Megan Waterman: Murder on Gilgo Beach, Part One
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I'm Kristen Sevey. This is Murder, She Told. Megan Waterman was born into a chaotic world on January 18th, 1988.

As an infant, she lived with her mother and father under the same roof. But they weren't romantic partners. They were each other's exes. In fact, her father Greg had his new girlfriend living there too. And their home was the Days Inn in Westbrook, Maine, just outside of Portland, where they rented by the week. Her mom, Lorraine, had just quit her job at Burger King and was collecting welfare, which covered their rent.

Her father and his new girlfriend had just moved in and were providing some financial support. Lorraine already had a boy, Greg Jr., Megan's older brother, a year prior, when she was 20 years old. Lorraine was 21 when she gave birth to Megan. Lorraine slept in the bedroom of the motel with Megan and Greg Jr., while Greg Sr. and Karen slept on the living room floor.

Lorraine thought back on her relationship with Megan's father. She remembered him as an abuser. He remembered that the violence went both ways. Lorraine knew she was drinking a lot of coffee brandy, a main favorite, during that time. When she was eight months pregnant with Megan, they broke up, and Greg Sr. moved out. But not long after giving birth, he showed up with his new girlfriend, Karen, and an offer.

Give us a place to crash and we'll help with the kids. As you might guess, things didn't go well. Lorraine's mother, Muriel, began to hear stories that the kids weren't being cared for. Incidents of inattention, like allowing Greg to toddle near an open oven with heat pouring out, or to eat cereal off the floor or floating around in the family's orbit. But perhaps more serious were the allegations of neglect and recklessness.

One story was that Megan went all day in a dirty diaper. Another was that Greg Sr. was tossing Greg Jr. back and forth with a friend in the living room, and when he spun around quickly, he caught the little boy in the nose on the jam of a door, leaving a highly visible bruise. That's when Muriel started to insert herself into the situation, calling CPS and telling them to look into it.

Lorraine's sister acted in concert with Mariel, feeding the state information. Lorraine kept avoiding the social workers, slipping away on days when they were scheduled for a home visit. Around this time, she took Megan to the hospital for respiratory distress. Apparently, the medical team felt uncomfortable with the situation and alerted CPS, which immediately triggered them to remove the children from Lorraine and Greg Sr.'s care.

Megan and Greg Jr. were placed in emergency foster care. That's when Muriel applied for custody. The foster family was in Naples, Maine, about 45 minutes northwest of Lorraine. She still had visitation rights as the state investigated her fitness as a mother. Muriel would go visit them every Sunday morning, but Lorraine would rarely go. Muriel said that some of Greg Jr.'s first words were, "'Nana coming.'"

Muriel spent more and more time with the kids, sometimes sneaking in an hour or two here and there by rising as early as 3 a.m. to make the commute before starting her own workday at a watch shop. Muriel, who was on good terms with the foster family, got their permission to take the kids for longer stints.

First, a weekend, and then a whole week. This arrangement was unofficial, though. The foster family retained legal control of the kids in the eyes of the state. Lorraine was suspicious of Muriel's intentions. Muriel had benefited from a federal welfare subsidy for more than 20 years, and her youngest child was turning 18, leaving no dependents to claim, jeopardizing her government support.

She suspected that her interest in Meg and Greg Jr. was financially motivated. This crack in the family grew to be a fissure that would estrange them all the way to Megan's sudden death 20 years later. Muriel's application for custody made its way through the courts, but Lorraine and Greg Sr. got an attorney and fought her.

On the day of a crucial court hearing, Muriel took Lorraine aside and gave her an ultimatum. Either sign over parental rights right here, right now, and retain visitation, or draw out this court battle and never see them again. Lorraine and Greg Sr. capitulated, surrendering their parental rights to the state.

The state must have found that Muriel was the best place for the kiddos, and they were transferred permanently from the foster family to her care, and she raised them to adulthood.

Megan and Greg grew up with their nana Muriel as the primary mother figure and her husband Doug as their primary father figure. Their home was a townhouse-style condo for low-income families in the thick of downtown Portland. They spent the 90s as young children with their grandparents in a house that was bustling with activity. Family and friends were constantly coming and going.

As they grew older, they became independent, rebellious, and fearless. When they were 9 and 10, a social worker started coming over, which, for reasons unclear, was required by the state. The first time she met Megan, she was embroiled in a vicious fight with Greg in the kitchen over a piece of toast. Her role was to be a parenting coach. The kids were out of control.

For several years, she met with the children two or three times a week for a few hours each visit. To impress upon Megan the seriousness of the situation, she said that if she didn't participate, she would risk being taken away from Muriel. The social worker tried to rein them in, to bring some discipline and control, but the word she wrote in her notes, most often about Megan, was defiant.

Greg and Megan were only separated by one year and four months. Though they would often fight, Megan was ferociously loyal to Greg. Greg later said, It was just us growing up, so we grew real close to one another. From skating at Happy Wheels to watching Full House and Saved by the Bell before school, we did most everything together. A real funny thing, she got me to play Ken when we were growing up.

She never got me to be Barbie, but I got suckered into being Ken. Megan went to school at Reiki Elementary until fifth grade. In second grade, she was diagnosed with ADHD, which is characterized by hyperactivity, impulsivity, and inattention. Some of the typical symptoms are running around or climbing in situations where it's inappropriate, excessive talking, difficulty waiting for a turn, interrupting or intruding on others.

Other symptoms include difficulty organizing tasks or activities, lack of follow-through, or struggling to listen even when spoken to directly. Her aunt Elizabeth said that Megan would frequently pull pranks. One time Megan pushed a teacher in the pool at Reiki. I think she just wanted to make the other kids laugh. She was always very funny.

In fifth grade, she was transferred to a public school called Prep, which was for kids that one reason or another didn't fit into the typical classes. To her friends, Megan was exciting and unpredictable. To others, she was a wrecking ball that was afraid of nothing and heedless of consequences. In the summer, she would hang out with her friends at the hotel pool near her home.

Megan would boldly flip, dive, and cannonball into the water and dare others to join her. She would run laps around the wet perimeter of the pool and encourage others to as well. One time, when her suit kept slipping, a man on the edge of the pool said, She might as well be naked. Megan took it as a dare. She shed her swimsuit and indulged in some very public skinny dipping. She was 12 years old.

Muriel later said that what she remembered most about Megan was her vivacious nature. She was always so much fun to be with and be around. It was like she just sparkled. She was very strong-willed, and you always knew where you stood with Megan. She never went behind your back. I think that's why she had so many friends, and why so many people cared about her. Because they knew exactly where they stood.

Her cousins remembered her at home, openly defying Muriel. You can't make me was a common refrain. But Megan sometimes took it a step further, threatening her with violence, saying, I'll kill you in your sleep. I'll stab you to death. Muriel both loved and feared her. And Megan would say how she could never survive without Muriel, but then rage against her again.

The family thought that Muriel's inconsistent enforcement of rules and boundaries contributed to the problem. Though they were often strapped for cash, Muriel would always pay her an allowance, even if it were her last five bucks. As Megan was getting ready to enter high school, Muriel and Doug moved the family from downtown Portland to a trailer park in Scarborough, Maine, called Crystal Park Estates.

It was only 20 minutes from the city, but a world away. Gone was the street life and hubbub. The only thing within walking distance was a cemetery and their neighbors. Megan also lost the companionship of her brother. Greg no longer lived with the family, moving between other relatives and group homes before eventually living on his own.

Scarborough, even in 2001 when she moved there, was an affluent suburb of Portland. And compared to the rest of the Tony suburb, Crystal Park had more than its fair share of domestic violence and drug peddling.

Megan still made the journey back to Portland, especially on weekends, to go to Happy Wheels, a roller skating rink tucked into an industrial section of Portland. They offered, once a month, an all-night skate. Kids were dropped off at 8 p.m. and stayed until 6 a.m. Even when she was just 10 or 12, she never wanted to miss one.

The staff at Happy Wheels were well acquainted with Megan. They had a binder where they kept a log of incidents, particularly any fights, and Megan's name came up regularly. The rink had a strict policy about fighting, and Megan was occasionally banned. They remembered how she could turn on a dime from anger to charm.

But many of the staff members really liked Megan, and they were always amused by Muriel's passionate loyalty to her granddaughter. Muriel would always show up and appeal their ruling. It was something that Megan really cared about, and the suspensions actually hurt.

When she was starting 8th grade at Scarborough Middle School, the difference in wealth was apparent. Kids were walking around with cell phones and designer duds. Megan's family was living paycheck to paycheck. Megan struggled academically. When she started at Scarborough High the following year, she was put in, quote, the basement, a portion of the school for alternative education.

Megan was caught shoplifting on several occasions from Walmart and became known to the Scarborough police. She ended up being sent to the main youth center in South Portland from time to time, jail for kids. It was comprised of a dozen cottages with tight living quarters and strict rules.

Doug Weed, an officer with the Scarborough PD, often was the one to arrest her. He remembered his first encounter with Megan was in October of 2002, when another young Scarborough girl made allegations against her of stalking. In 2004, a Crystal Park neighbor filed for a restraining order against Megan, and in June of 2005, she was busted for possession of drug paraphernalia and sent to juvenile rehab.

She later fled the program and went home to Muriel. But Muriel called the police to pick her up and send her back. Doug took a special interest in Megan and felt like he could get through to her. He knew that her father wasn't in the picture, and he tried to provide some guidance and fatherly advice. He would cut her a break now and then out of compassion, and she soon realized how much he cared. He would sometimes give her rides home rather than to the station.

Despite his influence, when Megan was 17, she decided to drop out of high school. Megan tried to find work. She got picked up more often by the police, shoplifting, or alcohol-related offenses. Her cousin said that she once blew a 1.25 on the breathalyzer, but that may be a hyperbole. The highest reading ever recorded was 1.48, which happened in the country of Poland.

Blood alcohol concentrations of 0.5 are associated with alcohol-induced comas and death. The legal limit to drive is 0.08. Still, it speaks to the amount of drinking that Megan was doing as a teenager. The lines of communication with Doug Weed remained open, though, and Megan would often call, leaving long voicemails, sometimes to rant about something, and other times because of serious things going on in her life.

Doug felt like his conversations with Megan helped to ground her and calm her. He was an authority figure in her life that was consistently looking out for her and it helped her feel secure. When Megan became pregnant at 17 in the fall of 2005, she called Doug Weed and told him the baby's father was nearly twice her age in his early 30s and they met at a club in Portland.

Caught up in the moment, Megan had unprotected sex with him in a bathroom. She was scared. Doug Weed told her maybe it was a blessing. He was a father of five, and his kids had given his life greater meaning and purpose. A judge in juvenile court ordered Megan to live at a home for young, unwed mothers called St. Andre's. There were multiple locations in the state of these types of homes, and they were generally run by nuns or other religious leaders.

The idea was to get Megan off drugs and alcohol and give her a chance to stay in a safe environment for the duration of her pregnancy. Many other girls at the institution were there to hide their pregnancies and give their babies up for adoption. Megan saw how many babies were taken from tearful mothers, and it triggered her own trauma of being taken away from Lorraine as a child.

Mariel tried to console her and assure her that every mother's situation was different. But Megan, for the first time in her life, was actually terrified. She was thinking about her future child. She would not let that happen to her. Lorraine heard that Megan was pregnant and realized that she was about to become a grandmother. She wanted to reconnect. Megan wanted out of St. Andre's, and Lorraine was offering her a place to stay.

Decades of resentment were difficult to overcome, but in her desperation to escape, Megan was willing to try. She asked her caseworker for permission, and a judge agreed. When her due date neared, she moved in with her mother for the first time since she was a year old. Lorraine was living in West Portland, working at a Domino's that was managed by her boyfriend.

She opened up to Megan, blasting Muriel for her intervention when Megan was a baby, blaming her for keeping them apart for all these years. But even before giving birth, Megan moved again. Her home was with Muriel, and she returned to Crystal Park.

At 18 years old, Megan gave birth to a healthy baby in the summer of 2006, who she named Liliana. Her daughter changed her priorities and her personality. The peace washed over her. Liliana brought a clarity to her life that 18 years of hard living had not accomplished. People who remembered her temper and violence were awed by this transformation.

Her brother Greg said,

She qualified for a government subsidy of $400 a month to help support Lily, but she had to figure out a way to survive. She was working at a sandwich shop to make ends meet. I assume that Megan continued to live with Muriel to keep costs down for the next few years. Megan occasionally continued to get in trouble. In October of 2008, she was arrested in Scarborough for theft.

She was back into drinking and drugs, and her aunt Elizabeth believes that's likely where she met Robert Blake. He, too, was in the drug subculture of Portland. He told her if she wanted to make some real money, start doing sex work. She decided to give it a try. The money was good.

Soon thereafter, she met Robert's friend and protégé, Akeem Cruz. Akeem, quote, swept her off her feet. He was a tough guy from Brooklyn. He started managing her sex work, becoming her pimp. He told Megan that he loved her and that he loved Liliana, too. They started dreaming of living together, buying a house with the money she was making.

But along with Akeem's love came his abuse. Liliana later recalled, "'I can remember him hitting her and just crying. He was very powerful, or at least he wanted to appear that way.'" Aunt Elizabeth remembered getting a frantic phone call from Megan one night after she discovered a gun that he had hidden underneath Liliana's mattress. He was a dangerous guy, and Megan was a part of a dangerous world.

Hakeem started taking her to New York for sex work, where the money was better, and he had the women, Megan included, hide cocaine in their body cavities for some extra money. Her social worker, who she hadn't seen for years, recalled how, in moments of vulnerability, Megan would confess how she felt alone and craved acceptance. She ended up trying to find that unconditional love in romantic relationships.

Megan had been in some dicey situations as a sex worker. Megan's brother, Greg, and her best friend, Nikki, later spoke to Newsday, a publication from Long Island, and said that Megan had twice been robbed while working in Long Island.

On one of those incidents, three men stormed into her room, forced her and another woman into the bathroom, stole their phones and some weed, and then left. They also said that she had been arrested in a police sting.

In May of 2010, Akeem and the other three men were arrested in South Portland, Maine. Two of the men were from Brooklyn, and one was from Portland. Police charged Akeem with aggravated drug trafficking. The term aggravated means that it's a more serious than ordinary drug charge. Though we don't have the details, this typically means that a large quantity was sold, a firearm was involved, a minor was enlisted, or

or it was done at or near a school. If convicted, Hakeem faced a mandatory minimum prison sentence of one year or more, depending on the details. Hakeem was out on bail, and in the early summer of 2010, he made his final trip to Long Island with Megan, a trip from which he would never return.

Memorial Day was Monday, May 31st of 2010. And the day after, Tuesday, June 1st, Akeem and Megan took a bus from Portland to New York City. Megan checked into a room at the Holiday Inn Express, a hotel on Long Island in a city called Hoppog. Akeem was staying with his family, also nearby in Long Island, while Megan was doing sex work out of her hotel room.

Akeem put up an ad for Megan on Craigslist which included photos of her and a cell phone number. After a few busy days, on Friday, June 4th, Megan called her friend Nikki with some news. She told Nikki that Akeem wanted to have a child with her and, as part of this increased commitment and shared vision of the future, he no longer needed her to do sex work. Nikki later said, I've never heard her as happy as she was on that day.

During the day on Saturday, June 5th, Megan spoke on the phone with her mom, Lorraine. When later reflecting on her conversation with Megan on Saturday, Lorraine couldn't think of anything out of the ordinary. According to her, she sounded like normal Megan. At 8 p.m., the hotel security camera captured Akeem and Megan leaving the hotel together. At 8.30 p.m., Megan returned to the hotel alone.

It was around this time that Akeem said he last spoke to Megan. At 9.50 p.m., Megan called her grandmother, Mariel, and spoke to her daughter, Lily. Megan called her grandmother again around midnight. According to phone records, Akeem called Megan at 1.15 a.m. and perhaps again at 1.30 a.m.

It was also reported that Megan spoke to Akeem, and she told him that she was going out for a little while and would call him later. If so, it might be this call around 1.30 a.m. She grabbed her cell phone and left on foot, leaving the rest of her belongings in the room.

Security video shows Megan leaving the hotel alone at 1.30. An unnamed law enforcement source said that Megan had arranged a meetup with a John without telling Akeem and was headed to meet him at his car. An unnamed witness spotted Megan outside, walking towards a convenience store. And that was the last sighting of Megan Waterman.

The hotel was located directly next to a major highway, the Long Island Expressway, which was positioned between two roads. On the highway side was an access road, and on the other was a short dead-end street lined with commercial buildings. It's the kind of area that, when walking late at night, would feel desolate and pedestrian-unfriendly.

The only late-night convenience store nearby was part of a Sunoco gas station, and the route to walk there must have been unpleasant. The rest of the nighttime hours passed quietly in the hotel. The staff at the front desk turned over as a new shift began, and the sun rose. Guests roused on Sunday morning and checked out. By this time, Megan Waterman was dead, and nobody knew it except her killer.

At 11 a.m., Hakim called Muriel with concern. Have you heard from Megan? Do you know where she is? Muriel said she was supposed to be with you. He said she was missing. He said that they had to wait 48 hours to get the police to listen.

The details of who reported her missing and when have not been made public, but according to a local paper in Scarborough called The Current, she was reported missing sometime on Sunday, June 6th to Suffolk County police. We don't know if police went to her hotel room to gather evidence before her things were cleared out of the hotel, but it's unlikely. Housekeeping probably tidied up the room on Sunday morning.

Even if the police did jump on it immediately, it was probably too late to get anything of use from the hotel room, if there even was anything of forensic value. By the time police took her case more seriously, the room had been long cleared out and rented to a new guest of the Holiday Inn. The first news article I found about Megan appeared in The Current on June 17th, 11 days after she vanished.

The Bangor Daily News ran an article the same day. They spelled out the suspicious circumstances of her disappearance and emphasized that Megan called her daughter three times a day when she was away. The article gave a detailed description of Megan and pleaded for the public's help. The article also broke the news about Akeem's recent arrest.

On Tuesday, June 15th, a Portland woman returned to her car and discovered two of her tires had been slashed and flattened. As she was surveying the damage, Akeem approached her and said, You better stop talking about me or I'll kill you. She fled and called the cops. Meanwhile, Akeem flattened out the two other tires after she left. He was arrested for criminal threatening with a dangerous weapon.

Though it wasn't disclosed, I suspect that the violence arose because this woman was suggesting that Akeem had something to do with Megan's disappearance, or at the very least, failed to protect her.

Megan's family got help from a non-profit organization based out of Londonderry, New Hampshire, called Lost and Missing. The philanthropic group gave support and guidance to Megan's family. They organized a vigil and sent out press releases to local publications that ran the notice.

At sundown on Friday, June 25th, nearly three weeks after Megan's disappearance, friends, families, and supporters gathered in downtown Portland at Congress Square Park, a highly visible plaza at the corner of Congress and High Street, not far from where Megan grew up.

They announced an easily searchable website, MeganWaterman.com, the lost and missing created with the support of the family. The website later posted an update that 127 people had gathered in Portland that Friday evening, and the Portland Press-Herald reported on the event, recalling Megan's aunt's words, "'Good or bad, lead the police to the truth of what happened. If Megan is alive, I pray her captors release her.'"

People held candles, hugged each other, and shed tears. Missing person flyers floated into the air and were taken by the wind when Megan's family released dozens of helium-filled pink and white balloons. The next morning, Saturday, June 26th, a team of volunteers gathered in Scarborough in the Walmart parking lot and distributed hundreds of flyers to businesses in the area.

On July 2nd, Akeem made the news again. There was a bench warrant out for his arrest. He'd skipped out on a court date the day prior to answer to the charge of driving without a license. In the same news brief, police ratcheted up the pressure on him, saying that they considered him, quote, a witness to Waterman's disappearance. Akeem did not appear to be cooperating with the investigation.

A second vigil was scheduled for July 17th in Long Island, with the support of Lost and Missing. On the weekend of the 17th and 18th, Lorraine, Elizabeth, Megan's brother Greg, her best friend Nikki, and her cousin Erin all went down to Hoppog to get the word out. The Brooklyn chapter of National Organization for Women helped rally volunteers. They put up 350 posters, plastering her face all around town.

Though they wouldn't have known it then, they may have handed a flyer to the man who killed Megan.

In the news coverage following the event, police continued to escalate the pressure on Akeem, describing him now as a person of interest. Megan's case continued to get more media attention, in no small part due to the efforts of Cynthia Caron with Lost and Missing. On a national news segment with CNN, Elizabeth and Lorraine spoke to a reporter, Jane Velez Mitchell. Though the attention was terrific for Megan's case,

Many were galled to see Lorraine acting as a spokesperson for the family. Though she was Megan's mother, she had floated in and out of Megan's life. An acquaintance and co-worker of Lorraine said, I was working with Lorraine and I didn't even know she was Megan's mom until she was on TV. That's how involved Megan's mother was in her life.

On August 10th, Akeem was arrested again for another serious drug offense. The Maine DEA busted him at a South Portland motel. They had a search warrant for his room and discovered 13 grams of crack cocaine worth approximately $1,300, packaged for sale and $564 in cash. He was charged with drug trafficking and violating the bail conditions of his pending charges from his May drug bust.

He was taken to Cumberland County Jail and held without bail. A narrative had taken hold, proffered by the family and regurgitated by the press, that Akeem had seduced a Megan and coerced her into doing sex work. But Robert Kolker wrote in his book Lost Girls that even though Akeem was managing her work at the time of her disappearance, he was not the man who got her into it. That honor went to his mentor, Robert Blake.

The family didn't agree with Megan's choice to do sex work, and they encouraged her to change. The pressure that Akeem applied to Megan to continue sex work put him on the outs with the family, and their narrative likely reflected their disdain for him. The press followed their lead, casting him as the villain.

Right at the time of Meghan's disappearance, a public war was afoot against Craigslist and their participation in the illegal sex work industry. Critics pointed to the case of Philip Markoff, who used the website to lure sex workers to hotel rooms, where he robbed and ultimately killed one victim. The crimes occurred in 2009, the same year he was arrested for them.

In August of 2010, while awaiting trial in jail, he died by suicide. And on September 4th, 2010, Craigslist changed their policy, eliminating the category erotic services from their website and prohibiting advertising sex work in their terms of service. In November of 2010, Akeem was convicted on drug charges and sentenced to 20 months in prison.

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Shannon Gilbert, another young woman, disappeared just one month prior to Megan's disappearance after a strange and intense 911 call. She, too, was doing sex work in Long Island, about 20 minutes from the Holiday Inn in Hoppog, where Megan was last seen.

Earlier in the year, police searched the community where she was last seen, a gated development of single-family homes called Oak Island Beach Association. Police had been searching for months, and in December of 2010, Officer John Malia and his German Shepherd scent dog, Blue, were in the area doing a training exercise.

Officer Malia and Blue were walking on the shoulder of Ocean Parkway, about five miles west of where Shannon was last seen. The name of the barrier island they were searching on is Jones Beach Island. Blue picked up on a scent, and they ventured into the scrub brush north of the road, about 30 feet. When they came upon a burlap bag, it contained pieces of a human body.

The almost skeletal remains had been there for one to two years, and they had to be analyzed by a lab to determine even basic information.

Two days later, on December 13th, 2010, Suffolk County PD found three more sets of remains within a few hundred feet. The nearest landmark to this desolate stretch of road was Gilgo Beach, but the searchers were a mile east of the nearest structure. The landscape on this barrier island was filled with poison ivy, low-height shrubs, and marsh. It was a good place to hide a body.

Medical examiners quickly identified the remains as female and as belonging to petite young women. None of the remains had any clothes or identification with them, and they had all been murdered. They were all bound with either tape or belts, and three had been wrapped in the same burlap-like material.

Police immediately theorized that it was the work of the same killer, but their first order of business was to identify their four Jane Does. Suffolk County PD had an open missing person report for Megan Waterman, and so on December 14th, they contacted Lorraine and asked if she'd be willing to provide a DNA sample. News must have traveled quickly because Lorraine appeared on CNN with Nancy Grace that evening.

A correspondent traveled to Maine to conduct the interview remotely. At this point, Robert Kolker wrote in Lost Girls that no two members of the family seemed to be on speaking terms, and the national TV appearance only stoked the flames. On December 15th, Lorraine submitted a DNA sample to police. They also took cheek swabs from Lily and Megan's father.

Another potential victim, Maureen Brainerd Barnes, had disappeared from Long Island while doing sex work, and it was around this time that her sister Missy contacted Lorraine through Facebook. They began talking every day.

On December 16th, Suffolk County Police Commissioner Richard Dormer spoke to the press for the first time about the case, admitting that it was likely no coincidence that there were four bodies in the same area. He also announced that none of the bodies belonged to Shannon Gilbert. She had a titanium plate on her jawbone, which would have been easy to identify.

The search continued up and down Ocean Parkway, along a stretch of 10 miles that had been shut down to traffic. The highway was marked with bright orange arrows that pointed north to the spots where, just 30 feet further, another body had been found.

On December 17th, the Nassau County Police Department and the New York State Police joined the search effort, and it continued every day until Christmas, when the first heavy snow came. No other bodies were discovered. Commissioner Richard Dormer assembled a special task force with three supervisors and a dozen detectives to investigate the murders and identify the four bodies.

On January 18, 2011, which would have been Megan's 23rd birthday, the New York City medical examiner told police and prosecutors that she had been identified as one of the four victims. The next day, January 19, investigators broke the news to Megan's family. Scarborough Police Detective Don Blatchford went to Muriel's house to personally deliver the bad news.

It was a roller coaster for the family because the police had told them, while waiting for lab results, that it was unlikely Megan was among the victims because it seemed like all the bodies had been decomposing longer than the six months between June and December. The family was devastated by the news, but relieved that they no longer had to live with the terrible uncertainty.

On January 25th, police announced that all four victims had been identified. They were Maureen Brainerd Barnes, Melissa Bartholomew, Amber Lynn Costello, and Megan Waterman. The families of the victims started to reach out to one another to grieve and to support each other in their fight for justice. Megan was the most recent of the four women to have disappeared.

Megan's family had been planning a fundraiser to raise reward money at the roller skating rink Happy Wheels in Portland, a place that Megan adored. Happy Wheels donated the skate rentals for those who attended, and the family was asking for a donation from each attendee. They planned a raffle and a bake sale.

The discovery and identification of Megan's body only changed the tone of the event. The money raised would go toward a reward for information that led to the killer. Over 200 people came. What they didn't know then was that there would be an 11-year search for the killer and a corruption scandal at the highest levels of the Suffolk police.

and that these four bodies were just the beginning of what would be discovered on that desolate, windswept stretch of Ocean Parkway. Join me August 15th for part two of Megan Waterman's story, as we dive into the investigation, the scandal, and the recent developments in the case.

Thank you so much for listening. If you are loving Murder, She Told, I want to encourage you to share it with a friend. If you want to support the show in another way, there's a link in the show notes with options. Follow Murder, She Told on Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok.

Head to MurderSheTold.com for a detailed list of sources and photos from this episode and more. Thank you to Byron Willis for his writing and research, and to Brittany Healy for her research support. If you have a case suggestion or a correction, feel free to email me at hello at MurderSheTold.com. I'm Kristen Sevey, and this is Murder She Told. Thank you for listening. ♪