Robert Yale Shulman

Serial Killer

Robert Yale Shulman: The Hicksville Serial Killer

Background and Crimes

Robert Yale Shulman was an American serial killer who murdered five women in New York between 1991 and 1995. Born on March 28, 1954, Shulman lived in Hicksville on Long Island and worked for the United States Postal Service. His ordinary employment and quiet public appearance concealed a series of violent crimes committed inside his rented apartment on Glow Lane. Shulman primarily targeted women involved in street-level sex work along Jamaica Avenue in Queens. He would approach women while driving an older blue Cadillac and invite them back to his apartment. According to his later confessions, he sometimes smoked crack cocaine with the women before attacking them. His victims were struck repeatedly with heavy objects, including barbells, dumbbells, hammers and baseball bats. After killing the women, Shulman dismembered several of their bodies in an attempt to conceal their identities and prevent investigators from connecting the crimes. He removed hands from multiple victims so that fingerprints could not be used for identification. The remains were wrapped in plastic bags, placed in containers or sleeping bags and abandoned in dumpsters, industrial areas and along roads in different parts of New York.

Known Victims

The exact dates on which several victims were killed could not be conclusively established. The dates below identify verified discovery dates or, where available, the last date on which a victim was known to be alive.

• Lori Vasquez, 24: Vasquez was a Brooklyn resident whose remains were found in a dumpster on Belknap Avenue in Yonkers on August 31, 1991. Shulman admitted that he killed her in late August 1991. Her exact date of death was not publicly established. His brother, Barry Shulman, helped dispose of her remains.
• Meresa Hammonds, 31: Hammonds was living in New Jersey and was the mother of two sons. She had previously lived in Kentucky, California and Michigan and had worked as a fashion model with her sister. Her dismembered remains were discovered in black garbage bags inside a Yonkers dumpster on June 27, 1992. Her exact date of death remains uncertain. For nearly three decades she was known only as the Yonkers Jane Doe before DNA and forensic genealogy led to her identification in 2021.
• Medford Jane Doe: The unidentified woman's remains were discovered on December 7, 1994, inside a blue Rubbermaid garbage can along Long Island Avenue between Yaphank and Medford in Suffolk County. She was believed to have been between 20 and 30 years old. She had reddish-brown hair and a distinctive tattoo on her left arm depicting a red heart and a banner bearing the name "Adrian." Her exact date of death is unknown, and she remains publicly unidentified.
• Lisa Ann Warner, 18: Warner lived in Jamaica, Queens. Her remains were discovered on April 6, 1995, on a conveyor belt at a Brooklyn recycling plant. Investigators determined that the bags containing her remains had originally been placed in a dumpster in Nassau County and were later transported to the plant by a garbage truck. Her exact date of death was not established.
• Kelly Sue Bunting, 28: Bunting lived in Hollis, Queens, and was also known by the name "Melani." She was last seen alive on December 8, 1995, entering an older blue Cadillac driven by a white man near Jamaica Avenue. Her body was discovered on December 11, 1995, inside a dumpster behind a sheet-metal company on Old Walt Whitman Road in Melville. She had been wrapped in a sleeping bag and plastic garbage bags. Investigators identified her through her distinctive tattoos because her hands had been removed.

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Confirmed Victims: (5)

Lori Vasquez Age: (24), Date of Death: 1991-08-31

Robert Shulman (serial killer) - Wikipedia