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.
Gilgo Beach serial killer suspect hit with lawsuit over $70k in unpaid wages at architecture firm
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Police investigating claim that missing South Carolina woman was last seen with Gilgo Beach murders suspect
Other evidence police say ties Heuermann to murders: Wife’s hair
In a bombshell twist, hair belonging to Mr Heuermann’s wife was allegedly found on the bodies of three of the four victims.
Prosecutors say that two female hairs had been found on Waterman, one of them on the tape which the killer wrapped around her head. One female hair was found on tape used to wrap burlap around Costello and one hair was found in a belt buckle used to bind Brainard-Barnes – who Mr Heuermann is yet to be charged over.
To identify the female who the belonged to, investigators trawled through the trash at the Heuermann home in Long Island.
In July 2022, they recovered 11 bottles from the trash and they were swabbed for DNA.
Forensic testing found that the DNA on the bottles matched the female hair found at the crime scene, concluding that the hair belonged to Mr Heuermann’s wife.
The accuracy is such that more than 99 percent of the North American female population can be ruled out, according to the court documents.
Prosecutors found that the suspect’s wife was out of town at the time of the three murders for which he has been charged but that her hair could have transferred to the crime scene through her husband’s clothing or through him using items such as tape taken from the family home.
Scandal-plagued former Gilgo Beach police chief arrested for soliciting sex from undercover officer in park
The scandal-plagued former police chief accused of botching the investigation into the Gilgo Beach serial killings has now been arrested for allegedly soliciting sex from an undercover officer in a park in Long Island, it has been revealed.
James Burke, who worked as Suffolk County police chief from 2012 to 2015 before resigning in disgrace and being jailed for corruption, was arrested at around 10.15am ET on Tuesday at the Suffolk County Vietnam Veterans Memorial Park in Farmingville.
Burke is accused of exposing himself to a Suffolk County park ranger and telling him that he was interested in oral sex, according to an arrest report.
When the ranger went to arrest him, the 58-year-old allegedly sought to use his status as a former police chief to get out of the situation.
“Do you know who I am?” he asked the officer.
Read on:
Ex-Gilgo Beach police chief arrested for soliciting sex from undercover officer
Ex-police chief is accused of exposing himself to a Suffolk County park ranger
EXCLUSIVE: Gilgo Beach murder suspect’s children hits back at claims family knew about alleged crimes
An attorney representing the adult children of suspected Gilgo Beach serial killer Rex Heuermann has hit out at the “wild conspiracy theories” that the family may have known about his alleged crimes.
Vess Mitev told The Independent that the unfounded accusations “shouldn’t even be dignified with a response” – as he said that the family has been plunged into a “constant surreal waking nightmare” since the bombshell arrest of the 59-year-old professional architect.
“These allegations shouldn’t even be dignified with a response,” he said.
“But they are emblematic of someone with a thirst for the spotlight – an unquenchable thirst.”
Read the full interview here:
Attorney for Gilgo Beach suspect’s children slams claims family knew about crimes
Exclusive: Attorney Vess Mitev tells The Independent that Victoria Heuermann, 26, and Christopher Sheridan, 33, are ‘just trying to survive’ following father’s bombshell arrest
GoFundMe for Heuermann’s family tops $55,000
Melissa Moore, the daughter of the notorious Happy Face Killer Keith Hunter Jesperson, launched a GoFundMe campaign to help Rex Heuermann’s family as she compared their experiences discovering that a close family member had spent years leading a “double life” as an alleged serial killer.
“Hi, I am Melissa Moore. People may know me as the daughter of the serial killer known as the ‘Happy Face’ killer captured in 1995. My mother and my family were and are victims. We did not know about his double life,” she writes.
“I have waited to create this Go Fund Me, as I didn’t want to offer support if she would not want it. I needed Asa’s consent. Today, I have an opportunity to use my voice to help Asa, who isn’t in a place to speak about the terror and horror she and her family are experiencing at this moment.
“While people may assume Asa has the funds to start a new life, the assumption is just that. We don’t know the financial and verbal abuse she may have suffered. In solidarity, I kindly ask that you share this link on social media, make a comment of support, or share whatever amount you are comfortable with.”
As of 27 September, the GoFundMe had topped $55,000 in donations.
How Long Island police tied Rex Heuermann to the Gilgo Beach murders
It’s taken 13 years but Suffolk County Police finally say they’ve caught the serial killer who lured in sex workers, brutally murdered them and then dumped their bound and wrapped bodies along the shores of Gilgo Beach.
What led them to the suspected killer was laid out in court documents as prosecutors asked a judge to deny him bail.
It consisted of a pimp’s tip about his pickup truck, a stash of burner phones, “sadistic” online searches, phone calls taunting victims’ families, his wife’s hair – and a pizza crust.
Here’s how:
How pizza crust, burner phones and wife’s hairs led police to Gilgo Beach suspect
It’s taken 13 years but Suffolk County Police finally say they’ve caught the serial killer who dumped his victims along the shores of Gilgo Beach – thanks to a pimp’s tip about his pickup truck, a stash of burner phones, his wife’s hair and a pizza crust. Rachel Sharp reports
WATCH: BTK compares himself to Gilgo Beach suspect
ICYMI: Wife of Gilgo Beach serial killer suspect may sue police for leaving her home ‘in shambles’, lawyer says
The wife of Rex Heuermann, the man charged with killing at least three women and burying their bodies on a beach beside a remote coastal highway, may sue police for leaving her home in a “shambles” in their search for evidence.
Asa Ellerup is living in a “waking surreal nightmare,” her attorney said on Friday.
She is also struggling to pay for cancer treatment while living in a house that she claims was trashed by investigators searching for possible evidence of her husband’s alleged crimes.
At a press conference on Long Island, attorneys for Ms Ellerup, Mr Heuermann’s estranged wife, and his two adult children, announced the family planned to follow a notice of claim, a move that would allow them to eventually sue police for “leaving their home in shambles”.
“Their valuables were shattered, their places were destroyed, the place they laid their heads no longer exists,” said Vess Mitev, an attorney who is also representing Mr Heuermann’s daughter, Victoria, and stepson, Christopher Sheridan.
“They’re going through a horrific emotional time that none of us can imagine,” he added, previously describing their experience as that of a “surreal, walking horror show”.
Gilgo Beach serial killer suspect hit with lawsuit over $70k in unpaid wages at architecture firm
Gilgo Beach serial killer suspect Rex Heuermann has been hit with a lawsuit over $70,000 in unpaid wages to a former assistant at his Manhattan architecture firm.
In what marks the latest legal problem for the accused murderer, New York state’s Labor Department sued Mr Heuermann on Tuesday for labour violations.
The lawsuit accuses the 59-year-old father-of-two of failing to pay outstanding damages to former employee Donna Sturman.
From February 2017 to March 2018, Ms Sturman worked as an executive assistant at RH Consultants & Associates – the architecture business Mr Heuermann founded in 1994.
During her employment, Mr Heuermann and his firm paid her below New York’s state’s minimum wage – effectively stealing $20,908.10 in wages from her, according to the suit.
The Independent’s Rachel Sharp has the full story:
Gilgo Beach serial killer suspect hit with lawsuit over $70k in unpaid wages
The 59-year-old accused serial killer allegedly paid a former executive assistant at his architecture firm less than minimum wage
Gilgo Beach murders victim Karen Vergata’s final phone call revealed
Gilgo Beach murders victim Karen Vergata made one final phone call to her father on the day that she was last seen alive, it has been revealed.
A petition filed in court in 2017 reveals that the 34-year-old woman called her father Dominic Vergata on his birthday on 14 February 1996. She was never seen or heard from again.
Long Island officials announced on Friday that Vergata went missing that very same day on Valentine’s Day 1996.
At the time, she was living on West 45th St in Manhattan and is believed to have been working as an escort.
Police said that no missing persons report was filed at the time.
Read the story:
Gilgo Beach murders victim Karen Vergata’s final phone call revealed
A petition filed in court in 2017 reveals the 34-year-old woman called her father Dominic Vergata on his birthday on 14 February 1996
Was missing South Carolina woman last seen with Gilgo Beach murders suspect?
The daughter of a missing South Carolina woman claims she recognised Gilgo Beach serial killer suspect Rex Heuermann as the man who allegedly drove her mother to a nail salon just before she vanished six years ago.
That claim is now being looked at by the Sumter County Sheriff’s Office, Investigator Scott Bonner confirmed to PIX11 News.
Julia Ann Bean, 36, disappeared from the Sumter area in May 2017. She hasn’t been seen or heard from since.
Last weekend, Ms Bean’s friend Heidi Kovas shared chilling details with PIX11 News that she allegedly learned from the missing woman’s daughter.
“She knew him right away,” Ms Kovas said. “She recognised him right away. She said that was the last person she ever saw with her mom.”
Read on...
Family claims missing South Carolina woman was last seen with Gilgo Beach suspect
Julia Ann Bean, 36, vanished from Sumter County, South Carolina in May 2017. She hasn’t been seen or heard from since