Gilgo Beach killings: New images, description of victim released by Suffolk DA

The Gilgo Homicide Task Force has released three new images and information about the ethnicity of an unidentified male whose skeletal remains were found in April 2011 along the same 1.18-mile stretch of Ocean Parkway as five alleged victims of suspected Gilgo Beach serial killer Rex A. Heuermann.

Suffolk County District Attorney Ray Tierney said investigators hope the new images, rendered by forensic artists and anthropologists who studied the person’s skull, will help lead to an identification. Tierney said the remains were draped in women’s clothing and that investigators believe the biologically male individual was a transgender sex worker of southern Chinese descent.

"This person had a name, this person had family, this person had friends," Tierney said. "We're reaching out to anyone who might have known this individual to help us with that identification."

The cause of death was homicide by blunt force trauma, Tierney said.

Local, state and federal law enforcement officials joined Tierney and other members of the Gilgo Beach Task Force to release the new information at a news conference at the Suffolk County Police Academy in Brentwood Monday.

Tierney said members of the Asian media were specifically invited to attend the announcement, a portion of which was translated to Mandarin, to better reach the Asian population. The NYPD has also been recruited to spread the new images and information to Asian communities in New York City.

Forensic testing of the remains has led the investigators to believe that the person was Han Chinese, the largest ethnic group in the world. Despite Han Chinese making up more than 17% of the world's population, Tierney said South Asian DNA is "underrepresented in genealogy databases."

"Investigative genetic genealogy, in this instance, is a challenge," Tierney said of efforts to link the remains to a known person of familial DNA. "It has proved to be difficult and has provided few leads."

Flyers showing the new images, and newly released details about the brands and sizes of the clothing found on the remains, will be released in English, Mandarin, Thai and the Indonesian language Bahasa, the district attorney said.

Forensic artists and anthropologists created the reconstruction by first examining the contours of the skull, Tierney said.

"This reconstruction depicts what the victim may have looked like prior to their disappearance and murder," the district attorney said.

The clothing includes a blue ribbed short sleeve shirt with crew neck in large by the brand Chrysantheme, a Rafaella brand shirt and Bill Blass pants and bra.

Suffolk police first released a black-and-white sketch on Sept. 20, 2011, depicting the victim with hair closely cropped. Because the remains were found in women’s clothing, Tierney said the improved renderings now show the unidentified person presented as both male and female. A third image released shows a male profile.

Tierney said the person was between 17 and 23 years old when killed in 2006 or earlier. The person was between 5 feet 3 and 5 feet 9 inches tall, Tierney said.

Tierney declined to say specifically if Heuermann is a suspect in the death or to discuss other physical evidence he said investigators continue to examine from the scene more than 13 years later. He did note the proximity to Heuermann's other alleged victims and reminded reporters that prosecutors previously released evidence that suggested he had a sexual interest in Asian men.

Asked if a suspect could still be charged in the person's killing even if investigators never identify the person, Tierney said "yes."

The so-called Gilgo Four, the first four sets of remains found during the search of the narrow stretch of highway over a three-day period in December 2010, were all found within 0.28 miles of each other. The search was part of the missing persons investigation into Shannan Gilbert, a sex worker who had disappeared after making a distressed phone call from a house in the nearby Oak Beach community.

On Dec. 11, 2010, a police cadaver dog located the remains of Melissa Barthelemy, who had been living in the Bronx when she went missing in July 2009, in the bramble north of Ocean Parkway. Two days later, the remains of Amber Lynn Costello, who was last seen in West Babylon in September 2010, were found 0.16 miles to the west of Barthelemy, police said at the time. Later that same day, investigators found the remains of Maureen Brainard-Barnes, who was last known to be in Manhattan in July 2007, and of Megan Waterman, who was last seen at a Hauppauge hotel in June 2010, within 0.12 miles to the east of Barthelemy. All four women were known sex workers who were petite and between ages 22 and 27, investigators have said.

The head, hands and forearm of Jessica Taylor, whose torso was discovered roughly 40 miles away in Manorville shortly after her disappearance in July 2003, were found on March 29, 2011, on the same side of the Ocean Parkway just under a mile east of Waterman's remains. In total, 11 sets of remains were found over the course of a year in areas around Gilgo and Jones beaches, including Gilbert, whose death investigators have said was likely noncriminal.

Heuermann, 61, a Manhattan architect who resided in Massapequa Park, was arrested on July 13, 2023, and has since been charged in the killings of the Gilgo Four, Taylor and Sandra Costilla, a Queens woman whose strangled and mutilated body was found within days of her disappearance in November 1993 more than 60 miles from Gilgo Beach in North Sea.

The still-unidentified remains discussed Monday, the only biologically male body recovered at Gilgo Beach, were located on April 4, 2011, just 0.28 miles east of Waterman and 0.62 miles west of Taylor.

Two other sets of remains connected to the investigation, a woman and a toddler who DNA evidence show are related, also remain listed in the national database of unidentified persons. Tierney did not provide an update on the investigation into their identities.

Heuermann's attorney, Michael J. Brown, of Central Islip, declined to comment in advance of Monday's news conference. He could not be immediately reached for comment afterward.

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.