Gilgo killings: Investigators link phone number in document tied to Heuermann to sex worker, source says

Investigators have linked one of two phone numbers contained in an alleged planning document by Gilgo Beach serial killings suspect Rex A. Heuermann to a former Bronx sex worker, a law enforcement source told Newsday.

The phone numbers were disclosed to the public June 6 as Suffolk County District Attorney Ray Tierney sought help identifying a woman investigators believe Heuermann may have targeted around 2002.

The law enforcement source says investigators have since confirmed one of the numbers, 917-294-4402, belonged to Danielle Goodling, a former Bronx sex worker. She died in 2021 at age 42, of an apparent drug overdose and liver failure, her family told Newsday.

Heuermann, 60, of Massapequa Park, has to date been charged in the killings of six women whose remains were located off Ocean Parkway near Gilgo Beach, in Manorville or in the East End hamlet of North Sea. Investigators are continuing to investigate him in connection with additional killings across Suffolk County, Tierney has said.

Heuermann allegedly used a planning document between 2000 and 2002 that investigators believe allowed him to methodically plan out his kills and prepare to evade law enforcement, prosecutors revealed in June.

In an interview Wednesday, Tierney said that while the phone numbers had previously turned up investigative dead ends, the publicity efforts in June led to additional information the Gilgo Beach Task Force is "still evaluating."

While Tierney confirmed that the 4402 number has been linked to a woman, he declined to name her. The second number, a pager, has proved more difficult to verify who had the number. 

"We are still working on the second number [917-898-9854]," the district attorney said. "Any information with the identity of the individual who held the numbers would potentially be relevant."

The 4402 number goes to voicemail last registered to a woman in Queens. The pager is no longer in service.

The law enforcement source said the aim of investigators is to collate and compare various numbers associated with Goodling to Heuermann's devices as a way of authenticating the contents of the alleged planning document as evidence of contact with a sex worker. That process is ongoing, the source said.

Heuermann’s defense attorney, Michael J. Brown, of Central Islip, declined to comment for this story.

In the alleged planning document, the phone numbers are associated with someone identified only as "Megan?," who is also labeled as Target 1, according to prosecutors.

"TRG T1, MEGAN? SMALL IS GOOD," the document reads.

Public records from 2002, the year prosecutors have said Heuermann kept the alleged planning document, list Goodling as 5-foot-6, 130 pounds.

In June, Goodling’s mother, Cindy Fitt, of Osceola Mills, Pennsylvania, told Newsday her daughter ran away from home as a teenager and was engaged in sex work as early as the late 1990s. Fitt said Goodling’s phone number changed several times over the years, but she did recall her having a 917 area code around the late 1990s. Fitt did not recall her daughter ever telling her she used the name Megan.

Records obtained by Newsday from Manhattan Criminal Court show Goodling was arrested in the borough, where Heuermann ran an architectural consulting business, 10 times between 1998 and 2004. She was charged twice in 2002, according to copies of the criminal complaints.

Goodling was arrested and charged with one count of prostitution shortly after midnight Jan. 25, 2002, when court records show she engaged with an undercover NYPD officer on Fifth Avenue near East 59th Street. She was then arrested shortly after midnight on Feb. 23, 2002, and charged with loitering for prostitution at the corner of East 50th Street and Lexington Avenue, court records show. Both locations are within a mile and a half Heuermann’s former office on West 36th Street.

On one occasion, Fitt said, Goodling’s father, who has since died, was called to New York to identify a body in a morgue. It was not their daughter, but rather someone who had her identification, Fitt said.

Fitt called the allegations raised in the prosecution’s June bail application, which includes the alleged planning document, "a disturbing read." She said she was the only member of the family who spoke with Goodling.

"She knew I loved her and she could call," Fitt said, adding that her daughter had left sex work before her death and was helping other people caught up in similar situations.

Heuermann, 60, of Massapequa Park, has been charged in the killings of six women: Melissa Barthelemy, Megan Waterman, Amber Lynn Costello, Maureen Brainard-Barnes, Jessica Taylor and Sandra Costilla. Heuermann has pleaded not guilty to multiple first-degree and second-degree murder charges in connection with their deaths.

The cases span 30 years, from the 1993 death of Costilla to Heuermann’s arrest last July. Each of the women has been associated with sex work, according to prosecutors.

Janon Fisher contributed to this story.