gilgo homicides have received 19 new tips to follow up on since a news conference a day earlier revealing new details about the unsolved slayings.

Seventeen of those tips came in by phone; two came through the web, a police spokesman said.

At the news conference Tuesday, police released two sketches of unidentified victims found in April near Gilgo Beach, both of whom police believe may have worked as prostitutes before their grisly deaths: an Asian man found in women's clothing and a woman whose remains had also been found in 2000 in Manorville.

The Asian man and the white woman are among 10 people who have been found slain on Jones Island. The earliest known homicide connected to the case dates back more than 15 years: a head found in Nassau County was connected to a plastic bag with legs found near Fire Island in 1996.

There is a $25,000 reward for information in the case. Police Commissioner Richard Dormer said at the news conference that since the December discovery of the initial four slain prostitutes, the department had received about 1,200 tips.