Gilgo Beach victim's lawyer wants disgraced cop James Burke investigated for Asian male's 'LISK murd

AN attorney for two women found dead on Long Island is urging authorities to investigate disgraced police chief James Burke in connection with the unsolved murder of an unidentified Asian male discarded along Gilgo Beach.

AN attorney for two women found dead on Long Island is urging authorities to investigate disgraced police chief James Burke in connection with the unsolved murder of an unidentified Asian male discarded along Gilgo Beach.

Burke, the former chief of police for Suffolk County, was arrested on Tuesday morning after he allegedly attempted to solicit sex from a male undercover park ranger in Farmingville, New York.

The 58-year-old is accused of pulling down his pants, displaying and manipulating his genitals, and telling the undercover ranger, "I like sucking d**k."

His arrest came as part of a local sting operation to crack down on public sex in the area and is the latest in a long list of scandals involving the disgraced cop.

Burke led the Suffolk County Police Department for three tumultuous years that culminated in his resignation and arrest in 2015 for beating a handcuffed man accused of stealing a bag from his squad car containing pornography and sex toys.

He has also widely been blamed for botching and hindering the high-profile investigation into the deaths of multiple sex workers whose remains were found along Gilgo Beach.

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Between 2010 and 2011, police found at least 10 sets of human remains discarded along Long Island's South Shore.

Burke blocked federal authorities from assisting in the probe - which stalled for more than a decade - in what some claim was an attempt to conceal his own proclivities for hiring sex workers and consuming drugs.

Four of those victims - known as the Gilgo Four - are believed to have been murdered by 59-year-old architect Rex Heuermann, who has so far been charged in three of the murders and remains a prime suspect in the fourth.

The other murders remain unsolved and some victims have still not been identified.

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John Ray, an attorney representing the families of two other victims, Shannan Gilbert and Jessica Taylor, is now urging police to rigorously investigate Burke for any potential ties to the remaining unsolved murders.

Burke has never been formally accused or charged with any crimes related to the Gilgo investigation.

But citing Burke's history of violence and sex and drug-related scandals, Ray told The U.S. Sun a particular focus should be geared towards the death of a still-unidentified Asian male - known as "John Doe #8" - whose skeletal remains were found along Ocean Parkway in April 2011.

The victim, who was dressed in women's clothing, is believed to have died between 5-10 years earlier and suffered severe trauma to their skull, possibly from a gunshot wound.

"I do think Burke is worth another look around completely," said Ray.

"We have the dead, young Asian male whose remains were found in such bad shape because, unlike the others, he was shot in the head - apparently several times.

"Rex [Heuermann] had lots of guns so he could have used one of his if he is the killer but we don't know that, that's just speculation.

"But another person who would have a gun is a cop."

Ray continued: "It's indisputable at this point that Burke frustrated the investigation of Shannon Gilbert and of the Gilgo Beach Killings, which itself warrants another look at this.

"It depends on what kind of gun was used, but perhaps it could've been an assassination of this young fellow by a cop.

"With Burke, there's always been speculation, and that speculation needs to be looked at more carefully.

"Of all the other victims, none of them had a bullet. This is the only one."

SEX, DRUGS, & VIOLENCE

The Suffolk County Police Department and Sheriff's Office have been contacted for comment.

Burke’s lawyer in his previous case died last year. It's unclear if he had a lawyer to speak on his behalf regarding his arrest or the claims made by Ray to The U.S. Sun in this story.

According to Ray, Burke had longstanding relations with at least two sex workers on Long Island and also has a history of drug use, cross-dressing, and violence.

His sexual exploits first came to the fore in 2015 after he was arrested for the brutal beating of Christopher Loeb, a heroin addict who stole a bag of sex toys and porn from the police chief's car in 2012.

During an appearance on Discovery's Unraveled podcast in 2021, Loeb claimed Burke's bag contained some incriminating evidence, including a DVD of a "snuff film" - which is a violent pornographic video depicting a real murder.

"I put it on for about two minutes, I saw a guy with a mask on torturing a girl, a prostitute. She was tied behind her back, makeup was running down her back, she was scared to death," claimed Loeb.

Loeb also alleged to have seen images of pre-pubescent boys on the tape. His claims have never been verified.

He was tracked down by Suffolk County investigators months later, handcuffed to the floor of an interrogation room, and violently battered by Burke.

Burke, then in charge of 2,500 officers, allegedly threatened to kill Loeb before a junior officer stepped in to stop him.

The police chief spent the next three years conspiring to cover up the scandal before he was arrested in late 2015 and later sentenced to 46 months in prison.

Ex-District Attorney Thomas Spota and Christopher McPartland, the former chief of an anti-corruption bureau, were also jailed for their roles in helping Burke to cover up the beating.

Loeb, meanwhile, received a $1.5 million settlement from the county.

Years before becoming police chief, Burke was busted for having sex in his patrol car with a sex worker and convicted drug dealer who was using crack cocaine.

That sex worker, Lawrita Rickenbacker, later became his on-again-off-again girlfriend, according to Ray.

Burke apparently met Rickenbacker while patrolling Albany Avenue, an infamous stretch of Long Island known for rampant prostitution and drug activity.

Ray later became Rickenbacker's attorney, and he claims she told him the pair would often smoke crack together at a home in Ronkonkoma and that Burke often cross-dressed during their sexual encounters.

"She said he would crossdress, he would wear silk underwear, girl's underwear, panties, bras, things like that," claimed Ray, theorizing that Burke's apparent penchant for crossdressing could be used to establish a link to John Doe #8.

"I had another sex worker that contacted me from Oregon and she said she'd been with Burke, and that they'd often go to a motel in Waiting River and he also crossdressed with her.

"I learned that before I became Lawrita's lawyer, so the two stories cross-referenced each other."

According to Ray, Rickenbacker wasn't the only local sex worker he was known to share close relations with; he was also close with Heather Malone, who ran a prostitution ring out of her hair salon in St. James dating back to the 1990s.

Malone used a beeper to communicate with her clients, Ray says, and that beeper was registered to a "Jane Burke", an alias whose listed address matched that of James Burke.

Ray says Malone was never charged with any wrongdoing despite her exploits being widely known.

He said the lack of repercussions hints toward yet more blatant corruption within the Suffolk County ranks.

LEAVE NO STONE UNTURNED

Ray believes the full extent of Burke's seeming double life and corruption is yet to be realized.

He believes Burke's sordid past needs to be re-examined in its entirety by an independent - preferably federal - law enforcement agency.

"The [Gilgo Murders] task force, especially the state police and the FBI, should look very closely at the shooting of the Asian male and any other facts or circumstances to connect with Burke or the murder of Shannan Gilbert," Ray told The U.S. Sun.

"They need to look at that and I wouldn't rely on the Suffolk County Police Department to do that.

"There were too many people in the investigation who were Burke appointees, or who were promoted by him, so Suffolk County can't be trusted.

"Until that place is cleared of any Burke influence it will remain tainted [...] I think he should be investigated and his potential involvement in any other crimes in the area should be investigated intensely by a fresh set of eyes independent from Suffolk County."

In an expose published by Vice in 2016, friends and former colleagues of Burke's described him as a narcissist who was "always horny" and "loved prostitutes."

Alexis Linkletter, the host of the Unravelled podcast, told Rolling Stone in 2021 that during her investigation into the Suffolk County PD, she uncovered a series of disturbing allegations about Burke acting violently toward sex workers.

“We also talked to several people who talked about Burke’s sexual proclivities, and almost every time, with him, sex intertwined with violence," said Linkletter.

“We heard he broke a sex worker’s arm, we heard he strangled a stripper in a club. Every time we learned of a sexual encounter, there was violence involved.

“Take that for what it is. But if you have this man in charge of a police department, it’s just a recipe for total chaos as far as enforcing the law is concerned.”

'DRAIN THE SWAMP'

Ray said it's his belief that had anyone other than Burke been in charge during the early stages of the Gilgo probe, then Heuermann would've been apprehended long ago and the families of all the victims would already have the answers they're still desperately seeking.

He also wants a full and thorough investigation to be conducted into what he claims was decades of rampant corruption within the Suffolk County ranks prior to Burke's arrest in 2015.

"When Burke became involved in the Gilgo investigation, he was the driving force in delaying it and distracting people from it in an attempt to shut it down - and that continued until he was gone," claimed Ray.

"His reach was significant [...] and there has to be more to this.

"There's a crust of respectability that covers all civil servants and authorities and business people who are in the higher levels in Suffolk County.

"However, beneath that crust of respectability is a swamp of muck that spreads far and wide from what I've learned over the years.

"I mean, with Burke alone, this was a guy busted in rank twice for sexual misconduct with sex workers, and yet he's allowed to climb up the ranks, over the heap, to become top chief.

"The fact that happens to begin with is because someone else was corrupt as well [...] and it's that kind of thing that needs to be investigated.

"Burke is just one facet of that. We don't know how far his reach was and that needs to be the subject of an intense investigation from a higher authority.

"When I came into this case in 2011, I started by calling for the Suffolk County Police Department to step aside and for the federal authorities to take over.

"Everything I've learned since then confirms that was the right call."

DISGRACED COP'S SHAME MOUNTS

Burke's arrest on Tuesday occurred around 10.15am at Vietnam Veterans Memorial Park in Farmingville after exposing himself to the ranger and saying he was interested in oral sex, according to a police report.

He then attempted to leverage his status as a former law enforcement official to get out of the arrest, officials said at a news conference Tuesday.

As he was being taken into custody, Burke asked the rangers if they knew who he was and told them that getting arrested would be a “public humiliation for him,” said Sgt. Brian Quattrini.

The ranger who arrested Burke did not recognize him, Quattrini added.

He was later seen leaving the Suffolk County Police Department's 6th Precinct in Selden, where he was processed and charged with offering a sex act, public lewdness, indecent exposure, and criminal solicitation.

Law enforcement sources told Newsday he was also found in possession of a small amount of marijuana and a muscle relaxant at the time of his arrest.

Additional charges against him are currently pending, officials say.

TARGETED STING?

County park rangers said Burke was snared as part of a sting operation that was set up after they received numerous complaints from locals about people soliciting sex in Vietnam Veterans Memorial Park.

Officers said they'd only been in the area for a few minutes before Burke's alleged solicitation attempts began.

Ray says he believes Burke may have been specifically targeted by county rangers, though he's unsure why.

According to Ray, the memorial park has been a hotbed for male sex solicitation for years and he questions why rangers decided to act now.

"That park is absolutely notorious for male pickups [...] everybody knows it," he said.

"So for Burke to go there when he's very street smart ... he knows the street very well, extraordinarily well, based on what his record says, and he would have known that that's a notorious spot for that. 

"So of course you can solicit men there but you're running the risk of getting caught, and he would've known that, which is odd.

"But that raises the question, were they looking for Burke in the first place? Did they set this up for him?

"There is a plausible possibility this sting was geared towards Burke. But there's no guarantee of that by any means.

"I mean, it could just have been sheer coincidence or even that he specifically went there looking for trouble." 

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Burke will be issued a desk appearance ticket on September 11 for two misdemeanors and violation charges.

He has not yet entered a plea.

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