Suffolk County police search a deserted beach on New York's Long Island after finding finding the remains of four people (MyFoxNY.com)
Authorities are considering the possibility a serial killer may have dumped four bodies alongside a deserted parkway at a beach on New York's Long Island.
"We're looking at that -- that we could have a serial killer," Suffolk County Police Commissioner Richard Dormer told reporters Monday.
Investigators are currently working on identifying the bodies and authorities returned to the site for more evidence on Tuesday.
The case bares striking similarities to the 2006 unsolved murders of four prostitutes whose bodies were found behind a strip of Atlantic City motels known for drugs and prostitution. The women were each barefoot and lying face-down in a drainage ditch. Their killer has never been identified.
A police official on Monday said it's too early to speculate on whether the cases are connected, saying, "this is an active investigation."
The bodies, which were found in an area near where a young woman was reported missing, appear to have been there for "at least a month," according to a Suffolk County Police Department official.
Three bodies were found Monday at Oak Beach, which is on a remote barrier island that divides the Great South Bay and the Atlantic Ocean. A fourth body was discovered near the same area on Saturday.
An official with the Suffolk County Police Department told FoxNews.com that authorities were conducting a "training exercise" over the weekend when they came across the first body. The official, who declined to be identified due to an ongoing investigation, said a police canine unit chose the area in response to a missing-person report made in May after Jersey City, N.J., resident Shonnan Gilbert disappeared.
Gilbert was reportedly last seen alive on May 1. The woman worked as a prostitute and had arranged through the Craigslist classified ads website to meet a client on Fire Island -- about a mile from Oak Beach, a police source said.
Oak Beach is one of a series of beaches run by towns and municipalities, the most famous being Jones Beach to the west. The bodies found there haven't been identified.
A police official said Monday that it is not known whether Gilbert's body is among the human remains found. The official also said authorities have not yet determined whether the bodies are male or female. Two of the bodies were found wrapped in burlap sacks, MyFoxNY.com reports.
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The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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