Elections Have Consequences - Electing Ray Tierney DA Solved the Gilgo Murders
For those who say that elections don't matter. And that one politician is just the same as the next: Take a look at how electing Republican Ray Tierney 18 months ago changed the legal world, and took a deadly mass killer off the streets. The Gilgo murders happened mostly in early 2010. And the 10 bodies were discovered just six months later. Police quickly assembled a lot of evidence: DNA on the bodies; An eyewitness description of the perp and his car; The victims' cell phone data. Then, for 12 years, nothing happened. Two District Attorneys - both Democrats - did nothing. A corrupt Police Chief did nothing. Worse, they terminated the joint County-FBI task force and kicked the FBI out of Suffolk. Democrat DA Thomas Spota and his protege Police Chief James Burke were nothing but criminals. And that is not hyperbole. Both were later arrested, convicted of felonies, and sent to prison. But the alleged "Mr. Clean" - Timothy Sini - whom the Democrats then brought in, was no better. Sini served two years as Suffolk Police Commissioner - alongside the corrupt Spota and Burke - and did nothing. Then Sini succeeded Spota as DA, and for four more years, Sini did almost nothing. Within one month of winning office in 2022, Ray Tierney and the new Police Commissioner Rodney Harrison changed the world: They set-up a Task Force to solve the Gilgo murders. And six weeks later they identified the killer, Rex Heuermann of Massapequa. 12 months of careful investigative work followed, to link cell phones; collect DNA, and prove the case. Solid brilliant police work. When Ray Tierney ran for DA, this newspaper, the North Shore Leader, was one of the few to endorse him. For us, it was not a close call: A professional crime-fighting prosecutor in Tierney, versus a political hack. That election of Ray Tierney decided the fate of the Gilgo murder investigations. Crime solved. A mass killer behind bars and off the street. Sometimes elections do make a difference.