Death is difficult. Even in the most ordinary circumstances — old age, an accident, a long bout with disease — the loss of a loved one can be traumatic. Processing, accepting and moving forward is hard.

It's especially painful when death comes from violence, and more so when the perpetrator is not known. Finding peace and closure can seem a Sisyphean task.

So when news comes, as it did earlier this month, that Nassau County investigators had identified a Florida man they said was responsible for the 28-year-old killing of a woman and her toddler daughter whose remains were found near Gilgo Beach, it brings a special sort of relief.

The woman, Tanya Denise Jackson, was known for years as "Peaches" because of a tattoo on her torso; she and her toddler daughter, Tatiana Marie Dykes, were killed in 1997 but remained unidentified until the FBI determined who they were in 2022-23. Up to then, they had been merely statistics on a long list of the........

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