Gilgo Beach killings: Police say they're scouring DNA, seized materials for possible Rex Heuermann link unsolved slayings

Investigators are scouring the large volume of material seized from Gilgo Beach murder suspect Rex A. Heuermann’s Massapequa Park home and other properties not just for additional evidence that he killed Megan Waterman, Melissa Barthelemy and Amber Lynn Costello.

They also are searching for answers to other questions, including: Did Heuermann, who prosecutors additionally said is the "prime suspect" in the slaying of a fourth woman, kill the other six victims whose remains were found near Gilgo Beach? If he didn’t, who did? And did Heuermann kill others whose remains have not been found?

“In these six cases, we want to see if Mr. Heuermann is connected,” Suffolk Police Commissioner Rodney K. Harrison said. “We have his DNA, and we can see if he is connected to other violent acts.”

Investigators have been searching Heuermann’s home, his Manhattan architectural firm office, storage units in Amityville and out-of-state properties since his arrest last week while seizing furniture, mirrors, paintings and more than 200 guns, among other items.

Heuermann, 59, has been charged with three counts each of first- and second-degree murder in the deaths of Waterman, Barthelemy and Costello. He is also suspected in the killing of Maureen Brainard-Barnes, prosecutors said in a 32-page bail document released last week.

Heuermann pleaded not guilty to the charges at his arraignment in Suffolk County Court in Riverhead last Friday. All the victims — with the exception of a toddler found near an unidentified woman investigators refer to as “Peaches” because of a tattoo on her left breast — were sex workers, according to authorities.

“I would not be surprised if there are other things he is connected to,” Harrison said.

Authorities long have debated whether the 10 killings tied to the Gilgo Beach area were committed by a lone killer or by two or more people.

Heuermann’s arrest on July 13 in Manhattan has not settled that question.

“He could be responsible for all of these murders,” said Joseph Giacalone, a retired NYPD sergeant who teaches at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in Manhattan. “But you have to have the evidence, and that is what they are looking for now.”

Giacalone said investigators are likely trying to find “trophies” that link him to all the Gilgo Beach victims, as well as additional homicides and other crimes. Serial killers often keep souvenirs from their victims, such as jewelry, locks of hair, IDs, photos and other items, law enforcement sources and serial killer experts said.

Investigators believe Heuermann kept Barthelmy’s cellphone and used it to call the young woman’s sister shortly after Barthelemy disappeared in 2009. The sister has said the caller taunted her, telling her that he had raped and killed Barthelemy.

Those “trophies,” said Scott Bonn, a Las Vegas-based criminologist and author, help serial killers relive the rush they felt as they planned and committed murders.

“Human beings are not living things to serial killers,” Bonn said. “They are here for their own amusement.”

Heuermann's family

Investigators also will try to determine if Heuermann’s wife and children were home when Jessica Taylor, Valerie Mack and other victims went missing, law enforcement sources said. Heuermann’s family was vacationing out of state when Waterman, Costello and Barthelemy disappeared, according to Suffolk County District Attorney Ray Tierney.

Harrison said investigators believe Heuermann’s wife and children had no idea that Heuermann was linked to the killings.

"The members of the task force spoke with the wife and the son and daughter, and at this time we believe they did not know about his horrible activities,” Harrison said.

Katherine Ramsland, a forensic psychologist and author who teaches at DeSales University in Pennsylvania, said that is not unusual. “These guys with these dark secrets are very good at keeping them,” she said. “In many of these instances, we find that nobody in the family knew anything.”

Heuermann’s attorney, Michael J. Brown of Central Islip, did not immediately return a call for comment. Speaking outside the courthouse after Heuermann's arraignment last Friday, he said the case against his client is “extremely circumstantial in nature.”

“I can tell you what he did say, as he was in tears, was, ‘I didn’t do this,’ ” Brown said. “Everyone is presumed innocent in our country.”

Gilgo Beach remaining victims

Law enforcement sources and serial killer experts said there is also evidence that Heuermann did not kill all 10 Gilgo Beach victims, and many believe there was more than one killer.

The bodies of victims linked to the defendant, they said, were left relatively close together and wrapped in camouflage burlap.

The bodies of the remaining six were dismembered and disposed of in a haphazard fashion over a wider range of territory, sources familiar with the investigation said.

“Those differences are pretty glaring,” Ramsland said. “The four were laid out close together, in a uniform way. That is so different from a person who dismembers bodies and scatters them."

Joni Johnston, a forensic psychologist, private investigator and crime author, said Heuermann was in his mid-40s in 2009 and 2010, when the four victims he has been linked to were reported missing. That’s a little old to begin a murder spree, she said. Most start in their 20s.

“It is difficult to think that someone starts killing in their 40s,” she said. “I think they are hoping to find evidence at the house and in his storage tying him to the other" killings.

Partial remains of the victim known as Jane Doe No. 7 were found on Fire Island in 1996, and "Peaches'" remains were found at Hempstead Lake State Park in 1997, when Heuermann would have been in his early 30s.

Arguing for the single-killer theory, Giacalone said Heuermann might have dismembered bodies and scattered remains initially because he feared he would get caught.

The nature of sex work had changed between the late 1990s, when the first remains were discovered, and 2009. Sex workers who often met their clients on street corners turned a decade later to Craigslist, Backpage and other internet websites to advertise their services.

“He may have been afraid that he would be seen picking them up on the street,” pushing the alleged killer to dismember his victims and scatter their remains, according to Giacalone, the author of “The Cold Case Handbook,” released in May.

Attorney John Ray, who represents the family of Gilgo victim Jessica Taylor, said Heuermann was a hunter who had the tools and know-how to dismember a body.

“He could very well be responsible for the other murders,” said Ray, who also represents the estate of Shannan Gilbert, the escort whose frantic phone call for help eventually led Suffolk police to the remains of Waterman, Costello, Barthelemy and Brainard-Barnes in 2010.

Interrogators also might be trying to get Heuermann to confess to the killings he has been charged with as well as possible additional crimes, Scott said.

Heuermann took great lengths not to get caught, juggling multiple burner phones and email accounts, authorities said. Now that he has been arrested and jailed, a confession gives him a new way to exert power and control, according to Scott and other serial killer experts. 

“If he does confess, it would not be out of a sense of remorse,” Scott said. “If he sees that there is no way out of this, he may try to turn the tables, create a new stage — ‘Look at how brilliant I am — it took you people all these years to catch me.’ ”