Gilgo Beach killings: Accused killer Rex Heuermann sought to keep victims alive to enhance sadistic pleasures, investigators say

An alleged planning document by suspected Gilgo Beach serial killer Rex A. Heuermann offers insight into his intent to prolong the captivity of his victims for enhancement of his sadistic pleasures, prosecutors, law enforcement investigators and crime experts say.

Suffolk County District Attorney Ray Tierney has alleged Heuermann’s desire to keep his victims alive for as long as possible is spelled out in the document through references to torture, captivity, noise control and "play time."

"That speaks for itself," Tierney told reporters at a June 6 news conference following Heuermann’s arraignment on second-degree murder charges related to the deaths of fifth and sixth victims. "We will make arguments in regard to that at the trial.

"We allege that the more rest the participants [have], the more you get done," Tierney said, explaining the "play time" notation to reporters. "The more rested the participants are the more you can get done."

The alleged planning document had been deleted in 2002 from Heuermann's computer but was recovered from a device seized from his Massapequa Park home last summer, prosecutors have said. Its content was recovered early this year, prosecutors said.

Heuermann, 60, who worked as an architect in New York City, has been indicted on multiple murder charges in the killings of six women: Amber Lynn Costello, Megan Waterman, Melissa Barthelemy, Maureen Brainard-Barnes, Jessica Taylor and Sandra Costilla. He has pleaded not guilty.

Authorities say he is also considered a prime suspect in the slaying of Valerie Mack, of New Jersey.

Michael J. Brown, Heuermann's attorney, declined to comment for this story.

Former FBI profiler Gregg McCrary said the fantasy for many previously convicted serial killers is to keep victims alive for torture to enjoy their reaction to pain. Killing is often secondary to the crucial goal of captivity, he said.

"The more interaction they can have is the payoff for them," McCrary said. "They want to keep them alive as long as they can, reasonably. Killing is what they have to do at the end to not be discovered."

‘Document matches crime scenes’

Tierney said the condition of the remains of Jessica Taylor and Sandra Costilla supports the theory that Heuermann engaged in torture. Costilla’s body, found in North Sea within days of her 1993 death, showed evidence of mutilation. Taylor was dismembered in 2003, her remains dumped off Ocean Parkway near Gilgo Beach and also in the vicinity of the Long Island Expressway in Manorville, Tierney said.

Evidence prosecutors have revealed in the case suggests a window of four days when Taylor might have been held in captivity, from the time she last reached family by telephone and when a witness claims to have seen a pickup in the area where her body was found, records show.

With the June indictment, Heuermann, 60, who worked as an architect in New York City, is now accused of killing a total of six women: Amber Lynn Costello, Megan Waterman, Melissa Barthelemy, Maureen Brainard-Barnes, Taylor and Costilla.

Tierney has said Heuermann, who remains in custody at the Suffolk County Jail in Riverhead.

Heuermann, pleaded not guilty following his July 2023 arrest and at two subsequent arraignments.

Brown addressed the alleged planning document at a news conference in July, saying he doesn’t "think it’s that significant."

"It all goes into the narrative," Brown said. "It’s any piece of the puzzle that they can take and they can fit and they can argue that it’s Rex Heuermann, they’ve done it. The things that don’t work for them, you don’t hear about."

Brown said 18 months of surveillance footage of Heuermann turned over to the defense does not show his client to be the "horrific, prolific mass murderer" law enforcement makes him out to be.

"I have seen the video from the beginning to the end," Brown said of the footage taken at Heuermann’s home before his arrest. "What you see is a guy walking his dog, a guy going to work in the morning with his briefcase and his sports jacket and coming home."

Brown also downplayed references in the alleged planning document to the book Mindhunter, written by famed FBI profiler John Douglas.

"There are probably hundreds of thousands of people across our country, if not millions, who have read that book and downloaded portions of that book," Brown said.

The portions of the book prosecutors say Heuermann took note of pertain specifically to mutilation and sexual substitution, videos of which Heuermann also allegedly searched for on the internet, prosecutors said.

"That is when the perpetrator penetrates the victim’s body with an object as a means to substitute the sexual act," Tierney told reporters at Newsday headquarters in Melville in June.

"We think that is what happened with Costilla," Tierney said, noting the dozens of sharp-force injuries on her body.

Because the remains of Taylor and Costilla were discovered so soon after their deaths, unlike the other four women whose killings Heuermann has been charged with, investigators were left with more physical evidence to understand how the killings were carried out, Tierney said. That evidence points to torture, he said.

"With regard to the Gilgo Four, they were skeletonized, so we're left to surmise a lot of things, or we just don't know, because we don't have the same amount of evidence that you would on a person who has been deceased for a period of days, as opposed to a period of years," Tierney said. "With Costilla and Jessica Taylor ... we know more about what, unfortunately, what happened to them, because there's more evidence there."

Tierney offers a different opinion from Brown on the alleged planning document, calling it a "blue print" that details Heuermann’s "intent and methodology."

"When you have a document that manifests methodology and that methodology matches with the crime scenes of the cases you're investigating, obviously you're going to pay attention to that," Tierney said.

‘Frightening stuff’

The notes Heuermann allegedly kept in his planning document, which prosecutors suggest included methods for covering up his crimes and evading law enforcement, have given pause even to professionals trained in police investigations.

Joseph Giacalone, a retired NYPD detective sergeant and professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, pointed to a portion of the document that states "more sleep & noise control=more play time."

Prosecutors allege play time is code for mutilation acts and that careful attention to sleep and noise control would have given Heuermann more time and energy to commit those acts.

"More rest, more play time ... it is pretty frightening stuff," Giacalone said.

"Just from reading the [manifesto] document, this is the most sadistic thing around, keeping people alive to torture them. The torture these victims had to go through just compounds things for their families."

McCrary said the Gilgo planning document evoked for him two prominent serial killing investigations he was involved in. A reference to film in the document suggests Heuermann may have recorded or photographed his victims, though Tierney has said no photographs have been discovered through lengthy searches of Heuermann’s home, office and storage units which turned up hundreds of devices, including 15 cameras and 30 computers. The district attorney noted another portion of the document mentioned disposing of "pics."

McCrary said serial killers tend to record or photograph their crimes as a way of reliving the sadistic events. That occurred with convicted killers Leonard Lake and Charles Ng, of California, a case McCrary worked on in the 1980s. The two men raped, tortured and killed up to two dozen men and women, recording some of the crimes, McCrary said.

While the destruction of such incriminating photos is intellectually smart, McCrary said, some killers have a need to keep photos for stimulation.

The former FBI agent also was reminded of the case of Paul Bernardo, a Canadian convicted serial murderer and rapist who held his victims captive. When Bernardo lived with his parents, he let his victims go, but held them after he began living on his own, said McCrary, who assisted Canadian authorities in that investigation in the 1990s.

Tierney alleges Heuermann killed Costilla shortly after his mother and wife moved out of his Massapequa Park home. And prosecutors, through phone and financial records, have ascertained that Heuermann’s family was out of town for each of the five additional killings he is accused in.

The basement of the home, they believe, is where Heuermann likely tortured and killed his victims.

The alleged planning document references "push pins to hang drop cloths from the ceiling not tape" and "hard point," which prosecutors believe refers to a fixed attachment point on a ceiling to support weight in suspension bondage.

Tierney said in June that prosecutors are analyzing evidence of tape and push pins removed from Heuermann’s basement during the execution of a search warrant in May.

Heuermann is due back in court Oct. 16. No timeline has been given for a potential trial.