Gilgo Beach killings: Accused serial killer Rex Heuermann kept news articles as 'souvenirs' of his alleged crimes, prosecutors say in court papers

Gilgo Beach Task Force investigators say the man charged with seven killings exhibited a "persistent interest" in the case before his arrest, visiting a police website at key points in the investigation and saving decades old news articles as "souvenirs or mementos of his crimes," prosecutors alleged in court papers filed this week.

Suffolk County District Attorney Ray Tierney said the findings are the result of a pair of search warrants executed at Rex. A. Heuermann’s Massapequa Park home and Manhattan office. Investigators uncovered evidence that he frequently read and saved Gilgo-related content and performed hundreds of searches about the investigation into the seven killings linked to him.

"We think it's circumstantial evidence of his persistent interest in the case, of the victims, ... all the methods used by law enforcement to try to catch the murderer," Tierney said at a news conference Tuesday.

But defense attorney Michael J. Brown, of Central Islip, balked at the idea that Heuermann had any more interest than the general public in a case that has provoked numerous podcast episodes, books, a Hollywood movie and at least three documentaries in production for major streamers. Heuermann professed his innocence in each of the women’s deaths at his arraignment Tuesday.

"There are many people who are infatuated with this case, not just in Suffolk County, but across our country, thousands and thousands and thousands of people," Brown said into microphones from local, regional and national media outlets that attended Tuesday’s arraignment. "That's probably underestimating the amount of people that are really attuned to this case over the last 15, 20 years."

Prosecutors found that Heuermann visited Gilgonews.com, a former website police used to share information about the investigation, at about 11:30 p.m. on May 23, 2020. He allegedly visited the website a day after police announced they had identified a Jane Doe in the case who they would soon reveal to be New Jersey mother Valerie Mack. Heuermann, who was indicted in Mack’s killing Tuesday, visited a page on the site specific to her case again that July, prosecutors said.

Tierney said that revelation, which police made before Heuermann’s July 2023 arrest, is consistent with more recent discoveries that the architectural consultant kept copies of newspaper and magazine coverage of his alleged crimes in his bedroom, a basement vault and in his office. The news clips and magazines dated back to 1993.

On July 15, 2023, detectives searching Heuermann’s Manhattan office two days after his arrest found a November 2016 issue of People magazine with an article about the Gilgo Beach investigation on its cover, which asked, "Who is the cold-blooded murderer killing women and dumping their bodies on a New York beach?" The magazine was in a cardboard box next to Heuermann’s desk in his personal office, prosecutors said in a bail application.

The following day, an investigator found a 2011 New York magazine with a cover featuring an article about the investigation in a basement vault in Heuermann’s home.

Prosecutors said the magazines, as well as 1993 Newsday and 2003 New York Post issues found in a May search at his home, which detail killings on the East End of Long Island Heuermann has also been charged in, contained no postmarks or subscription tags.

"The Gilgo Beach Homicide Task Force members believe these newspapers and magazines were store-bought," the bail document reads. "The Task Force believes Rex A. Heuermann sought, purchased and kept these publications as ... ‘souvenirs’ or ‘mementos’ of his crimes, serving as reminders of events that occurred throughout the murders of each victim."

"All of those things are evincing of a certain mental state and intent," Tierney said.

Brown said that what prosecutors described as evidence of intent is merely an opinion forged by investigators, which he said "has no place in a trial."

The defense attorney said people should instead focus on what Tierney and his team of local, state and federal investigators did not find during the searches.

"They went through that house and that property with a fine-tooth comb. They dug up the backyard. They went into walls, they went into pipes. They went under the cement foundation," Brown said. "And they have yet to show anyone any evidence in that home ... They gathered and collected weapons and tools. There is no evidence that any victim’s DNA is on any of those weapons or tools. There's no evidence that any of the victims’ DNA is on anything. But rather, they're relying on cutouts of articles from the New York Post and People Magazine."

Criminologist Scott Bonn, who helped build a profile of the suspect for the New York Times in 2011 and Louis Schlesinger, professor of psychology at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, would not characterize newspaper clippings as "souvenirs" or "mementos."

Schlesinger said certain serial sexual murderers use the media to check on the progress of an investigation.

"Where's the investigation at? How close are they? That's why they're following the media," Schlesinger said.

Schlesinger said mementos are instead things of value taken from a victim or crime scene, such as jewelry. Souvenirs, he said, are items of lesser monetary value like clothing.

"They do it the same reason people go on vacation and take home a souvenir," Schlesinger said. "It's used to trigger memories of what happened."

Bonn, who travels the country in a theatrical speaking tour about serial killers that includes the Gilgo Beach case, said he believes Heuermann kept news clippings out of "ego."

"These are extremely meticulous, organized, obsessive individuals that fantasize and focus on every single detail. That includes the press coverage and notoriety that they receive," Bonn said.

Bonn described the evidence of Heuermann's alleged interest in the case as circumstantial and said the "real smoking gun" comes from the mitochondrial DNA profiles from hair found on six of the alleged victims.

Prosecutors have said Heuermann didn’t just keep a print archive about the case but also set up Google accounts under aliases, one of which was used to perform more than 200 searches in the 15 months before his arrest about the investigation, police tactics and other serial killer cases.

"Why hasn’t the long island serial killer been caught" and "How cellphone tracking is increasingly being used to solve crimes" were among the searches Heuermann performed, prosecutors said in court records unveiled following prior indictments.

Heuermann is now facing a 10-count indictment charging him with first-degree murder for the common-scheme 2009 and 2010 killings of Megan Waterman, Amber Costello and Melissa Barthelemy, and second-degree murder for all three plus second-degree murder charges in the earlier killings of Mack, Jessica Taylor, Maureen Brainard-Barnes and Sandra Costilla. Investigators have said the women were all sex workers and six of them are among the bodies found near Gilgo Beach. The case of Costilla, whose remains were found more than 40 miles away in the Southampton hamlet of North Sea in 1993, was not associated with Gilgo Beach until Heuermann was charged in her death in June.

Tierney said this week that Heuermann’s perceived three-decade fascination with the case is one piece in a case his team hopes ends in conviction.

"When taken with all the evidence, it paints a certain picture, the picture we’ll need to prove at trial," he said.

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.