After a years-long manhunt that has confounded police, a suspected serial killer was arrested in connection to a string of murders and bodies found along Gilgo Beach on Long Island, according to a law enforcement.
Four senior law enforcement officials briefed on the case said Rex Heuermann was arrested around 8:30 p.m. Thursday in Manhattan in connection with the investigation. He was charged with three counts of first-degree murder and three counts of second-degree murder in the deaths of Melissa Barthelemy, Megan Waterman and Amber Costello, according to court documents. He is also a suspect in a fourth killing, of Maureen Brainard-Barnes.
In court documents, prosecutors described the alleged murders as "planned and heinous in nature."
Sources said Heuermann is from the Massapequa area in neighboring Nassau County, across a bay from where some of the bodies were found. There was a large police presence in the Massapequa Park area for much of Friday.
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Police and other agencies were seen searching his Massapequa Park home, scouring the small, dilapidated red house to see if any evidence inside might link Heuermann, 59, to the killings.
Aside from pleading not guilty, the towering Heuermann, dressed in a collared shirt and khakis, said nothing during his arraignment. He was remanded without bail and is due back in court on Aug. 1.
Outside of court, he did not respond to questions from NBC New York. Heuermann's attorney, Michael Brown, said after the court hearing that the evidence against his client is "extremely circumstantial in nature." He also described Heuermann as in tears as he told him "I didn't do this," denying the charges made against him.
Who is Rex Heuermann: How police zeroed in on suspect
Among the breaks in the case that allowed police to hone in on the suspect were cellphone pings of calls he made to one of the victim's families that traced back to the Massapequa area.
Law enforcement officials felt strongly that the alleged killer was from Long Island because that cell phone tower ping – which came from a phone belonging to one of the victims after her death – originated from the Massapequa area, according to two senior law enforcement officials briefed on the case.
Heuermann allegedly used burner phones to meet his victims and was seen on surveillance videos in cellphone stores buying the burners. He even stole two cellphones from victims, prosecutors alleged, using one to taunt the victim's family.
As NBC News previously reported officials believed the alleged killer used Melissa Barthelemy’s cell phone to call her teen sister repeatedly soon after Melissa disappeared in 2009. The alleged killer made explicit sexual comments, claimed to have killed Melissa and related details of her killing that only the murderer would know. Police believed the caller was a white man and the calls came from midtown Manhattan.
It was previously unreported that the same victim’s cellphone briefly pinged off of a tower in the Massapequa area around the same time. It was that potential clue that led officials to believe the suspect could one day be found in that area.
Heuermann has worked as an architect in Manhattan, sources said, and police were seen Friday searching his midtown office at Fifth Avenue and East 36th Street. Some of the calls investigators identified had come from or near the architecture firm where he worked. For years, police had been looking into whether the suspect lived on Long Island and worked in Manhattan, commuting through New York-Penn Station.
In a YouTube video, Heuermann was seen speaking about his life on Long Island, his family, and how he has been working in NYC since the 1980s. The suspect’s house is a little over a 15-mile car ride away from Gilgo Beach.
As part of the investigation, law enforcement looked into his internet search history. According to prosecutors, Heuermann repeatedly searched for child pornography, sadistic material and online images and information of his victims. His email account was connected to more than 200 searches between March 2022 and June 2023 about known and active serial killers, the disappearances of his alleged victims, and articles written about investigations into the murders.
Among the searches were:
- "why could law enforcement not trace the calls made by long island serial killer"
- "why hasn't the long island serial killer been caught"
- "FBI active serial killers"
- "Map of all known serial killers"
- "8 Terrifying Active Serial Killers (We Can't Find)"
- "Mapping the Long Island Murder Victims"
- "Inside the Long Island Serial Killer and Gilgo Beach"
- "In Long Island serial killer investigation, new phone technology may be key to break in case"
Investigators said DNA evidence from a hair found on tape used to tie up one victim (Megan Waterman) is believed to be a hair from Heuermann's wife — a hair strand likely initially stuck on the tape from him or his residence, court documents state.
But it was a pizza box discarded by Heuermann that allowed investigators to get his DNA sample, swabbing a leftover pizza crust inside. Prosecutors said they can match the DNA from the pizza crust to a strand of male hair also found on the tape used to tie up Waterman, according to the documents.
The DNA test results that allegedly linked Heuermann to the Gilgo Beach bodies came back on June 12 — with the results having a 99.96 degree of accuracy.
A quiet Long Island neighborhood shocked
Those who live in the suspect's quiet neighborhood were stunned at the developments, saying they often saw Heuermann in a suit heading to work in the morning. Neighbors said he has lived at the home his entire life, having grown up there and buying the house from his parents. He lived there with his wife and two adult children.
"He keeps to himself, we'd say hello to each other once in a while, and that was it. Morning pleasantries," said Etienne Devilliers. "It's an incredible story, been hearing about it for 15 years or something. Like I said, we're shocked. This is a very, very quiet neighborhood, everybody knows each other. We're all friendly and there's never been a problem at all."
Neighbors noted that the dilapidated property seemed out of place among rows of single family homes and well kept lawns in the small community.
“This house sticks out like a sore thumb. There were overgrown shrubs, there was always wood in front of the house,” said Gabriella Libardi, a 24-year-old teacher. “It was very creepy. I wouldn’t send my child there.”
Barry Auslander, another neighbor, said the man who lived in the house commuted by train to New York City each morning, wearing a suit and tie and carrying a briefcase.
“It was weird. He looked like a businessman,” said Auslander. “But his house is a dump.”
The Suffolk County police and Suffolk County district attorney's office are leading investigation.
"We knew that when we were investigating, when we dealt with the media, or whatever it was we were doing, we were playing before a party of one. Because we knew the person responsible for these murders would be looking at us," said Suffolk County District Attorney Ray Tierney. "On March 14, 2022. the name Rex was first mentioned. A New York state investigator was able to identify him in a database and from that point on we used the power of the grand jury, over 300 subpoenas and search warrants, looking into this individual's background to bring us to this day."
New York State Police, the Suffolk County Sheriff's Office, Nassau County Police, the Nassau County district attorney's office and the FBI were assisting with the investigation.
Since taking office in 2021, Suffolk County Police Commissioner Rodney Harrison had previously said he wanted to restore public faith in the long-unsolved investigation, which has been skewered over lacking transparency.
Before a Friday press conference, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul held a moment of silence for the victims after addressing the arrest, saying that families impacted by the killings will be "sleeping a lot easier tonight."
"Hopefully...the day has finally come when someone so deprived, depraved of heart, would kill individuals, innocent individuals in the prime of their lives young lives, is finally brought to justice," the governor said.
Suffolk County Executive Steve Bellone said at an afternoon press conference that while the "work is not done here," the arrest of a suspect "is a major, major step forward in achieving the goal that we have had from the beginning, and that is again to bring closure to these families and to bring justice to the victims."
"I want the public to know the message to the public that we have never stopped working on this case. There are Suffolk police officers who started working on this case who have retired now, but their efforts, their dedication, it has never stopped putting more resources into the case," he said.
The case has drawn immense public attention since human remains were found along the beach highway more than a decade ago. The mystery attracted national headlines for many years and the unsolved killings were the subject of the 2020 Netflix film “Lost Girls.”
Determining who killed them, and why, has vexed a slew of seasoned homicide detectives through several changes in police leadership. Last year, an interagency task force was formed with investigators from the FBI, as well as state and local police departments, aimed at solving the case.
Gilgo Beach Murders: The Victims
The Gilgo Beach murder case has haunted police for 13 years, dating back to 2010 when the body of Shannan Gilbert, a 24-year-old escort from Jersey City, was found in the area. That led police to find nearly a dozen other sets of human remains in the vicinity, including that of the so-called "Gilgo Four" — Maureen Brainard-Barnes, Melissa Barthelemy, Megan Waterman and Amber Costello.
The four women in their 20s, all believed to be sex workers who advertised on sites like Craigslist and more, were found dead and wrapped in burlap sacks along the remote stretch of Ocean Parkway, within a quarter of a mile of one another near the now-notorious beach in 2010. Gilbert's cause of death has been disputed by officials and her family, but officials have said the Gilgo Four were all murdered, possibly the work of a serial killer.
Brainard-Barnes, 25, was last heard from in July 2007; Barthelemy, 24, went missing on July 12, 2009; Waterman, 22, was reported missing on June 8, 2010, and investigators believe she left a Holiday Inn in Hauppauge the night of June 6 to meet her killer; Costello, 27, was last seen Sept. 2, 2010.
For more information on each of the women known collectively as the Gilgo Four, click here.
In April and May of 2011, the remains of six other individuals were also found in the area, including a partially dismembered woman later identified as another sex worker, Jessica Taylor. An unidentified Asian man, two unidentified women and an unidentified female toddler were also found. Through DNA testing, the toddler was determined to be the daughter of another woman whose body was discovered about seven miles away.
One of the unidentified women, previously known as "Jane Doe #6," was identified in 2020 as Valerie Mack. The 24-year-old similarly was working as an escort in the Philadelphia area at the time and vanished after going to meet a client on Long Island's Oak Beach in 2010. Mack sometimes went by the name Melissa Taylor (no relation to fellow victim Jessica Taylor) and was never reported missing.
Mack's dismembered remains were located in separate locations over an 11-year span. Her torso was found in Manorville, not long after she was last seen. In 2011, her head, hands and right foot were found by Gilgo Beach.
While 10 sets of remains were discovered between Dec. 2010 and May 2011, investigators believe the first four — all of whom had been strangled — were killed by one person. Heuermann was charged with first- and second-degree murder in the deaths of Melissa Barthelemy, Megan Waterman and Amber Costello. He was considered a suspect in the death of Maureen Brainard-Barnes, but was not formally charged in Friday's indictment.
How the bodies were first discovered: The Shannan Gilbert case
Shannan Gilbert disappeared in Oak Beach, a quiet gated community off Suffolk County's Ocean Parkway, on May 1, 2010, after meeting with a client. The skeletal remains of Gilbert weren't found until Dec. 2011, months after the others, after investigators said she disappeared into the marsh. The remains were found about three miles east of where the other 10 sets were discovered.
Suffolk County detectives have long said Gilbert's killing was not connected to the others — a belief her sister, Sherre Gilbert, has intensely disagreed with. She spoke to reporters in May 2022 for the first time in years after police released three 911 calls her sister made on May 1, 2010 (including a nearly 22-minute one).
Sherre Gilbert was adamant local authorities "dropped the ball from the beginning."
"I don't believe it. I just feel like they've never cared ... and I just feel like it's a way to just confirm what they've always said," Sherre Gilbert said in 2022 of the longstanding contention her sister's death was, as Suffolk police have previously said, a "tragic accident."
Sherre Gilbert said local law enforcement was pushing the same theory even before her sister's remains were found in a reedy marsh near Oak Beach -- not far from where the other grim discoveries were made along the desolate stretch of Long Island highway.
The sister has her own ideas about what happened. She says she believes someone found her sister after she tried to get help at the house of the woman who made the third 911 call and potentially drugged her to calm her down since she had become hysterical. Sherre Gilbert says maybe her sister died after that, an accident, and someone (or someones) took her body and dumped it on the marsh, scattering her belongings along the way to make it appear she wandered there herself.
"If you notice on the map, when you see where her remains were, from where her clothes are, they're in two different locations," Sherre Gilbert explained. "So I feel like they took her remains and put her there from the roadside and then went back to put her clothing on the opposite side. I don't believe that my sister would run."
An autopsy proved inconclusive as far as Shannan Gilbert's cause of death. A private pathologist hired by the Gilbert family also found insufficient evidence to determine how she died. But the pathologist, the noted Michael Baden, who has been hired to do independent autopsies by George Floyd's family and others, did say Gilbert's remains showed signs that could be consistent with manual strangulation as a potential cause.
Details on the report were previously reported by News 4. Read it here.
Despite police not considering Gilbert as part of the same investigation, families of the other victims hoped the 911 calls could shed some light on their outstanding mysteries.
John Ray, an attorney who represents the families of Shannan Gilbert and Jessica Taylor, told NBC News he is "delighted" that there was an arrest in the Gilgo Beach murders. But he added that he feels "very strongly" that Heuermann is not responsible for all 11 murders, including Gilbert's and Taylor's.
"It gives us something of a sigh of relief, but it's partial," Ray said in an interview Friday morning. "There's still much to be done on this."
Ray said he is certain that Friday's arrest is connected only to the so-called Gilgo Four. Gilbert and Taylor were not among those four, and their families are still holding out hope for another arrest, Ray said.
"There undoubtedly is" another suspect, he said, telling the AP "We’re happy to see that they’re finally active, the police, in accomplishing something. Let’s wait and see what it all leads to."
No arrests had ever previously been made, and no suspects had ever been publicly named in any of the cases before Friday. Investigators hadn't been able to determine whether a lone serial killer or several suspects were involved, but had said over the years that they didn't believe one person is responsible for all the deaths.
Tom Winter and Chloe Atkins of NBC News Investigations contributed to this report.
