Andrew Dykes, suspect in 'Peaches' killing, asks judge to drop murder charge, court files show

Lawyers for Andrew Dykes, the man accused of killing and dismembering Tanya Jackson, a woman once known as Gilgo Beach victim No. 3, have asked a Nassau County judge to drop the murder charge against their client, saying detectives violated Florida privacy laws during their investigation.

Dykes, a former Tennessee state trooper who dated Jackson in the late 1990s and fathered a child with her, Tatiana Marie Dykes, who was also found killed on Long Island, was arrested in the Tampa area on Dec. 4 after a Nassau County grand jury indicted him on one count of second-degree murder.

He pleaded not guilty and has not been charged in the child’s death.

Prosecutors said that Dykes, who worked as an anatomy instructor in the U.S. Army, dated Jackson, a Gulf War veteran who worked as a medical assistant, while they were in the service together. After Jackson left the Army and Dykes was assigned to Fort Hamilton in Brooklyn, she moved into an apartment in Sunset Park in the late 1990s with their 2-year-old, authorities said.

The Nassau County district attorney said that Dykes, who was married to another woman with children at the time, killed Jackson, dismembered her using the knowledge of the human body he had learned in the military, and dumped her remains in Hempstead Lake State Park and along Ocean Parkway in Gilgo Beach.

A man attending a fishing clinic with his daughter stumbled on a green Rubbermaid container holding Jackson’s remains on June 28, 1997.

Investigators referred to her as “Peaches” from the tattoo on her body until last year, when DNA testing identified her. Her daughter, whose remains were found on Ocean Parkway, was also identified.

Dykes, who lived in Ruskin, Florida, was listed as the father on her birth certificate.

A vaginal swab of Jackson’s remains tested positive for Dykes' DNA, Assistant District Attorney Ania Pulaski said during his arraignment last year, evidence the prosecutor used to have him held without bail.

After Dykes' arrest in December, while he awaited extradition to New York in a Florida jail, defense attorney Joseph Lo Piccolo charges that the lead investigator recorded an interview with his client that was played to the grand jury.

Lo Piccolo said Dykes was not informed he was being recorded, a violation of Florida law, which requires both parties agree before their conversation is recorded.

“The evidence was obtained in a manner which shows the police, knowing that it was unlawful to gather such evidence in this manner, deliberately violated Mr. Dykes' rights,” the lawyer wrote in his motion to dismiss the indictment. “Such a claim is supported by the fact that the police did not advise Mr. Dykes they were recording these conversations, as well as the fact that they started the conversation under the false pretense that they were there to discuss the death of his daughter, not investigate the death of his daughter’s mother.”

Lo Piccolo noted what he called other deficiencies in the presentation of evidence to the grand jury.

He said that a retired Army sergeant testified about Dykes' medical knowledge and his service record and was allowed to speculate about how they related to Jackson’s cause of death. Another witness, who served at Fort Sam Houston in Texas with Jackson, gave hearsay testimony, prompted by leading questions from the prosecutors, Lo Piccolo said.

The defense attorney argued in court papers that prosecutors failed to properly tie Dykes to the crime.

“There is a certain amount of innuendo, generalizations, and the like, but there’s no evidence he killed her, intentionally or otherwise,” Lo Piccolo said. “Having sexual relations with someone in the days before their death is not the same as killing them.”

He said that no evidence places Dykes at the scene of the crime or “links him to the decapitation or dismemberment of the deceased in this case.”

The Nassau County District Attorney’s Office declined to comment on the defense motion. Prosecutors have until Sept. 15 to respond.

Dykes is due back in court on Sept. 23.