The surprises are not over yet in the Gilgo Beach murder case which becomes ever more complex as new details emerge.
John Ray, an attorney who has been fighting for the victims of the Gilgo Beach killer and their families, has announced a public symposium to be held Tuesday from 3:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. at the St. Louise De Marillac Hall Auditorium at St. John’s University in Queens.
Ray said he will discuss “newly uncovered evidence”, and “new victims will attend and speak”.
The attorney has been accumulating evidence over the past 13 years, including that which he has acquired over the past few months since his press conference with former Suffolk Police Commissioner Rodney Harrison in October.
Harrison announced in November that he would be resigning from the position, four months after the arrest of Rex Heuermann, the suspect in the Gilgo Beach killings and just weeks after the press conference with Ray.
In October, when Ray held the press conference to announce that new evidence had been uncovered that could link Heuermann to two other women whose remains were found, he unleashed a feud with Suffolk County District Attorney Ray Tierney who blasted the press conference in a statement: “Without providing any advance notice to the prosecutors pursuing this case in court or the Gilgo Beach Homicide Task Force members investigating these murders day in and day out, we watched today’s press conference not knowing what was going to be reported. We will continue to investigate this case through the grand jury process and not through press conferences. No private attorneys are or have ever been members or agents of the task force.”
Hinting that Ray had gone rogue in an investigation that was being conducted by official law enforcement teams, he added: “Any citizen who believes that they have relevant evidence regarding the Gilgo Beach investigation should report it to the investigative agencies that comprise the task force. Those agencies are the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office, the Suffolk County Police Department’s Homicide Bureau, Suffolk County Sheriff’s Office, New York State Police, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Any attorneys representing victims or their families, by definition have a conflict of interest and should not be a part of the investigation. Accordingly, private attorneys are not part of the task force and potential witnesses should not be reaching out to a private attorney with an interest in the outcome of the case.”
Ray, who is the attorney for victim Shannan Gilbert’s family, is prepared to summarize all the details of the investigation that has been conducted thus far, and in particular, he will discuss “the second witness”, who according to Ray, was a woman who had a career as a banker by day and worked as a taxi driver at night in Suffolk County. The centerpiece of the presentation will be some 911 tapes that were made when Shannan Gilbert disappeared in 2010.
Ray has also said that he has been fighting for the immediate release to the public of the four 911 tapes.
“I have fought alone, in court for nearly four years to compel SCPD to release the 911 tapes. SCPD has relentlessly stonewalled against me and the public, and refused to release them, even though the State Supreme Court ordered the police to release the tapes to me. SCPD has defied the court,” Ray said at the time.
The symposium is free and open to the public.
