Bill Gorga, East Marion engineer who rescued carjacked grandmother, grandchild, dies at 70

Bill Gorga could put on a rough guy exterior, but he was smart, like the way he delicately balanced forcing a carjacker off the road and ensuring the safety of the victims, a grandmother and her 14-month-old grandchild, those who knew him said.

The good Samaritan was in his Ford pickup truck on Feb. 14, 2023, when a woman ran screaming out of a Greenport store as the thief sped off in her Mercedes-Benz SUV with her grandchild asleep inside.

"She freaked out and I thought someone got run over by a car," the retired stationary engineer had told Newsday. "She said, 'That's my car — and someone just drove off with the baby in the car!' I told her, ‘Get in. We're gonna catch this guy.’ "

He did, forcing the SUV onto the shoulder, and when the grandmother got into her car to get the toddler, the car thief took off, with Gorga in pursuit again until the driver stopped to release the victims safely.

"He was a hero far greater than that day, but I love the fact that he always thought he was just a regular guy," said his friend Rachel Murphy.

Gorga, awarded the Liberty Award, the New York State Senate’s highest civilian honor for heroics, died April 13. The East Marion resident was 70.

What was important to him was "making sure everybody was OK," said his wife, Stephanie Gorga.

He was her hero when they married in August 2002 as divorcees with children, she said. His three teenagers and her two young children would spend some summer time together in their East Marion home.

"He treated my children as if they were his own children," his wife said. "It was the way he reacted with them, the way he did things with them and the way he’d tell them that he loved them."

He also displayed his romantic streak, Stephanie Gorga recalled. He’d suggest sleeping on their docked powerboat, watching the sunset and sleeping under the stars. It was his idea to tattoo the date of their marriage on their legs, along with a compass that had her name on top, like she was his North Star, while she had flowers with his name on it. He loved fine dining but would often say, "You can’t go out and eat when your wife cooks so good."

Gorga nicknamed his wife "OooBoo baby love," and in the mornings when she was at work, he’d call her "OooBoo BBL" for short in his texts.

"I was attracted to everything about him, just the way he would walk and talk and just the way he would open the car door or pull out the seat when we were out for dinner," Stephanie Gorga said.

Gorga could show a strong will and mischievous streak as he lived his life to the fullest with a "do it now" attitude, family and friends said.

But he had a side separate from the man who had spent his career operating and repairing HVAC systems and other major mechanical equipment in New York City schools.

"Billy never gave himself credit for being a smart man," friend Billy Brennen said. "He read the newspaper, was up on current events, he knew politics.

"He’d make fun of himself as being an engineer burning garbage. He would sometimes make me laugh because Billy’s persona would be one of kind like rough and tumble and nobody’s going to tell me what to do. But then at times, you’d be having a conversation and he’d be talking about some article on politics that he just read in The New York Times."

Besides his wife, he is survived by his children: Michael Gorga, of Staten Island, Christopher Gorga, of New Jersey, and Danielle Collica, of Fort Lauderdale, Florida; stepchildren Michael Dewey, of Clermont, Florida, and Lindsay Dewey, of Staten Island; brother John Gorga, of East Marion; and two grandchildren.

Gorga was cremated.