Gilgo Beach killings: Investigators find no link between Rex Heuermann and missing South Carolina missing woman, officials say

Officials in South Carolina said Friday they have no information linking Gilgo Beach serial killer suspect Rex A. Heuermann to the disappearance of a local woman who went missing there in 2017.

In a statement, the Sumter County Sheriff’s Office said that after several weeks of investigation police have come up with no evidence so far connecting missing person Julia Bean with Heuermann, or that the two may have been together, as some reports suggested.

"There is currently no evidence connecting Bean with Heuermann," the statement from the sheriff's office said.

Last week, police in South Carolina say they had turned over information in a missing persons case to the FBI after receiving a report that a woman may have been spotted with Heuermann shortly before disappearing in 2017, a spokesperson for the Sumter County Sheriff’s Office told Newsday.

Sumter County officials said they were made aware of a possible connection to the Long Island case after being contacted by the daughter of Julia Ann Bean, a Sumter resident who was last seen on May 31, 2017. Bean’s daughter told investigators that after seeing images of Heuermann following his arrest, she believes she saw him with her mother before her disappearance.

Sumter County Sheriff's Office Public Information Officer Mark Bordeaux said detectives scheduled a meeting with Cameron Bean, who was a teenager when her mother went missing and is now in her 20s, to gather more information from her.

Bordeaux declined to say who last reported seeing Bean, but it was about two weeks after Cameron last had contact with her mother. She reported her mom, who was 32 at the time, missing that November.

Sumter is located less than 90 miles from Chester, South Carolina, where Heuermann owns property and where his brother, Craig Heuermann, also lives.

Police in Nevada and New Jersey, where Heuermann also has owned property, have said they are looking into possible connections with Heuermann to open cases in their jurisdictions.

The sheriff's office in Chester County previously worked with the FBI to help Suffolk County investigators execute a search warrant at Craig Heuermann’s home in South Carolina, where they located a green 2012 Chevy Avalanche once owned by the defendant.

The vehicle, along with Heuermann’s cellphone records and DNA, are believed to be among the strongest pieces of evidence tying him to the killings. He was arrested on July 13 as he was leaving his Manhattan office, where he works as an architect.

Heuermann, 59, has pleaded not guilty to first- and second-degree murder charges in the killings of three women — Megan Waterman, Melissa Barthelemy and Amber Lynn Costello — whose remains were found near Gilgo Beach 13 years ago.

Authorities also have said Heuermann is the “prime suspect” in the slaying of Maureen Brainard-Barnes, whose remains were found with the other three victims.

By Anthony M. DeStefano

tony.destefano@newsday.comtonynewsday

Anthony M. DeStefano has been a reporter for Newsday since 1986 and covers law enforcement, criminal justice and legal affairs from its New York City offices.