It's interesting to go back and read this article from 2011 now that someone has been arrested for the murders.
Sick cell call is strongest clue in search for Long Island serial killer
Thanks for this article back from 2011. Bc unless I forgot, I don't remember them definitively linking NY and NJ. I thought it was just speculation. So, I guess they did make this statement.
From your article linked above
Police sources would not say what led authorities to link the New Jersey murder victims — Kim Raffo, Molly Jean Dilts, Barbara Breidor and Tracy Ann Roberts — to the first four in Long Island. But there were several common elements.
In each case, the killer dumped four prostitutes near water and in close proximity, tossing their remains off remote, desolate sections of highway. The bodies were in various stages of decomposition, suggesting he kept some for a period of time after they died.
All eight were low-level sex workers, and the four in New York used Craigslist. Each had been strangled.
He had removed the shoes from both sets of bodies, though the women in New Jersey were clothed.
Those in Long Island had been stripped naked and
were found without jewelry or belongings, each wrapped in burlap."