Gilgo Beach serial killings: Rex Heuermann charged with 3 murders

A Manhattan architect from Massapequa Park was charged Friday in the long-unsolved Gilgo Beach serial killer case with first-degree murder in the killings of three women, partly solving the mystery that has vexed investigators, left heartbroken families and haunted Long Island for over a decade.

Rex A. Heuermann, 59, pleaded not guilty to three counts each of first- and second-degree murder in the deaths of Melissa Barthelemy, Megan Waterman and Amber Costello — three of the four victims whose remains were found in December 2010 in a wooded area along Gilgo Beach — during his arraignment in Suffolk County Court in Riverhead Friday.

Authorities also called him the “prime suspect” in the killing of Maureen Brainard-Barnes, whose body was also found at the time in the same area. All of the women worked as sex workers, authorities have said.

In a 32-page bail document filed in court and released Friday, prosecutors detailed the evidence against Heuermann, including DNA lifted from a pizza box he allegedly discarded outside his office that authorities said linked him to one of the victims and cellular phone site data that investigators said also linked his whereabouts to the victims at key times.

State Supreme Court Justice Richard Ambro ordered Heuermann, a married father of two who neighbors said appeared to be an everyman professional, held without bail, saying it was due to “the extreme depravity of the allegations.” He was arrested Thursday night outside of his midtown Manhattan office, authorities said.

“Rex Heuermann is a demon that walks among us, a predator that ruined families,” said Suffolk County Police Commissioner Rodney K. Harrison, at a news conference Friday afternoon.

Suffolk County District Attorney Ray Tierney, who in a rare move personally handled the arraignment, told the judge that police made the arrest even though the investigation was ongoing because investigators were concerned that Heuermann, who owns houses in South Carolina and Las Vegas and continued to use the services of sex workers, might attempt to flee — or attack again.

Heuermann used seven burner phones over a 14-month period to search more than 200 times about the Gilgo Beach investigation — even visiting the website Suffolk police created in 2020 as a clearinghouse for information and tips — and for photos of the victims and to learn about family members of the victims, including siblings and children, Tierney said.

The seventh burner phone was recovered during Heuermann’s arrest.

His Chevrolet Avalanche pickup truck, which authorities said helped crack the case after a witness described it as being driven by a man who paid for services from Costello the day before she went missing, has been recovered by FBI investigators in South Carolina.

“For each of the murders, he got an individual burner phone and he used that to communicate with the victims and then shortly after the death of the victims, he then would get rid of the burner phone,” said Tierney, later speaking at a news conference.

Tierney, who credited the collaboration of the Gilgo Beach Task Force consisting of personnel from his office, police department, state police, FBI and sheriff’s office, declined to say if investigators believe Heuermann may be implicated in any of the other killings, which are still publicly unsolved.

Defense attorney Michael J. Brown of Central Islip, speaking outside the courthouse after the arraignment, said the case against his client is “extremely circumstantial in nature.”

“I can tell you what he did say, as he was in tears, was, ‘I didn’t do this,’” Brown said. “Everyone is presumed innocent in our country.”

Asked about a motive for the killings, which prosecutors are legally not required to prove in court, Tierney mentioned Heuermann’s alleged online activity, which included “thousands of searches related to sex workers, sadistic, torture-related pornography and child pornography,” according to the bail document.

“I think when you look at his internet searches, that provides a little insight into his state of mind,” said Tierney.

Heuermann, who married the former Elizabeth Ryan in 1990 in New Brunswick, New Jersey, graduated from the then-Alfred G. Berner High School, which is now a middle school, and New York Institute of Technology in Westbury with a degree in architectural technology, according to a wedding announcement published at the time in a central New Jersey newspaper.

Heuermann’s wife declined to comment to a Newsday reporter outside the courtroom Friday morning.

“Please leave me alone. I will not be saying anything,” she said after identifying herself as his wife to court personnel.

In a nearly 20-minute video posted Feb. 17, 2022, on the YouTube page of “Bonjour Realty,” Heuermann spoke about his dealings — and supposed expertise — with the city’s Department of Buildings, indicating someone who was not in hiding.

“I’m an architect. I’m an architectural consultant. I’m a troubleshooter. Born and raised on Long Island. Been working in Manhattan since 1987 — a very long time,” Heuermann said by way of introduction to the host.

Heuermann’s home on First Avenue in Massapequa Park garnered attention from neighbors for its unkept appearance, but residents there who gathered outside to gawk at the law enforcement and media presence Friday, expressed shock that someone who lived in their neighborhood was accused in one of Long Island’s most infamous serial killings.

Retired New York City firefighter Etienne de Villiers, who lives next door to Heuermann, said he was quiet. Heuermann grew up on the block with his parents, he said.

“He’s been a quiet guy,” de Villiers said of the suspect. “We just say hello in the mornings and afternoon pleasantries … Nothing special. We never associated in any way.”

Police tape blocked large portions of First Avenue where federal, state and local law enforcement from Nassau and Suffolk conducted a search of Heuermann’s home. Law enforcement was seen removing potential evidence from the home, including towing a vehicle from the driveway of the suspect’s home.

“It’s a shocker,” said Massapequa Park resident Richard Harmon. “It’s a real eye-opener. Living here for 29 years, this is the worst case I’ve ever seen … Nobody suspected this.”

Many local residents gossiped among themselves, hoisting cellphone cameras high in the air to try and capture the surreal scene.

Michael McManus, a Massapequa Park resident who lives near the house in question, co-hosts a Gilgo serial killer podcast and has closely monitored the case during the past decade.

“I’m very happy for the families,” he said, crediting Harrison for the increased focus and intensity of the investigation in recent years. “But the fact that it’s in this exact town is kind of alarming.”

Harrison said the arrest was made by members of the Gilgo Beach Task Force at around 8:30 p.m. Thursday at 35th Street and Fifth Avenue in Manhattan before the suspect was transported to police headquarters in Yaphank.

Outside of the Manhattan building where he works, Suffolk County crime lab workers could be seen Friday going in and out, some officers carrying crowbars and sledgehammers. Several NYPD officers stood outside the front door and would not allow a reporter to enter.

Investigators said they linked Heuermann to Waterman’s body through DNA, according to a detailed account in the bail document. A hair found at the “bottom of the burlap” that Waterman’s body was wrapped in, according to authorities, was linked to Heuermann after investigators surveilling him “observed and recovered” a pizza box he allegedly threw in a garbage can in front of 385 Fifth Avenue in Manhattan — the office for his architecture and consulting firm.

The DNA was degraded because it was exposed to the elements from being outside, but Tierney said advances in technology in mitochondrial DNA helped investigators.

“While 99.96% of the North American population can be excluded from the MALE HAIR ON WATERMAN, it is significant that Defendant Heuermann cannot be excluded from the male hair recovered near the “bottom of the burlap” utilized to restrain and transport Megan Waterman’s naked and deceased body,” the document said.

Additionally, investigators said they found human hair belonging to a woman believed to be Heuermann’s wife on or near the bodies of the victims, though they said records show the wife and children were on vacation at the time the victims disappeared.

Investigators said Costello was bound by three pieces of clear or white duct tape and the hair was found on a piece of the tape near Costello’s head inside the burlap wrapping.

Waterman’s body was also bound by clear or white duct tape and two female human hairs were recovered, one “from outside the head area” and the other from “the tape of the head area,” the document said.

Investigators said Brainard-Barnes, the first of the four Gilgo Beach victims whose bodies were discovered, was restrained by three leather belts, one of which was used to tie Brainard-Barnes’ feet, ankle and legs together. A female human hair was recovered from a buckle of one of the belts, authorities said.

While Heuermann has not been charged in her death, police said he is the prime suspect in the killing of Brainard-Barnes.

“As such, it is likely that the burlap, tape, vehicle(s) or other instrumentalities utilized in furtherance of these murders came from Defendant Heuermann’s residence, where his wife also resides, or was transferred from his clothing,” prosecutors wrote, pointing out that Heuermann’s wife was out of town when the victims went missing.

A key breakthrough in the case came on March 14, 2022, when a New York State Police investigator mined a database and identified Heuermann as a suspect, Tierney said.

A witness had described a “thickly built” white man with dark hair standing between 6 feet 4 inches and 6 feet 6 inches as a man who had been driving a Chevrolet Avalanche when he paid Costello for services the day before she died. Tierney said Heuermann is 6 feet 4 inches and matches the description.

The customer whom investigators believe was Heuermann left Costello’s home after someone who “pretended to be the outraged boyfriend of Amber Costello,” and Costello kept the money.

A witness told investigators that a Chevrolet Avalance with a unique triangular ornament between the cab and the bed was parked in Costello’s driveway, Tierney said.

Heuermann, according to investigators, later sent a text message to Costello’s phone that said, “That was not nice do I credit (sic) for next time.”

Heuermann contacted her on the night of Sept. 1, 2010 — the last day she was seen alive — and a witness spotted a dark pickup truck pass the house, prosecutors said.

Tierney said the task force executed more than 300 subpoenas and search warrants into Heuermann, as well as surveilling him and getting DNA samples from him and his family members.

Suffolk County Executive Steve Bellone said his 12-year tenure in office has centered around bringing closure to the families affected by the slayings.

“The message to the public is we never stopped working on this case,” Bellone said. “There are Suffolk police officers who started working on this case that have retired. Their efforts, their dedication has never stopped putting more resources into this case … But the work is not done here. But this is a major step forward in achieving the goal that we have had from the beginning. And that is to bring closure to these families and to bring justice to the victims.”

Gov. Kathy Hochul noted the arrest during an unrelated appearance Friday at Jones Beach.

“This is a day that has been a long time coming and hopefully it will bring peace to the families and peace that’s long overdue,” Hochul said.

The saga of the Gilgo Beach killings began in December 2010, when four sets of human remains were found while Suffolk police searched for Jersey City, New Jersey-based sex worker Shannan Gilbert, who went missing on May 1 of that year in Oak Beach.

An officer and a cadaver dog conducting a “routine exercise,” found a set of badly decomposed remains on Dec. 11, 2010. Two days later, the remains of three more women were discovered, wrapped in burlap, all near one another in the thick vegetation north of Ocean Parkway.

Six more sets of remains were found eventually as detectives searched the area along the Ocean Parkway. The 10 are known collectively as the Gilgo Beach homicide victims.

Gilbert’s remains were not found until the following December and authorities have said they don’t believe Gilbert is a homicide victim. The Suffolk County Medical Examiner’s Office ruled the cause and manner of Gilbert’s death undetermined.

The first victim found was Brainard-Barnes, 25, of Norwich, Connecticut, who was last seen alive in Manhattan on July 9, 2007.

Police identified the other victims as Waterman, 22, of Scarborough, Maine, who disappeared on June 6, 2010, after traveling to Long Island to meet clients; Barthelemy, 24, of the Bronx; and Costello, 27, of North Babylon, who was last seen alive Sept. 2, 2010, in North Babylon. She was never reported missing.

By March 2011, police had expanded the search area into Nassau County and ultimately found another six victims, including the partial skeletal remains of Jessica Taylor, found near Gilgo Beach on March 29, 2011. Some of the partial remains matched body parts found dating back to the 1990s and early 2000s. Some of Taylor’s remains had also been found in Manorville in 2003.

Suffolk police found more remains at Jones Beach on April 11, 2011, identified initially by investigators only as Jane Doe No. 3. Those were later linked by investigators to the remains of a child, Baby Doe, a girl between the age of 1 and 4 whose remains were found near Cedar Beach on April 4, 2011, near those of a man dressed in women’s clothing.

A hiker had discovered Jane Doe No. 3’s torso in 1997 at Hempstead Lake State Park in Rockville Centre. It was stuffed into a large, black garbage bag that had been placed in a plastic container and dumped in the woods, police have said. The woman, whom police referred to as Peaches because of a tattoo of the fruit she had on her chest, was the mother of the child, according to investigators.

In 2020, a flurry of activity occurred in the investigation under then-Suffolk Police Commissioner Geraldine Hart, a former FBI official.

In January 2020, Suffolk County police released an image of a black leather belt believed to have been handled by a potential suspect in the Gilgo Beach killings. The belt, embossed with the letters WH or HM, was found about nine years ago at one of the crime scenes along the parkway. Hart called it a “significant piece of evidence.”

Suffolk police announced in May 2020 it had positively identified remains that were found on Gilgo Beach in 2011 and in Manorville in 2000 as Valerie Mack.

The remains, which were previously identified as Jane Doe No. 6, were found near a Manorville sump discharge basin on Nov. 19, 2000, in a heavily wooded area about a half-mile west of Halsey Manor Road and north of the Long Island Expressway, police have said, but it wasn’t until police found other parts of Jane Doe No. 6’s body off Ocean Parkway on April 4, 2011 that her killing was linked to the others.