Gilgo Beach killings: Rex Heuermann submits to DNA test, sources say

Massapequa Park resident Rex A. Heuermann, who has been charged in the deaths of three women and is a suspect in the slaying of a fourth whose remains were discovered on Gilgo Beach in 2010, submitted to a cheek swab last week for Suffolk County prosecutors looking to bolster the DNA case against him, sources familiar with the case said.

The test took place on Aug. 16 at the Suffolk County Jail in Riverhead, where Heuermann has been held since his arrest on July 13.

The development comes as police in South Carolina say they have turned over information in a missing persons case to the FBI after receiving a report that a woman may have been spotted with Heuermann shortly before disappearing in 2017, a spokesperson for the Sumter County Sheriff’s Office told Newsday.

Sumter County officials said they were made aware of a possible connection to the Long Island case after being contacted by the daughter of Julia Ann Bean, a Sumter resident who was last seen on May 31, 2017. Bean’s daughter told investigators that after seeing images of Heuermann following his arrest, she believes she saw him with her mother before her disappearance.

“The key word there is ‘thinks,’ ” said Sumter County Sheriff’s Office Public Information Officer Mark Bordeaux. “There’s no solid connection as of yet, and our investigator will be exploring that and looking for proof, evidence. Something to substantiate it.”

Bordeaux said a detective is scheduled to meet with Cameron Bean, who was a teenager when her mother went missing and is now in her 20s, to gather more information from her in the “near future.”

For now, the tip was enough for the department to share “any and all relevant information with [the FBI] in the event it may be helpful,” Bordeaux said.

Bordeaux declined to say who the last person to report seeing Bean was, but it was about two weeks after Cameron last had contact with her mother. She reported her mom, who was 32 years old at the time, missing that November.

Attempts to reach Cameron Bean were unsuccessful.

Sumter is located less than 90 miles from Chester, South Carolina, where Heuermann owns property and where his brother, Craig Heuermann, also lives.

Police in Nevada and New Jersey, where Heuermann also has owned property, have said they are looking into possible connections with Heuermann to open cases in their jurisdictions.

Sheriffs in Chester County previously worked with the FBI to help investigators in Suffolk County execute a search warrant at Craig Heuermann’s home, where they located a green 2012 Chevy Avalanche once owned by the defendant.

The vehicle, along with Heuermann’s cellphone records and DNA, are believed to be among the strongest pieces of evidence tying him to the killings.

Suffolk County prosecutors said in a motion filed on Aug. 1 that they wanted a cheek swab from Heuermann to test against a mitochondrial DNA profile developed from a pizza crust and napkin he allegedly discarded in Manhattan, which prosecutors have said was matched to a hair sample found at the bottom of burlap used to restrain Gilgo Beach victim Megan Waterman and then transport her remains.

Defense attorneys tried to prevent prosecutors from obtaining the cheek swab, but State Supreme Court Justice Timothy Mazzei, the presiding judge in the case against the architect, ruled Aug. 9 that prosecutors have enough probable cause to obtain the sample from Heuermann.

Heuermann’s lead attorney, Michael Brown, did not immediately return a request for comment.

Heuermann, 59, has pleaded not guilty to first- and second-degree murder charges in the killings of three women — Waterman, Melissa Barthelemy and Amber Lynn Costello — whose remains were found near Gilgo Beach 13 years ago.

Authorities also have said Heuermann is the “prime suspect” in the slaying of Maureen Brainard-Barnes, whose remains were found with the other three victims. All four of the women were sex workers, law enforcement officials said.

With Michael O’Keeffe