Gilgo Beach killings: Suspected killer Rex Heuermann facing new charge, multiple sources say

Alleged Gilgo Beach serial killer Rex A. Heuermann is expected back in court later this week on a new indictment charging him with an additional killing, multiple sources told Newsday.

Heuermann, 60, will appear for arraignment before State Supreme Court Justice Timothy Mazzei in Riverhead on Thursday, the sources said.

The new indictment comes within weeks of a search by Gilgo Beach Task Force investigators in an area of Manorville where the partial remains of two Gilgo Beach victims — Jessica Taylor and Valerie Mack — were found more than two decades ago and days after investigators completed a second search of Heuermann’s home in Massapequa Park.

Sources declined to say what new charge Heuermann is facing.

The “fruits of that investigation”

Suffolk County District Attorney Ray Tierney said Monday morning the recent searches were among “a number of necessary investigative steps” that will have Heuermann back in court this week.

“On Thursday, you will see the fruits of that investigation,” Tierney told reporters in Riverhead, declining to discuss specific details about the case, other than to say there will be a “court proceeding in the Gilgo Beach case” on Thursday.

“Once that court proceeding unfurls, we'll have more comment,” the district attorney said.

Heuermann's defense attorney Michael J. Brown declined to comment.

Heuermann previously pleaded not guilty in the deaths of four women — Megan Waterman, Melissa Barthelemy, Amber Lynn Costello and Maureen Brainard-Barnes — who were the first of 10 sets of remains found within proximity of each other along Ocean Parkway between late fall 2010 and early spring 2011.

Held without bail for about a year

Heuermann, an architect who had an office on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, has been held without bail since his July 13 arrest on first- and second-degree murder charges in the killings of Waterman, Barthelemy and Costello. He was charged in January with second-degree murder for the killing of Brainard-Barnes. He was previously due back in court for a conference June 18.

All four women worked as sex workers, authorities have said.

Prosecutors have said they believe Heuermann acted alone in the first four killings he was charged with and that the cause of each woman’s death was “homicidal violence.” Their bodies were found nude and bound, and they were contacted by burner phones consistent with Heuermann’s locations, prosecutors have said. Five hairs connected to Heuermann or a family member were recovered from three of the four sets of remains, according to prosecutors.

The investigation into six additional sets of remains discovered near Gilgo Beach in March and April 2011 have remained active, Tierney has said.

“The thing that allows prosecutors to speak is indictments,” Tierney said April 29.

Unlike the four killings Heuermann was previously charged with, both Taylor, a sex worker who had lived for a time in New York City, and Mack, a sex worker from New Jersey, were dismembered with their remains scattered about a mile apart along the same road in Manorville and at Gilgo Beach. The earlier discovery of Taylor’s remains along Halsey Manor Road dates to July 2003. Mack was found there in November 2000.

Karen Vergata, a sex worker from New York City, also was dismembered in 1996 with her remains found near Gilgo Beach and Fire Island.

Three other individuals whose remains were found along Ocean Parkway have not been identified, including a woman and toddler whose DNA shows are related and an Asian male.

Search for missing woman triggered broad search of Gilgo Beach area

Each of the discoveries was made as Suffolk police searched for Shannan Gilbert, whose body also was found in the area in December 2011, but who police have said they do not believe connects to what has become known as the Long Island Serial Killer case.

Prosecutors have said Heuermann had hundreds of contacts with sex workers in the years before he was arrested.

He was connected to the crime primarily through cell site data, burner phone records and DNA evidence linking him to the women and the location where the bodies were found, prosecutors have said. A witness in Costello’s disappearance also provided a description of a truck linked to Heuermann, which helped establish him as a suspect and was later recovered from his brother’s property in South Carolina, prosecutors have said.

A cheek swab, obtained from Heuermann by court order since he’s been in custody, matched a mitochondrial DNA profile authorities who were surveilling Heuermann developed from a pizza crust and used napkin that allegedly were discarded in Manhattan, prosecutors have said.

The mitochondrial DNA profile developed from the pizza and napkin could not be excluded as a match to a hair found at the bottom of burlap used to “restrain and transport” the remains of Waterman, according to prosecutors.

Prosecutors said in court papers filed in March they had turned over 12 terabytes of data to Heuermann’s defense, including a transcript of the grand jury presentation, 85 grand jury exhibits, autopsy reports, photographs from the crime scene and the medical examiner’s office, search warrants and affidavits. Prosecutors said the defense also has been given paperwork from the Suffolk County Police Department and its crime lab, as well as outside laboratory documentation.

At Heuermann’s most recent court appearance in April, Tierney and Suffolk Assistant District Attorney Nicholas Santomartino said prosecutors also recently turned over nearly 400 complete leads, a total of more than 7,000 other persons of interest in the 13-year investigation.

Police used K-9 dogs during their nine-day search of thousands of acres of Manorville woodlands in April and early May. The recent search of Heuermann’s home, which an attorney for his family said focused on the basement area, concluded after six days May 26. A July search of his home lasted 12 days.

Mazzei has said he would like to have discovery in the case completed by the end of July.

By Grant Parpan

grant.parpan@newsday.com@GrantParpan

Grant Parpan covers Suffolk County courts and federal courts for Newsday. A Long Island native, he joined Newsday in 2022.