She could be No. 12.
There needs to be a more thorough probe into the 2013 suicide of Queens woman Natasha Jugo, argued onetime prosecutor Raymond Zuppa, who believes she was murdered by the Long Island Serial Killer.
“Given the geographical location, as well as current and historical events … I believe the investigation into this matter should be reopened and competently investigated,” Zuppa stated in a petition filed Wednesday in Manhattan Supreme Court that names the NYPD and Commissioner Jessica Tisch as defendants. “The area of the occurrence is infamous.”
Zuppa told The Post Friday he’d like to see cops take a fresh look at the case, particularly in the wake of accused Gilgo Beach killer Rex Heuermann‘s 2023 arrest.
“This is Gilgo,” Zuppa said, stopping just short of saying Jugo was a victim of the serial killer.
“I wouldn’t rule it out, it makes more sense,” the “semi-retired” prosecutor added. “But they don’t want this to be a murder. It was ruled a suicide on May 2, 2013 — without a body.”
Jugo, 31, a diagnosed schizophrenic, was last seen leaving her Bayside, Queens, residence the afternoon of March 16, 2013; she’d been sent to a nearby pharmacy to pick up a prescription for her sickly father.
The next day, a woman walking along Tobay Beach in Massapequa found Jugo’s purse and some clothing, and called 911.
The NYPD and police from Suffolk and Nassau counties responded and located Jugo’s 2009 Prius parked along the shoulder on Ocean Parkway. They also said footprints leading from the car to the surf were found at the scene.
Gilgo Beach is located in Suffolk County, but not far from the county line.
Her body was eventually discovered on June 24, 2013, little more than three miles away washed ashore on Gilgo Beach.
Zuppa, who is based in Long Island, does not believe Jugo drove 30 minutes from her home to commit suicide by walking into the Atlantic, and instead thinks there’s a link between her death and Heuermann‘s alleged victims.
Heuermann, 61, has been charged with the murders of seven of the 11 people investigators found along Ocean Parkway near Gilgo Beach in Suffolk County between December 2010 and April 2011. Investigators have said DNA evidence directly links the architect to the serial killings.
“Walking into the Gilgo Surf up to her head and then inhaling the ocean water would have been an excruciatingly painful way for Ms. Jugo to commit suicide,” reads the petition, which argued footprints could not have been found on the beach due to the shifting tides.
“Ms. Jugo would have entered the water at low tide,” Zuppa reasoned in his petition. “The footprints would
have been washed away. And the clothing allegedly discarded at the water’s edge when Ms. Jugo
entered the water would have been out in the Atlantic.”
Zuppa’s petition also noted Jugo’s body “showed no signs of trauma,” making it easily identifiable to the cops at Gilgo — they notified her family within hours.
“The interactions between currents, waves, and the seabed creates a large amount of visible trauma to a human body when the body is on the seabed for a prolonged period,” he wrote. “Furthermore, sea creatures such as fish and crabs feed on human bodies, turning said bodies into bones.”
Zuppa had been trying since 2023 to obtain the case files from three different agencies. What he did receive showed discrepancies in what Jugo was found wearing between the Nassau County investigator’s account — where she was clad in jeans, a bra and shirt over her head — and the one written by Suffolk County detectives, who found her with a bra only.
He also claimed a partially redacted photo from the crime scene showed the presence of a rope “around either the decedent’s legs, waist, or neck.”
Of the seven Gilgo victims Heuermann’s been charged with killing, four were discovered bound with belts or tape.
“She floated ashore right across the street from where the Gilgo Four were found,” Zuppa added. “Two years later, is this Rex? Did he grab her and hold her for a long period of time?”
Heuermann has entered not guilty pleas to the seven murders he’s alleged to have committed.
