Police said the death appears non-criminal, but the official cause remains under investigation.
LLOYD HARBOR, N.Y. — Suffolk County police on Wednesday identified a woman recovered from the Long Island Sound as Brittany Kritis-Garip, a 32-year-old East Norwich resident whose disappearance in Oyster Bay on March 20 set off a three-week search across Long Island’s North Shore.
The identification ended the public search for Kritis-Garip, but it did not close the case. Detectives said they believe her death was non-criminal in nature, while the Suffolk County Medical Examiner’s Office continues to work on the official cause of death. For her family, the announcement shifted the story from a missing-person effort driven by hope to a death investigation marked by unanswered questions about where she went after she vanished and how she ended up in the water.
Kritis-Garip was reported missing the night of March 20 after she was last seen on foot in Oyster Bay at about 8 p.m., according to Nassau County police. Her disappearance was reported about 30 minutes later. In the days that followed, relatives filled in a more troubling picture. Her husband, Fernando Garip, said she appeared panicked, got out of a car unexpectedly and ran off after throwing her phone into nearby bushes. Relatives later said the last confirmed surveillance footage showed her on McCouns Lane at 8:14 p.m. During the search, her brother, Niko Kritis, said the family was still “actively pulling together the videos” of the route she took. That early gap in the timeline shaped nearly every step that followed.
Search efforts quickly widened beyond a standard missing-person alert. Nassau police used a helicopter and drones more than once, and relatives, friends and volunteers spread out through wooded patches, residential blocks and shoreline areas near the East Norwich and Oyster Bay border. On March 23, a new clue changed the focus. Kritis-Garip’s wallet was found near the end of Florence Avenue in a marshy, sandy area by Oyster Bay Harbor, according to family organizers. Sarah Castor, who helped coordinate the search, said time was critical and urged supporters to keep pressure on the case as police and private searchers worked in parallel. Family members also pushed for more security video, saying they still had no confirmed sighting after the 8:14 p.m. footage. Even with the wallet found, they could not say with confidence where Kritis-Garip had gone next or whether anyone saw her in the hours after she disappeared.
The search drew unusual attention across the North Shore because it mixed a clear starting point with very few hard answers. Police had a time, a place and a clothing description. They said Kritis-Garip was about 5 feet 7 inches tall, weighed about 140 pounds, and was last seen wearing black pants and a black jacket with a fur collar. Her family described her as disoriented and frightened, but not dangerous, a description that added urgency for volunteers who checked quiet corners of the community where someone might shelter from view. Flyers circulated through Oyster Bay, East Norwich and nearby towns. Social media groups organized updates, search zones and emotional appeals. A fundraiser was set up to help pay for a licensed private investigator and search expenses. By the time her body was identified, the case had already become a deeply local story, followed in real time by neighbors scanning camera footage, watching marsh edges and waiting for any sign that she might still be found alive.
The case changed again on April 13, when Suffolk County police received a 911 call at about 7:45 p.m. reporting a body floating in the Long Island Sound off Lloyd Harbor Road. Officers recovered a woman from the water, but at first they did not identify her or say whether the recovery was tied to any open missing-person case. The Suffolk police Homicide Squad took the lead while investigators waited for confirmation from the medical examiner. Two days later, on April 15, police publicly identified the woman as Kritis-Garip. Detectives then said they believe the death appears non-criminal in nature, but they did not release an official cause of death or explain how long she had been in the water. No charges have been announced, and none appear imminent. The next formal step is the medical examiner’s ruling, which is expected to answer at least part of what happened while detectives continue to review the timeline from Oyster Bay to Lloyd Harbor.
For relatives, the identification brought an end they had feared but had spent weeks trying to avoid. In a public message after police named her, Niko Kritis said, “The search for my sister has come to a close.” He called Brittany Kritis-Garip “a light in the lives of everyone she met” and thanked the many people who shared posts, searched neighborhoods and stood with the family during the monthlong effort. Local reaction reflected the same shift from urgency to mourning. Neighbors who had checked sheds, garages and shoreline paths during the search posted condolences instead of tips. Community members who had tracked each new development, from the missing-person alert to the discovery of the wallet, now faced the harder fact that the search had ended in recovery, not rescue. The family has asked for privacy as they begin mourning, while investigators continue to sort through the long stretch of time between her last known sighting and the moment officers found her in the Sound.
As of Wednesday night, police had not released autopsy findings or said how Kritis-Garip entered the water. The case now stands at a narrow but important point: her identity is known, the search is over, and the next public milestone is the medical examiner’s determination on the cause of death.
Author note: Last updated April 16, 2026.