Gilgo Beach case: New DNA evidence links Rex Heuermann to murders
Follow updates as Rex Heuermann appears in court for a pre-trial conference in the Gilgo Beach murders case
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Gilgo Beach serial killer suspect Rex Heuermann was back in court in New York on Wednesday to face charges for the murders of three women whose bodies were found dumped along the shores of Long Island.
In the court hearing in Suffolk County Court, prosecutors said that a DNA sample taken from the 59-year-old architect had now tied him further to the murders.
According to court documents released following Mr Heuermann’s 13 July arrest, prosecutors said that a male hair had been found on the burlap used to wrap Megan Waterman’s body before she was dumped along Gilgo Beach.
After investigators zeroed in on Mr Heuermann as a possible suspect in the killings, they sought his DNA to compare it to the hair sample.
This January, a surveillance team watching the suspect saw him chuck a pizza box into a trash can close to the office of his architecture firm in Midtown Manhattan.
They seized the box and found a leftover pizza crust inside, which was tested for DNA.
Forensic testing then proved that the DNA on the pizza crust was a match to the hair found on Waterman’s body.
Following his arrest, prosecutors sought a DNA sample directly from Mr Heuermann and a judge ordered the accused killer to have a cheek swab taken last month. The swab was then tested and compared to the DNA evidence.
In court on Wednesday, prosecutors confirmed it came back a match – that the hair found on Waterman’s body belongs to Mr Heuermann.
Mr Heuermann, a married father-of-two, was arrested on 13 July and charged with the murders of Waterman, Melissa Barthelemy and Amber Costello in what marked a major development into the infamous Gilgo Beach murders. He is also the prime suspect in the murder of Maureen Brainard-Barnes.
All four women worked as sex workers and disappeared after going to meet a client. Their bodies were found in December 2010 bound by belts or tape and some wrapped in burlap.
In total, remains of 11 victims were found along the Long Island shores in 2010 and 2011.
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Thousands of pages of evidence turned over in court
In the court hearing, prosecutors told the judge that they had handed over thousands of pages of evidence so far in the case.
Rex Heuermann is charged with the murders of three women whose remains were found along the shores of Gilgo Beach in December 2010.
His affidavit states that he was tied to the case thanks to a pimp’s tip about his pickup truck, a stash of burner phones and DNA evidence – obtained through his wife’s hair and a pizza crust.
Now, another 8,000 pages of discovery have been turned over since the last court date in August and another 5,000 pages this morning as the state builds its case against the accused killer, reported News12.
Rex Heuermann sports new haircut as he appears in court for third time over Gilgo Beach murders
Heuermann’s cheek swab matches DNA found on discarded pizza crust – and victim’s body: prosecutors
In the court hearing, prosecutors said that a DNA sample taken from Rex Heuermann since his arrest has now tied him further to one of the murders.
A cheek swab was taken from the 59-year-old accused killer following a court order last month.
Now, prosecutors say the swab matches DNA found on a discarded pizza crust – and in turn a victim’s body.
The pizza crust had been seized from a trash can outside Mr Heuermann’s office in Midtown Manhattan.
It was then tested and found to be a match to a hair found on the body of Megan Waterman.
The pizza crust evidence
Rex Heuermann was tied to the murders through DNA found on one of the victims.
In court documents following his 13 July arrest, prosecutors said that a male hair had been found on the burlap used to wrap Megan Waterman’s body before the killer dumped her along Gilgo Beach.
When the hair was first retrieved in 2010, it was unsuitable for DNA analysis, according to the court documents.
But that hair was kept safely locked away and was submitted for analysis in 2020. A DNA profile came back.
Now, to check if it matched Mr Heuermann, investigators needed his DNA to compare the samples.
This January, a surveillance team watching the suspect saw him chuck a pizza box into the trash close to his office in Manhattan. They nabbed the box and found a leftover pizza crust inside.
The forensics came back: it was Mr Heuermann’s hair found on Waterman’s body, prosecutors said.
New DNA evidence ties Rex Heuermann to discarded pizza crust – and Gilgo Beach victim
New DNA evidence has tied Gilgo Beach serial killer suspect Rex Heuermann to a discarded pizza crust – and, in turn, one of the three women he is accused of murdering.
The 59-year-old architect and married father-of-two appeared in Suffolk County Court on Wednesday morning for a pre-trial conference in the case that has rocked Long Island for more than a decade.
Sporting a new shorter haircut, the suspected killer looked on as prosecutors unveiled further damning evidence linking him to the murders since his arrest in July.
A cheek swab had been taken from Mr Heuermann following a court order last month.
PICTURED: Rex Heuermann in court
Other evidence police say ties Heuermann to murders: Pickup truck
The first piece of the puzzle came when a witness in the Costello case revealed details about a vehicle that a client was driving when she was last seen alive.
Costello, who worked as a sex worker, was seen alive on the evening of 2 September 2010 when she left her home in West Babylon.
One night earlier, witnesses said that a prostitution client had come to her home but the client was subjected to a ruse where a man posing as Costello’s outraged boyfriend showed up and made him leave – in a move to swindle the client out of cash. A witness – Costello’s unidentified pimp – said that the client was driving a first-generation Chevrolet Avalanche.
The next day the same client contacted Costello to meet her but said that he wouldn’t come to her home because of “her boyfriend”, the court documents state.
Costello left her home and was never seen alive again.
The details of the vehicle came to light last year after a new taskforce was assembled in January 2022 to solve the serial killings once and for all. The taskforce reviewed the evidence gathered in the case and investigators interviewed Costello’s pimp in the spring of 2022.
He told officials about the suspect in the green Chevrolet Avalanche, telling them he didn’t know the man’s name but that “you might want to look at him”.
In March 2022, a registration search showed that local man Mr Heuermann owned a first-generation model of the truck at the time of Costello’s disappearance. He also matched the witness’ description of the man believed to be the killer: a large, white “ogre”-like male in his mid-40s, around 6’4’ to 6’6” tall, with “dark bushy hair,” and “big oval style 1970’s type eyeglasses”.
“As described below, this was significant, because a witness to the disappearance of Amber Costello identified a first-generation Chevrolet Avalanche as the vehicle believed to have been driven by her killer,” the court documents state.
Suffolk County Police Commissioner Rodney Harrison told New York Daily News this was the “turning point” in the investigation – and the moment that authorities zeroed in on Mr Heuermann.
“The turning point was the car,” he said. “Once we got that car, who it connected to, that’s when the investigation got legs.”
The discovery of the car led investigators to hone in on Mr Heuermann including executing 300 subpoenas, search warrants and other legal processes to obtain evidence to determine his potential involvement in the killings.
Other evidence police say ties Heuermann to murders: Burner phones
Mr Heuermann’s alleged use of burner phones also led police to make an arrest.
At the time when the three women went missing, they had been in contact with a person who was using a burner phone to arrange to meet them.
People often use burner phones for illicit or illegal activities as they are more difficult to trace.
But, according to the court documents, Mr Heuermann still managed to make a series of critical errors while using them.
The burner phones used to contact the victims always pinged off the same cell towers as Mr Heuermann’s legitimate cellphone, the documents show – indicating that while using the burner phones, he was also in possession of his cellphone at the same time.
The burner phones also pinged off cell towers in two key locations – close to Mr Heuermann’s office in Midtown Manhattan and close to Mr Heuermann’s family home in Massapequa Park.
Records show that Mr Heuermann’s personal cellphone and the burner phones were in the same locations at the same time – and in the locations that corresponded with the disappearances and murders of each of the three women around Massapequa, Long Island and Midtown Manhattan.
“Investigators could find no instance where Heuermann was in a separate location from these other cellphones when such a communication event occurred,” the court documents state.
In the days leading up to Barthelemy’s disappearance, she had been contacted by the same burner phone multiple times.
The last contact from the phone came on 10 July 2009 when she was last seen alive in New York City.
Cell site records show the burner phone traveled from Massapequa Park to Midtown Manhattan that day.
Then, chillingly, Barthelemy’s own cellphone traveled from Midtown Manhattan to Massapequa Park.
Other evidence police say ties Heuermann to murders: Victims’ cellphones and taunting calls to grieving families
The killer took at least two of his victims’ cellphones after their murders as a trophy – and, in a sick move, called one of the victim’s families from her phone to taunt them about what he had done.
Prosecutors say the evidence shows this person was Mr Heuermann.
Following Brainard-Barnes and Barthelemy’s murders, the killer took and used their cellphones.
Barthelemy’s last cell site location was in the early hours of 11 July 2009 in Massapequa.
Throughout the next two months, the killer then used her cellphone to make taunting phone calls to Barthelemy’s family members.
In at least one of those calls, answered by a devastated family member, the male caller gloated about killing and sexually assaulting Barthelemy.
Prosecutors allege that Mr Heuermann made those cruel calls from or in the vicinity of his Midtown office where his own daughter is now an employee. Records show that each of the taunting calls pinged off cell towers in Midtown Manhattan.
Mr Heuermann also allegedly used Brainard-Barnes’ cellphone to check her voicemail, the court documents show.
Other evidence police say ties Heuermann to murders: Online searches
In the years after the murders, Mr Heuermann allegedly continued to slip up in his use of technology – as he allegedly continued to use burner phones to illicit sex from sex workers right up until his arrest.
While it showed a pattern of behaviour, prosecutors also point to other disturbing activity traced to the cellphone numbers.
Court documents show that Mr Heuermann had Tinder profiles and several email accounts under a series of fake names.
He used these accounts – linked to his burner phones – to search for graphic images of young girls and children and “sadistic, torture-related pornography”.
Searches included “girl hog tied torture porn” and “10 year old school girl”.
As well as the disturbing sexual searches, prosecutors say he also looked up images of the murder victims and their relatives, and researched podcasts, documentaries and news stories on the case.
These included “why could law enforcement not trace the calls made by the long island serial killer”, and “why hasn’t the long island serial killer been caught”, “Long Island killer” and “Long Island serial killer phone call”.
He also looked for information about the new task force on the case.
Knowing he was keeping a close eye on the investigation, police kept the developments close to the vest.
Surveillance footage captured Mr Heuermann adding credit to one of the burner phones – and he had it on him when he was arrested.