Detailed depiction of unidentified Asian man found off Ocean Parkway in area of Gilgo victims to be released Monday

The Gilgo Beach Task Force will publish photos Monday from an anthropological reconstruction of male remains found off Ocean Parkway in 2011 as they seek to identify the individual, Suffolk County District Attorney Ray Tierney said.

The rendering, created by studying the recovered remains, is what anthropologists believe the unidentified subject, long described as an Asian male, would have looked like, Tierney said.

"We're hoping to disseminate them in the Asian community and we're hoping maybe someone will remember a person who looked like him that disappeared in the time frame when he died," Tierney said.

The district attorney said investigators are turning to this kind of outreach because a lack of available Asian DNA in U.S. databases to compare with the remains has so far hampered efforts to identify him.

The anthropologists created the reconstruction by first examining the contours of the skull, Tierney said.

"We're trying to be scientific about it," the district attorney said. "They start with the skull, the way his brow is shaped, the way his chin is shaped, the nasal cavity and they can approximate what he would have looked like with flesh and skin."

The new images are the focus of a news conference Tierney is hosting along with local, state and federal law enforcement officials at the Suffolk County Police Academy in Brentwood Monday morning. An announcement Friday promised new information about the victim and updates on the investigation, which has so far connected the killings of six female sex workers to Massapequa Park architect Rex A. Heuermann.

Suffolk Police released a less scientific sketch of the male in September 2011, five months after his remains were found during a search that turned up 11 decomposing bodies along the narrow stretch of waterfront highway, that included alleged victims of Heuermann.

He was described as 17 to 23 years old and 5 feet 6 inches tall with close-cropped hair, investigators said at the time. He was dressed in woman's clothing and had been dead 5 to 10 years, former Police Commissioner Richard Dormer had then told reporters, adding that he may have been a sex worker.

The new images will also depict what the man may have looked like while presenting himself as a woman.

Tierney did not say what additional new information might be released Monday. Two other sets of remains connected to the investigation, a woman and a toddler who DNA evidence show are related, also remain listed in the national database of unidentified persons. Tierney did not provide an update on the investigation into their identities.

Heuermann, who turned 61 at the Suffolk County Jail in Riverhead Friday, has pleaded not guilty to three counts of first-degree murder and six counts of second-degree murder in the slayings of six women, five of whom were among the sets of remains located around Gilgo Beach in 2010 and 2011.

Those alleged victims have been identified as Megan Waterman, Melissa Barthelemy, Amber Lynn Costello, Maureen Brainard-Barnes, Jessica Taylor and Sandra Costilla, whose deaths took place in years ranging from 1993 to 2010. Heuermann was arrested July 13, 2023.

Heuermann's attorney, Michael J. Brown, said he was not aware of the contents of Monday's news conference when reached for comment Friday. He has said his client maintains his innocence.