Gilgo Beach murder suspect Rex Heuermann was charged Thursday morning with the murders of two additional women after authorities linked him to hair found on their bodies and uncovered a “planning document” during a search of his home that they believe was used to plot his killings, court documents revealed.
The 60-year-old father of two was tied to the 1993 murder of Sandra Costilla and the 2003 death of Jessica Taylor through DNA from male hair found on the remains of both victims, prosecutors wrote in his Suffolk County bail application.
Heuermann will appear in court Thursday to be arraigned in their deaths.
Prosecutors said Taylor’s torso and legs were discovered by a dog walker in a wooded area of Manorville on July 26, 2003.
She had been decapitated and both of her arms were severed from her body below the elbows. A tattoo on her torso had also been “severely obliterated by a sharp object,” the filing stated.
Taylor’s skull, hands and forearms were found along Ocean Parkway, just east of Gilgo Beach, on March 29, 2011.
Her partial remains were discovered less than a mile from where police found the burlap-wrapped bodies of the so-called “Gilgo Four” a few months earlier, the application said.
Authorities now believe that the mutilation “were acts perpetrated by Rex A. Heuermann to…inhibit the identification of the victim,” the bail application read.
Heuermann was arrested on July 13, 2023, and charged with the murders of three of the “Gilgo Four” victims, including Megan Waterman, 22; Melissa Barthelemy, 24; and Amber Lynn Costello, 27.
Who were the Gilgo Beach victims?
Suspected serial killer Rex Heuermann — a New York City architect and married dad of two — was arrested in connection with the long-unsolved Gilgo Beach murders. The arrest is tied to the so-called “Gilgo Four,” women found wrapped in burlap within days of each other in late 2010.
The years-long investigation that led to the arrest revolved around the discovery of more than 10 sets of human remains along Ocean Parkway near Gilgo Beach in Suffolk County between December 2010 and April 2011.
Most victims were petite female sex workers with green or hazel eyes. But there were also two exceptions: a 2-year-old girl and a young Asian man.
Melissa Barthelemy, 24
- Barthelemy was a sex worker who lived in the Unionport section of the Bronx and dreamed of one day opening her own beauty salon. She was last seen alive in her basement apartment on Underhill Avenue on July 12, 2009. Heuermann was charged for Barthelemy’s murder in July 2023.
Maureen Brainard-Barnes, 25
- Brainard-Barnes was living in Norwich, Connecticut. She went missing after taking an Amtrak train from New London, Connecticut, to Grand Central Terminal in Manhattan on July 6, 2007. Her remains were found in December 2010. Heuermann was charged for Brainard-Barnes’ murder in January 2024.
Amber Lynn Costello, 27
- Costello, 27, was a sex worker and heroin addict who lived in West Babylon, New York, at a home with a woman and two men. She advertised on Craigslist and Backpage to support her and her roommates’ drug habits. Costello was found on December 13, 2010, after having been last seen leaving her home September 2, 2010. Heuermann was charged for Costello’s murder in July 2023.
Megan Waterman, 22
- Waterman, a 22-year-old mom of one, was last seen on June 6, 2010. She lived in Scarborough, Maine, and earned a living as an escort. She was last seen by her family boarding a New York-bound Concord Trailways bus in Maine. Her body was found on December 13, 2010, on the north side of Ocean Parkway, near Gilgo Beach. Heuermann was charged for Waterman’s murder in July 2023.
Jessica Taylor, 20
- Remains belonging to Jessica Taylor, a 20-year-old woman working as an escort in New York City, were found in a wooded area in Manorville on July 26, 2003. Her additional remains — initially labeled “Jane Doe No. 5” — were discovered on March 29, 2011, along Ocean Parkway.
Valerie Mack, 24
- Valerie Mack was 24 years old and living in Philadelphia when she went missing. She worked as an escort, using the alias “Melissa Taylor.” Relatives last saw Mack in the spring or summer of 2000 in Port Republic, New Jersey, but she was never reported as missing to the police. Her partial skeletal remains were found in Manorville in September 2000 but were initially known as “Jane Doe No. 6.” More bones were found on April 4, 2011, along Ocean Parkway.
Unidentified Asian man
- The skeletal remains of a yet-to-be-identified Asian man were found along Ocean Parkway on April 4, 2011. It is estimated that the man was between 17 and 23 years old at the time of his death. He was approximately 5 feet 6 inches tall with bad teeth.
‘Peaches’ and her daughter
- An African American woman’s partial remains were discovered in Hempstead Lake State Park back in 1997, and she had become known as “Peaches” because of a bitten tattoo of a peach on her left breast. On April 4, 2011, police uncovered the remains of a toddler, who was about 2 years old at the time of her death. DNA testing confirmed that one of the skeletons was that of the 2-year-old girl’s mother, “Peaches.”
Karen Vergata
- A victim previously referred to as Jane Doe No. 7 has been identified as 34-year-old Manhattan woman Karen Vergata. Vergata is believed to have disappeared around Feb. 14, 1996; two months later, her legs were found in a plastic bag at a park near Fire Island’s Blue Point Beach. At the time of her disappearance, Vergata was believed to have been working as an escort. Two sets of Vergata’s remains were identified in August 2023.
Shannan Gilbert, 23
- Gilbert was a Craigslist escort who lived in Jersey City, traveled with her driver Michael Pak from Manhattan to meet a client, Joseph Brewer, at his home in the Oak Beach Association on the morning of May 1, 2010. She spoke with two neighbors before disappearing. Her body was discovered in a marsh near Oak Beach — about half a mile from where she was last seen alive — on December 13, 2011.
He was charged with the killing of the fourth woman, 25-year-old Maureen-Brainard-Barnes, earlier this year.
Heuermann’s Massapequa Park home was extensively searched at least twice in the wake of his arrest.
A hard drive discovered in the basement of the ramshackle house revealed a series of sickening “planning documents” that Heuermann allegedly used to map out his kills – including notes on potential or past dump sites and supplies he had on-hand to try and evade detection.
One list marked “POST EVENT” included reminders to “change tires,” “burn gloves,” “dispose of pics [of victims],” and “have story set.”
There was also a list titled “BODY PREP,” with notes to wash the “inside and all cavities” of his deceased victim and to remove their “head and hands” and “marks from torture.”
Another list detailing post-crime cleanup referred to strategies for hanging drop cloths from the ceiling and concerns about how sound travels – leading investigators to believe that the torture “likely” took place inside Heuermann’s home.
“With Heuermann’s family vacationing out of state, Defendant would have had unfettered time and exclusive access to [his house] allowing Defendant Heuermann ample opportunity to execute, and clean up after, these crimes,” the bail application said.
Police revealed during their searches that they found a concrete, sound-proofed room in the basement where Heuermann supposedly kept over 200 guns.
A second search warrant was executed at the home last month.
Suffolk County prosecutors tied Heuermann to the unsolved deaths through DNA matches – including from a discarded pizza crust and an energy drink that his adult daughter tossed in the trash.
Investigators also used cell phone towers to pinpoint calls Heuermann supposedly made to the victims, all of whom made a living as sex workers in the Long Island or New York City area.
The infamous case – sometimes referred to as the “Long Island Serial Killer,” or LISK – burst open in December 2010, when escort Shannan Gilbert, 23, vanished from a meeting with a client at the Oak Beach Association on May 1, 2010.
The search for Gilbert’s disappearance led police to the bodies of the Gilgo Four – all of whom were slight, petite women who had been working in the sex industry in the lead-up to their own disappearance.
The partial remains of Jessica Taylor were found along Ocean Parkway on March 29, 2011. Her remains were initially found in a wooded area in Manorville in July 2003.
Like the Gilgo Four, Taylor was working as a sex worker at the time of her disappearance.
Sandra Costilla was killed in 1993. She had not been linked to the Gilgo Beach killing spree until now.
Authorities also turned up the skeletal remains of a yet-to-be-identified Asian man off Ocean Parkway in April 2011, as well as the additional remains of Valerie Mack, a Philadelphia-based sex worker whose partial remains were found in Manorville in 2000.
The initial investigation also stumbled upon the remains of a toddler whose was later found through DNA testing to be the daughter of “Peaches,” a black woman whose partial remains were found in Hempstead Lake State Park
Heuermann – who spent his entire life on the south shore of Long Island – was identified as a suspect in the case two months after former NYPD chief Rodney Harrison took over as Suffolk County police commissioner.
His arrest last summer marked the first public break in the unsolved string of murders, which had haunted Long Island for over 10 years.
Read the full article here
