When Suffolk Cops Failed to Solve her Murder Her Sister Solved it.
My team and I are combing through the approximately 750 cold case homicides in Suffolk County. We’re looking to solve one in the hopes that it will lead to the solving of others. We have a lot of serial killers here.
Most are not solved because the cops are inept are somehow involved.
Recently I was positively emotionally shaken when I learned of the trials and tribulations of one Suffolk County Cop who is forced to drive his squad car into Commack, Suffolk County, New York, each brutal day. Commack is filled with doctors, accountants and lawyers. When the lawyers are the toughest guys in a town you know that the town isn’t too rough.
Commack is affluent. For this dangerous patrol this cop – this man among tough men – only made $460,000.00 dollars in 2024 amassing a retirement pension of $280,000.00 dollars per year to do nothing – which is what he is doing now.
But I want to strike a positive tone about Suffolk County Cops. So listen …
In March of 2022 the Suffolk County DA’s Office and the SCPD announced that they solved the murder of Eve Wilkowitz.
I think Hooah! Way to show your worth $460,000.00 dollars.
Eve was a pretty 20 year old woman. She took the Long Island railroad home from where she worked as a secretary at a publishing company in Manhattan. Eve lived only a couple of blocks away from the Bayshore Suffolk County train station. While walking home from the station an attacker abducted her, brutally raped her, mercilessly beat her and then strangled her – all at once.
Excelsior! Suffolk Law Enforcement nailed the sonofabitch.
But wait …
Eve Wilkowitz went missing on March 22, 1980. They found her body on March 25, 1980, three days after she got off the train.
Over 40 years late. But hey they got the killer.
Wait … not so fast …
It turns out the killer – one Herbert Rice – died of cancer in 1991.
At the time of the killing twenty-nine year old Herbert Rice lived at his mother’s house. Rice’s wife kicked him out of the residence that they shared. He had a criminal record. A drinking problem. And anger issues. Rice and his mother lived four houses away from the yard where someone discovered Eve Wilkowitz’s body. Rice and his beloved mother only lived a block or so away from Eve’s apartment.
I would say Mr. Rice is a person of interest.
Police never questioned Rice although they questioned his mother. His mother said that she “didn’t see anything.” I guess that cleared her son for Suffolk’s finest.
Eve had a younger sister named Irene. Irene never got over the heinous murder of her sister. In 2018, Irene’s son told her about a new investigative technique authorities in California used to identify the serial rapist and murderer known as the Golden State Killer. Police entered crime-scene DNA into consumer DNA databases. They traced the family tree back to a retired police officer – Joseph James DeAngelo Jr.
Can you imagine that. A police officer who committed at least 13 murders, 51 rapes, and 120 burglaries across California between 1974 and 1986.
DeAngelo was the first use of genetic genealogy to solve a violent crime. In January 2019, Irene Wilkowitz contacted a genetic genealogist, CeCe Moore. Moore couldn’t get involved because in New York the Department of Health required private labs to obtain a permit to do genetic genealogy. No labs were approved yet.
Wilkowitz begged Detective Lt. Kevin Beyrer, the homicide detective who supervised Eve’s case, to get it done. New York laws did not restrict the FBI.
They got a hit on a distant relative of Rice. Found Rice’s son. Knocked on the son’s door. The son let the police in. The police asked for a cheek swab. Bingo! They got Rice.
To make sure the SCPD also got an order to exhume Rice’s body. They dug Rice up. They informed Rice of his rights. Then they took some DNA. Compared that DNA to the semen found in Eve. Bingo.
Rice’s son talked of how his mother kicked Rice out of the house for being a creep. He apologized.
Eve’s sister Irene solved her sister’s killing. Not law enforcement. Put her in charge of Suffolk County homicide detectives and give her $460,000.00 plus dollars a year.
As predictable as serial killers and entitlement on Long Island the congratulatory press conferences began …
Detective Lt. Kevin Beyrer, commanding officer of the homicide squad, disclosed Rice was “a heavy drinker, but nothing suggested he was capable of homicide.” Nothing? I would say the brutal rape and killing of Eve was strong indicia.
According to District Attorney Ray “Red Wave” Tierney the case was resolved by: “A lot of really, really dogged investigators …” What an ass.
“When you make an arrest in a case that is 40 years old, the community begins to trust law enforcement, and that builds better public safety going into the future,” said Police Commissioner Rodney Harrison. Rodney what the fuck are you smoking; how much of it are you smoking; can I have some.
We can’t take this case. It’s solved.
Solved forty years too late.