HUNTINGTON STATION, N.Y. — The similarities to some of the young women in the still-unsolved, Long Island Serial Killer (LISK) case are eerie.
Sarah Strobel, 23, was young, pretty, battled addiction, and talked about turning to “escort” work to make money.
But her body was found on the North Shore of Long Island — in a nature preserve in Huntington Station —while the serial killer victims were mainly deposited on the South Shore, although some of their body parts were discovered in Manorville.
“We can’t discount it, we can’t rule out the possibility that might be part of the equation for Sarah,” said June Margolin, a resident of Huntington Station who’s president of the community group, “Huntington Matters.”
When Sarah Strobel’s body was discovered near a path in the Froelich Farms Nature Preserve on October 3, 2013, the young women who knew her best from high school and the years after were aware about her downward spiral into heroin addiction.
Strobel had been born to a teen mother and raised an only child.
“She was en route to becoming a massage therapist,” said her close friend, Sami Love. “When she was young, she used to go on missionary trips. She just really loved to help people.”
But Love and another close friend — who asked not to be identified — recalled Strobel’s decline into serious drug addiction, once she hooked up with an unsavory boyfriend at age 19.
After short stints in jail, Strobel had asked one of her friends to pick her up in Riverhead in April 2013.
“She had mentioned something about possibly being an escort and how she could make a lot of money in a short amount of time,” said the friend who doesn’t want her name used. “It kind of really surprised me, because that was not the person I knew. She said something about $200 or $300 an hour.”
Sami Love said Strobel used to ask for rides to gas stations or local 7/11 stores.
“She would have me meet these strange men, and they would just give her money. They were older men,” Love recalled.
Love said she found a notebook Strobel left at her house, after Strobel died, and it made references to prostitution. Love handed it over to detectives.
But Strobel’s friends were long troubled by a lack of information coming from investigators. Three other people were killed in Huntington Station, under different circumstances, in the 12 months after Strobel’s body was found.
Finally, a year after Strobel’s death, the Police Inspector at the 2nd Precinct in Huntington acknowledged that Strobel had been murdered. But he wouldn’t reveal the cause of death.
Matt Harris is a Huntington Station resident and community advocate who is troubled about the lack of information coming from police.
“Is there a connection between Sarah Strobel and some of the victims down in Gilgo?” Harris asked, referring to the remains found in Gilgo and Oak beaches between late 2010 and late 2011.
Some remains were discovered near Jones Beach and a bird sanctuary.
The Suffolk County police department told PIX11 Investigates it was not prepared to give an interview on an “active, murder investigation.”
PIX11 Investigates is hearing that no association was made between Sarah Strobel and other cases being looked at.
“We did know, from news reports, that her body was found in a partially clothed manner,” said June Margolin. “We’re hoping the exposure of this piece will bring new leads or jog people’s memories.”
Matt Harris pointed out the Inspector who was the Commanding Officer of the 2nd Precinct retired in December, not long after the Acting Police Commissioner of Suffolk, Edward Webber, announced he was leaving the department—in the wake of the FBI investigation of former Chief of Department, James Burke. Burke was arrested December 9th and accused of beating up a criminal suspect. The suspect, Christopher Loeb, later confessed he had stolen a canvas bag containing sex toys and pornographic DVDs from Burke’s official, police department SUV.
“What is it they know that forced people out?” Matt Harris asked.
Sarah Strobel’s friends want answers, as they live with regrets.
One of them saw Strobel walking by the local train station, two weeks before her death.
“It kills me to this day, because I saw her walking, and I wanted to say, ‘Get in the car, come with me,’ and I didn’t. Because she’s not the person who you were friends with. That’s not the person she is anymore. And I regret that moment, because I know that two weeks later, they found her. I don’t know if I could have done anything.”
Anyone with information on Sarah Strobel’s murder is asked to call Suffolk County Homicide at (631) 852-6392 or Crime Stoppers at 1-800-220-TIPS.
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