Major break in Long Island cold case murder, rape of elderly psych patients — but there’s bad news for families seeking justice: DA

High-tech DNA testing has solved two gruesome crimes that have baffled investigators for nearly three decades — the murder and rape of two elderly Long Island psychiatric patients, prosecutors said.

Steven Briecke, a career criminal whose rap sheet includes the sex assault of a teenager and a string of public lewdness busts, was identified as the monster who murdered 69-year-old Ann Lustig in 1997 and raped an 82-year-old psychiatric patient in 1996, the Suffolk County District Attorney’s office said.

Unfortunately for the victims’ families, Briecke died 12 years ago.

“Resolving long-overdue crimes that have haunted victims loved ones and our community for far too long is why we established the Cold Cast Task Force,” Suffolk DA Ray Tierney said in a statement Monday.

“Thanks to the power of forensic science and the persistence of law enforcement, we can now say with confidence who was responsible for these horrific crimes,” Tierney said.

The newly available allowed investigators to find matches on the two gruesome crimes.

Lustig, who was reported missing from the Kings Park State Psychiatric Hospital, was found strangled and beaten to death in Calverton on Feb. 19, 1997, with no suspect ever identified.

The murder came just a few months after another patient from the psychiatric facility, an unidentified 82-year-old woman, told staffers at the facility on Dec. 20, 1996, that she had been raped by a stranger.

The elderly victim told police she was out for a walk when a man offered her a ride in a car, which she declined — only to have the fiend drag her inside, taker her to an area home and rape her.

The woman died in 2012, with any hope of identifying her attacker dying with her.

That changed last year, when the Suffolk cold case team taking on the cases — and linking them to Briecke earlier this year through newly available DNA technology, prosecutors said.

“Ann was a beautiful person that navigated an ugly world and met a horrible end,” the slain woman’s grandson, Joseph Saccone, said Monday as the news was announced, ABC7 Eyewitness News reported.

Briecke, a registered sex offender who died in 2014, had a disturbing criminal history, including convictions for burglary and assault in 1985, Florida convictions for sexual assaulting a child under 16 years old, and “multiple” convictions for public lewdness, county officials said.

“Although nearly three decades have passed since these horrific crimes occurred, we remain resolute in our commitment to solving them and providing justice to the victims’ families,” Suffolk County Police Commissioner Kevin Catalina said in a statement.

“The Cold Case Task Force is dedicated to uncovering any leads in unsolved homicides and sexual assault by leveraging scientific advancements and I’m confident we will see even more successes in the future,” Catalina added.