Gilgo Beach murders – updates: Serial killer suspect Rex Heuermann charged with fourth murder
Rex Heuermann appeared in Suffolk County Courthouse in Long Island on Tuesday where he was charged with the murder of a fourth victim
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Gilgo Beach serial killer suspect Rex Heuermann is back in court today where he is expected to be formally charged with the murder of a fourth victim.
The 60-year-old Manhattan architect appeared in Suffolk County Courthouse in Riverhead, Long Island – a hearing that comes weeks before the accused killer had been scheduled to return to court.
Mr Heuermann was arrested back in July in what marked a bombshell development in the notorious case that had rumbled on unsolved for over a decade, after the remains of 11 victims were found dumped along the shores.
At the time, he was charged with the murders of Megan Waterman, Amber Costello and Melissa Barthelemy – who each vanished after going to meet a client for sex work.
On Tuesday, Mr Heuermann was charged with a fourth murder related to the death of Maureen Brainard-Barnes.
Together, the four women he’s accused of killing are known as the “Gilgo Four”.
Suffolk County DA Raymond Tierney held a press conference after the court appearance, remarking on the “cutting edge” technology that led to the new charges.
ICYMI: How were the bodies found?
The horror discovery began back in May 2010 when Shannan Gilbert, a young woman also working as a sex worker, vanished after leaving a client’s house on foot near Gilgo Beach. She called 911 for help saying she feared for her life and was never seen alive again.
During a search for Gilbert in dense thicket close to the beach, police discovered human remains.
Within days, four victims – that of the “Gilgo Four” – had been found.
By spring 2011, the number of victims rose to 10.
Gilbert’s body was then found in December 2011.
Her cause of death is widely contested with authorities long claiming that it is not connected to the serial killer or killers but that she died from accidental drowning as she fled from the client’s home.
However, an independent autopsy commissioned by her family ruled that she died by strangulation and her family continue to believe she was murdered.
So far, no charges have been brought in connection to the other victims also found along the shores.
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Gilgo Beach serial killer suspect expected to be charged with fourth murder
Rex Heuermann was previously named the prime suspect in the murder of Maureen Brainard-Barnes
What took so long for the charges related to Maureen Brainard-Barnes to be brought?
The Suffolk County DA Ray Tierney said at a press conference on Tuesday that they were awaiting the result of a DNA test regarding the hair found on a belt that was restraining Brainard-Barnes.
The prosecutors used a nuclear DNA test, which the DA called “cutting edge” as apparently “everyone has separate nuclear DNA profile.”
The test showed a damning find. “The DNA profile generated from the Female Hair on Barnes...is 7.9 trillion times more likely to have come from a person genetically identical” to Asa Ellerup, Heuermann’s wife, “than from an unrelated individual,” the indictment said.
“Ms. Ellerup and Victoria Heuermann were out of the state at the time of these murders, which provides further support that Rex A. Heuermann murdered, restrained, and transported the remains of the victims to Gilgo Beach until they were ultimately discovered in December 2010,” the filing explained.
Time has come to prosecute, DA says after Rex Heuermann charged
The infamous pizza that led to the suspected killer’s arrest
Tuesday’s superseding indictment revealed a photo of a pizza box, which contained Heuermann’s DNA.
Investigators probing Rex Heuermann at the Manhattan office where he worked as an architect watched him throw the pizza box away, according to court documents.
His genotype profile was “developed from an extract of the napkin contained within the pizza box,” the indictment read.
Recap: How were the Gilgo Beach victims murdered?
For more than a decade, the Gilgo Beach murders stumped law enforcement officials in Suffolk County who believed it could be the work of one or more serial killers who targeted sex workers and dumped their bodies along the remote beaches on Ocean Parkway.
The case began in May 2010 when Shannan Gilbert, a 24-year-old sex worker, vanished after leaving a client’s house on foot near Gilgo Beach.
She called 911 for help, saying she feared for her life, and was never seen alive again.
In the chilling call, released last year, Gilbert is heard repeatedly telling the 911 operator that “somebody’s after me”.
She is also heard arguing with a man – who she refers to as Mike – who appears to be trying to encourage her to get back into a car; at one point, she is heard asking if he is “going to kill” her.
Rachel Sharp has the full story...
The hunt for the Gilgo Beach serial killer
More than a decade after 11 bodies were found dumped in Long Beach, Manhattan-based architect Rex Heuermann was arrested for the murders of three of the women. What happened to the victims who were murdered and how did police find the man they believe to be responsible? Rachel Sharp reports
Heuermann’s haunting search history, revealed
The court documents also reveal new chilling details about the suspected serial killer’s use of several online accounts, as well as his disturbing online searches.
Email accounts allegedly used by Mr Heuermann were used “to access and/or conduct searches related to pornography, rape, torture, and sex workers several thousand times”, prosecutors said.
Among the harrowing searches were: “autopsy photos of female”, “stories of rape audio”, “escorts manhattan”, and “very skinny white teen tied up porn”.
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Rex Heuermann charged with murder of fourth Gilgo Beach victim
Maureen Brainard-Barnes was last seen alive in July 2007, when she left a motel in Manhattan to meet a client for sex work
Sites and photos related to Maureen Brainard-Barnes
Who were the Gilgo Beach victims?
The remains of at least 11 victims were found in the Gilgo Beach area though it remains unclear if they are all the work of the same killer. Many were sex workers who offered escort services on Craigslist or worked in New York City.
The first victim found was Melissa Barthelemy, whose remains were discovered along Ocean Parkway on 11 December 2010 during the search for Shannan Gilbert – a 24-year-old sex worker from New Jersey who vanished after visiting a client in Oak Park and making a chilling 911 call where she revealed fears for her life.
Two days later on 13 December, the remains of three other victims – Maureen Brainard-Barnes, Megan Waterman and Amber Lynn Costello – were found close by.
All three women were known to advertise escort services on Craigslist.
Brainard-Barnes – known as one of the Gilgo Beach Four – was last seen alive in early June 2007 in New York City while Costello was last seen leaving her North Babylon home one day in early September 2010.
Waterman was last seen alive in early June 2010 at a Holiday Inn Express in Hauppauge.
Seven months later, on 26 July 2011, the remains of Jessica Taylor were found in a wooded area in Manorville during the ongoing search for Gilbert. Taylor worked as an escort in New York City.
Valerie Mack also worked as an escort but was last seen alive in Philadelphia in 2000. Her remains were found on two separate occasions in Manorville in 2000 and in Oak Beach in 2011 but she was only identified in 2020 through the use of genetic genealogy.
On 4 August 2023, Long Island officials announced that another victim – known as Jane Doe 7 or Fire Island Jane Doe – had also finally been identified.
Karen Vergata, 34, was last seen alive in Manhattan in 1996 while working as an escort.
Her legs were first found wrapped in plastic at Davis Park on Fire Island’s Blue Point Beach in 1996. Almost exactly 15 years later on 11 April 2011, her skull was found off Ocean Parkway close to some of the other Gilgo Beach victims.
In a press conference announcing her identity, officials refused to confirm whether or not Vergata’s murder may be linked to Mr Heuermann.
Some of the victims have never been identified.
The skeletal remains of an Asian male, aged between 17 and 23 years old, around 5 feet 6 inches tall and with poor dental health, were found along Ocean Parkway in April 2011. He is believed to have died around five to 10 years earlier.
That same day, the remains of a female toddler were discovered. She was later identified as the daughter of the also-unidentified female victim dubbed “Peaches” whose remains were found in Nassau County.
Burner phones seized
Prosecutors also revealed a series of messages sent in March 2020 from a burner phone used by Mr Heuermann to a woman advertising escort work in the Massapequa area.
In the messages, Mr Heuermann appears to be arranging a meeting with the woman based on when his wife is away.
“I WAS FREE TODAY MY WIFE IS OUT FOR THE DAY,” he allegedly wrote.
The accused killer, according to prosecutors, had several burner phones held “in fictitious names and used for illicit activities”.
Two burner phones seized from Mr Heuermann at the time of his arrest – one from his person and one from the office of his Midtown Manhattan architecture firm – had allegedly been used by him to contact sex workers between 2020 and 2023.
