Veteran U.S. Army Sergeant Accused in Cold Case "Peaches" Murder

To the online sleuths who suspected the murder victim known as "Peaches" was involved with a higher-ranking colleague in the U.S. Army--one who might have killed her--you were right.

Andrew Dykes, 66, is facing indictment for the 1997 dismemberment of Tanya Jackson.

The U.S. Army told me Friday Andrew Dykes, 66, of Tampa, Florida--who was arrested this week for murder on a fugitive warrant from Nassau County, New York-- was a Sergeant First Class when he left the military after 21 years of service.

The fugitive arrest report for Andrew Dykes in Hillsborough County, Florida - near Tampa.

Tanya Denise Jackson, the woman he's suspected of killing and dismembering in 1997, was a Private First Class in the Army. Both were serving in Texas, before Tanya was honorably discharged in 1995.

Tanya Jackson, who once served as Private First Class in the Gulf War, was killed in 1997.

A high-ranking source in Long Island law enforcement confirmed Andrew Dykes is the father of Tatiana Marie Dykes, the two year old toddler who was apparently smothered around the time her mother, Tanya, was murdered in June 1997. The child's remains were found wrapped in a blanket on the eastern end of Ocean Parkway in April 2011, during the early months of the Gilgo Beach serial killer investigation. The little girl's body was deposited on the Suffolk County end of Ocean Parkway.

Tatiana Marie Dykes was the daughter of Sgt. Andrew Dykes and First Specialist Tanya Jackson.

Tanya Jackson's torso had been discovered inside a green, Rubbermaid container on June 28, 1997, inside Hempstead Lake State Park in Nassau County, New York. There were two, identifying characteristics on the torso: an abdominal scar indicating the victim may have given birth by C-section--and a bitten peach tattoo above her left breast.

Because investigators didn't know the victim's name at the time, Jackson was initially known as "Peaches".

The torso of Tanya Jackson was discovered in this plastic container.

When the same woman's extremities were discovered near Jones Beach in 2011--more than a dozen miles from where Tatiana was discovered on Ocean Parkway--"Peaches" became known as Jane Doe #3 in the Gilgo Beach investigation. Mother and daughter were wearing similar gold jewelry, finally linked to each other in 2016 through DNA testing.

The tattoo of a bitten peach was above Tanya Jackson’s left breast.

Andrew Dykes was still a working member of the U.S. military when Tanya Jackson and her baby were killed around 1997. So far, he's been indicted for Tanya Jackson's murder, which was exclusively a Nassau County case.

"Andrew Dykes was a Medical Sergeant (91B) in the Regular Army from October 1980 to February 2001," the statement from U.S. Army Public Affairs Specialist Tony W. McCormick, said Friday. "He was a Sergeant First Class when he left the Army."

News of Dykes' arrest by the Hillsborough County Sheriff Wednesday afternoon was a stunning and rather surprising development in the Gilgo Beach investigation.

Because Tanya Jackson was found on the same stretch of Ocean Parkway as nine other murder victims, it was long believed she could have been a victim of accused serial killer, Rex Heuermann, who was arrested in July 2023. He has pleaded not guilty to the murders of seven women and still awaits trial.

One murder that Heuermann is accused of is the dismemberment of Valerie Mack, whose partial remains were found on the eastern end of Ocean Parkway in the spring of 2011. Her mutilated torso was found years earlier in Manorville, Long Island.

Mack's Ocean Parkway remains were discovered very close to the toddler, Tatiana Dykes. For this reason, there was strong suspicion that the child--and Tanya Jackson--might also be Heuermann victims. The arrest of Andrew Dykes has changed the entire dynamic of the Gilgo Beach case.

Andrew Dykes is remanded in the Hillsborough County Jail in Florida and will attend an extradition hearing next week, as Nassau County Police seek to have him returned to New York to face indictment in Tanya Jackson's 1997 murder.

Tanya Jackson and her daughter were buried together in 2025 at a military cemetery in Alabama.