DA Says Killer of "Peaches" Specialized in Anatomy & Physiology

Retired U.S. Army sergeant Andrew Dykes was led into a Nassau County, Long Island courtroom in shackles Thursday morning, accused of dismembering and decapitating the mother of his child in 1997, a victim long known as "Peaches" because of a distinctive tattoo above her left breast.

Retired U.S. Army Sergeant Andrew Dykes arrives at Nassau County court to face murder charges.

Prosecutors revealed Dykes once taught anatomy and physiology at Fort Sam Houston, Texas--meeting his alleged victim, Private 1st Class Tanya Jackson, in one of his classes. Prosecutor Ania Pulaski said Jackson was ultimately dismembered in "a process that was done with surgical precision."

Private 1st Class Tanya Jackson was a student in Sgt. Andrew Dykes’ anatomy and physiology class.

It turns out Andrew Dykes had also worked as an operating room technician in the military, receiving excellent reviews for his expertise.

Assignments on Sgt. Andrew Dykes’ military record.

"Tanya Jackson, known from the time of her death until earlier this year as 'Peaches,' was not the victim of a serial killer," Nassau County District Attorney Anne Donnelly declared at a press conference after the court appearance. "She was the victim of the man that she loved, the father of her child, Andrew Dykes."

The little girl was found on the opposite end of Ocean Parkway from her mother in Suffolk County. We asked the Nassau D.A. if she believed Dykes killed his daughter, too.

District Attorney Anne Donnelly was asked if she believes Andrew Dykes killed his two year old daughter.

Prosecutors said Dykes was married and a father of two when he had the child with Jackson, Tatiana Dykes, in 1995.

New photo of Tatiana Dykes, the child Andrew Dykes fathered with Private 1st Class Tanya Jackson.

The body of Tatiana, who was just 2 when she vanished with her mother, was found wrapped in a blanket in the brush of Ocean Parkway in the spring of 2011. She was found close to a victim of the alleged Gilgo Beach serial killer. Nassau County Police Commissioner Patrick Ryder railed against Andrew Dykes' at the press conference, even though Dykes has not been charged with the little girl's murder at this time.

Nassau County Police Commissioner Patrick Ryder believes Andrew Dykes killed both Tanya Jackson and their 2 year old daughter.

When Dykes' Murder 2 indictment was unsealed inside the courtroom of Judge Tammy Robbins, prosecutor Ania Pulaski noted advances in DNA technology enabled forensic specialists to identify Tanya Jackson in 2023, more than 25 years after her torso was discovered in a green container in Hempstead Lake State Park. Her skull was never recovered, but some of Jackson's extremities were discovered on Ocean Parkway during the early Gilgo Beach investigation in 2011. The identification led them to Andrew Dykes, now 66, who was living in Rustin, Florida, a Tampa suburb. His name appeared on Tatiana Dykes' birth certificate.

"He repeatedly denied having an intimate relationship with Tanya Jackson," Pulaski said, in the weeks and months leading up to her murder.

But Pulaski revealed vaginal swabs taken from the victim's remains in 1997 told a different story.

"The results showed this defendant's semen," Pulaski said.

Semen tied to Andrew Dykes was found on Tanya Jackson’s remains.

Nassau County investigators learned that when Sgt. Andrew Dykes was transferred to Fort Hamilton in Brooklyn, New York in the mid-1990's, Tanya Jackson followed him there with their daughter, Tatiana. The district attorney's office said Dykes was the leaseholder of Tanya's apartment in Brooklyn.

Anne Donnelly observed that "In 1997, all the information we have about Tanya Jackson and Tatiana Dykes, and the lives that they lived, abruptly stopped."

Investigators had revealed previously that Tanya Jackson was estranged from her family in the late 1990's, so they didn't know what happened to her.

Yet at the press conference Thursday, Tanya's aunt and cousin were there to acknowledge justice was at hand for the murdered mom.

Tanya Jackson’s aunt and cousins attended the DA’s press conference.

Earlier, the prosecutor in court had noted, "For nearly thirty years, this defendant lived his life unfazed."

Dykes left the U.S. Army in 2001 and later found work as a state trooper in Tennessee. He retired in Tampa, Florida. In October 2024, investigators watching Dykes' home recovered a plastic drinking cup and straw bought at a Charleys Cheesesteaks restaurant. Dykes had thrown the cup and straw in the trash. When DNA extracted from the straw was tested, it matched with DNA recovered from Tanya Jackson's remains.

The original detective assigned to the case of Peaches, William Brosnan, appeared at the press conference Thursday. When we asked him if he ever thought Tanya and her daughter could potentially be victims of a serial killer, he responded, "That never came into my mind."

Original case detective William Brosnan was at the press conference.

And when we told District Attorney Donnelly that some web sleuths still refuse to accept that Tanya and her daughter are not Gilgo victims, she responded to us that Ocean Parkway is a "wasteland."

DA responds to people who believed Tanya and her daughter were Gilgo victims.