State Police Sleuth Who ID’D Rex Heuermann Handling Foglia, Vargas and Rush Cases

Tanya Rush, a Brooklyn mom of 3, was found dismembered in a black suitcase near the Southern State Parkway on June 27, 2008.

Today, June 27th 2025, marks 17 years since a body part of Brooklyn mom, Tanya Rush, was discovered in a black suitcase near the Southern State Parkway in North Bellmore, Long Island.

Rush was frequently described as a loving mother to three daughters, but she had turned to sex work after developing a crack cocaine addiction. Rush was known to street walk on "The Stroll" near Pennsylvania Avenue in East New York, Brooklyn, not far from the Queens border.

The state police investigator who was working on Rush's unsolved murder is the same investigator who found the name Rex Heuermann on a Department of Motor Vehicles database on March 14, 2022.

Tifini Atai connected a dark green, first generation Chevy Avalanche to Heuermann's home in Massapequa Park.16 months later, Heuermann was arrested as the accused, Gilgo Beach serial killer, also known as LISK (Long Island Serial Killer). Heuermann has pleaded not guilty to the seven murders he's already been indicted for, but Rush's is not one of them.

Still, Atai's work on cold cases is not done.

Atai has had contact with the family of Tina Foglia, whose body parts were stuffed into three plastic bags and left on a shoulder of the northbound Sagtikos Parkway in February 1982. Foglia was 19 at the time and last seen exiting Hammerheads, a rock club on Sunrise Highway in Suffolk County. She was known to be seeing a musician there but may have tried to hitchhike home on her own. Her case remains unsolved.

Tina Foglia, who was working as a home health aide, was dismembered in February 1982. 3 bags of body parts were left near the Sagtikos Parkway.

Tifini Atai, from Long Island's Troop L and a member of the Gilgo Beach Homicide Task Force, is also investigating the murder of Carmen Vargas in 1989.

Vargas' body, clad in a tube top and mini skirt, was discovered on the shoulder of the southbound Meadowbrook Parkway on September 11, 1989. Vargas was bound around her ankles, with a rope on her neck and a towel over her face. Three of her teeth were missing. Her young niece said she last saw her Aunt Carmen getting into a dark car in East Harlem, Manhattan in August 1989. Carmen was known to do sex work.

"I was only, like, 12 years old, so I couldn't really see," Felicita Figueroa, the niece, recounted to me in 2023 during an interview for PIX11 News. "But I could tell it was a white man with glasses."

The body of Carmen Vargas, her ankles bound, was discovered on shoulder of southbound Meadowbrook Parkway on September 11, 1989.

The family of Carmen Vargas didn't learn her fate until three years after the body was found, when they watched a Crime Stoppers report on TV, spurring Vargas' aunt to make a call after seeing a sketch of the victim.

Investigator Atai started handling the 2008 Tanya Rush cold case, after several of Atai's male colleagues in the New York State Police received new assignments or retired.

Rush, 39, was last seen on June 23, 2008 about 3 a.m.

She was riding in an elevator at Van Dyck Houses, where she lived in Brownsville, Brooklyn.

When Tanya left the building on Livonia Avenue, she made a left turn and headed toward the elevated train.

Her body part was discovered four days later on June 27, 2008, in the black suitcase, near the westbound ramp of the Southern State Parkway at Newbridge Road. It's worth noting that Tanya Jackson, another dismembered murder victim found in 1997 in Hempstead Lake State Park, was also killed in late June. Jackson was known for years as "Peaches," because of the tattoo over her left breast. Rex Heuermann has not been charged with either of these crimes, but some of the victims he's accused of murdering were allegedly tortured and killed while his wife and children were away in June or July of specific years.

In 2014, Tamela Turner--the middle child of Tanya Rush's three daughters--told PIX11: "She was a great person, a great human being, and she just didn't have to go that way."

Turner said her mother was an amazing caretaker and cook who had hit hard times.

"You just can't look at a period in somebody's life," Tamela Turner had observed. "That's not her. I know my mom, the person everybody knows....kind, sweet, and funny."

Back in 2014, Michael O'Sullivan, the original state police investigator on the case, had traveled with me to the spot where Tanya's body part was discovered in the suitcase.

"We're not really convinced this happened in the area she lived in," O'Sullivan said.

Fast forward to May 2024, when investigator Tifini Atai was honored by New York State Police Superintendent Steven G. James for her impact on the Long Island Serial Killer investigation.

"Due to her perseverance and outstanding investigative abilities, Investigator Atai was able to identify the Gilgo Beach Serial Killer, which had gone unanswered for over 11 years," Superintendent James noted. "This ultimately led to the arrest of one of the most prolific serial killers in New York State history, receiving world-wide media attention. Without her investigative efforts, Rex Heuermann may have never been identified or held accountable for his actions."

Superintendent James revealed during the ceremony last year that it was Tifini Atai who honed in on the 2011 statement from one victim's roommate, who described a male and the Chevy Avalanche pickup truck he was driving. We learned in 2023 court documents this roommate lived with 2010 Gilgo victim Amber Costello. Atai's boss said it was Atai who had identified a dark green Chevy Avalanche registered to a male "who fit the description provided by the roommates."

At this point in the Gilgo investigation, District Attorney Raymond Tierney wants to proceed to trial with the seven murders he's indicted Rex Heuermann for. But the work of his Gilgo Task Force is still going on. And a cold case unit DA Tierney established has highlighted six "victim Does" who are yet to be identified. One of them, a young man, was found in 2012 in Manorville, not far from where two dismembered Gilgo victims turned up.

The New York State Police put up a notice about the 2024 award ceremony in Albany, where Tifini Atai was honored, on its website on May 16, 2024. But the synopsis of her work on the Gilgo investigation was featured deep in the press release, after many other cases had been reviewed. We thought it was time to single Tifini Atai out for her terrific, focused police work.

• If you have any information regarding these cases please contact

Investigator Tifini Atai at Troop L Headquarters: (631) 756-3300