A man arrested by New York City Police has not been connected to Suffolk County Police’s on-going investigation over bodies located at Gilgo Beach, a Suffolk Police spokesman told Patch.
According to a report in Newsday, Lucius Crawford, 60, was taken into custody in his Mount Vernon home in connection with two homicide cases that date back some 20 years. In addition, the report indicated that detectives also found the body of a 41-year old woman stabbed to death.
An NYPD spokesman told Patch that the NYPD Detective Bureau notified Suffolk County detectives of Crawford’s arrest on Tuesday because of “open investigations” and because of what police said is Crawford’s extensive history of violence against women.
“We have not connected him to the (Gilgo) murders,” James Duffy, an NYPD spokesman said. “We did not link the two. We just notified (Suffolk Police) that they might want to take a look.”
A Suffolk County Police spokeman said that Crawford did not appear to be a major suspect in the ongoing Gilgo Beach case.
"The New York City Police Department did contact the Suffolk County Police Department regarding the arrest of Lucius Crawford for the homicides charged in New York City and Mount Vernon," the department said in a statement. "Homicide detectives from the Suffolk County Police Department were in contact with investigators from the Mount Vernon Police Department and at this point in time there does not appear to be any reason to suspect that Crawford has any involvement with the homicides that occurred in the last several years where bodies were discovered in the vicinity of Gilgo Beach."
The statement continued: "Homicide detectives will conduct further investigations to rule Crawford out as a suspect. As in any major criminal investigation law enforcement agencies routinely share information that may be beneficial to ongoing matters."
Crawford was previously arrested for stabbing a Westchester woman and was imprisoned from 1995 to 2008. His arrest record contains more than 15 violent acts against women that date back to 1973.
Suffolk Police have continued its investigation into the bodies found along Gilgo Beach. Among the victims that have been indentified are Amber Lynn Costello, 27, of North Babylon; Maureen Brainard-Barnes, 25, of Norwich, Connecticut; Melissa Barthelemy, 24, of Erie County, New York; and Megan Waterman, 24, of Maine who was last seen in Hauppauge.
