Rex Heuermann admits he is the Gilgo Beach serial killer in guilty plea twist
What to Know
- A 2010 search for a missing escort from New Jersey broke open one of New York’s more mystifying serial killer investigations, as body after body was found along a remote stretch of Ocean Parkway near Gilgo Beach.
- Twelve years later, with a new police commissioner at the helm in Suffolk, detectives identified Rex Heuermann as a suspect by using a vehicle registration database to connect him to a pickup truck that a witness reported seeing when one of the victims disappeared.
- Heuermann had been charged in seven of the killings. He pleaded guilty to all of them on Wednesday and confessed his involvement in an eighth woman’s death, that of Karen Vergata in 1996.
- Previously, the 62-year-old had pleaded not guilty. His wife and daughter were in court to watch the proceedings, as were many other onlookers. A second overflow had to be opened to contain crowds.
The man suspected of killing at least seven women and dumping many of their remains on a remote stretch of parkway near Long Island’s Gilgo Beach in a decade-long investigation that captivated the globe changed his plea to guilty on Wednesday, and admitted to yet another murder in which he has never been charged.
Rex Heuermann, 62, had been charged in the killings of seven women, many of them sex workers, over a period of 17 years dating back to 1993. Previously, he pleaded not guilty. Copping to the eighth, the 1996 killing of Karen Vergata, of Manhattan, is part of his plea deal, which comes with life without parole, prosecutors said.
Heuermann confessed to causing Vergata’s death, but won’t face a murder charge in her case, as part of the plea deal.
He said “yes” when asked by the judge on Wednesday if he believed it was in his best interest to plead guilty rather than go to trial, which had been set to start in September. He pleaded guilty to three counts of first-degree murder and four counts of second-degree murder.
Wearing a black suit coat and white button-down shirt, he answered a series of questions — Are you waiving your rights? Are you willing to waive your right to appeal? You understand you’ll be convicted of a felony with an enhanced sentence? — in the affirmative. He never looked back at the packed courtroom gallery, keeping his gaze fixed straight ahead as he spoke in a matter-of-fact and unemotional manner.
As part of his deal, Heuermann admitted to strangling all of his victims, three of them within two years. He wrapped them in burlap sacks and bound their hands and legs. Three of victims were dismembered before the bodies were dumped, he said.
All of them were in their 20s when they disappeared. Their families were in the courtroom for Wednesday’s hearing, filling in several rows in front of the confessed killer’s family. As Heuermann admitted to the murders, ex-wife Asa Ellerup leaned forward in her chair, gripping the back of the seat in front of her.
“This has been a long journey of hope — hope that one day we would stand here and say her name with justice beside it,” Melissa Cann, the sister of victim Maureen Brainard-Barnes, said at a news conference hours after the hearing as she fought back tears. “Today, that long, painful journey brings us to this moment.”
Asked about Heuermann’s admissions, his defense attorney Michael Brown told reporters, “There came a point in this defense where Rex said, ‘I want to plead guilty,’” noting that one of Heuermann’s concerns was sparing the victims’ families and his own family from the ordeal of the case going to trial.
Faces of the victims
The plea averts a September trial and culminates a 15-year investigation that captivated New Yorkers and the country starting in late 2010. Heuermann did not address the media after Wednesday’s hearing.
He hasn’t yet commented in front of any cameras. His lawyer, Michael Brown, has led that effort. In court on Wednesday, Brown told the judge Heuermann would cooperate with the FBI’s behavioral analysis unit as part of an academic and scientific exercise, and that he would not face further prosecution.
In response to a question about whether Heuermann was sorry, Brown responded, “I would hope so. … I would expect at sentencing he would have something to say.”
Sentencing is scheduled for June 17. He is expected to be sentenced to three consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole for killing Melissa Bathelemy, Megan Waterman and Amber Costello, according to the district attorney’s office. He will also be sentenced to a consecutive sentence of 100 years to life in prison for killing Brainard-Barnes, Jessica Taylor, Sandra Costilla and Valerie Mack, the DA’s office said.
Heuermann’s wife and his daughter, Victoria Heuermann, looked on from the galley as the hearing concluded.
During an afternoon press conference following the plea, Suffolk County District Attorney Ray Tierney appeared alongside victims’ families
“This defendant walked among us play-acting as a normal suburban dad when in reality, all along, he was obsessively targeting innocent women for death,” Tierney said, while thanking the victims’ families for helping bring their loved ones’ stories to life.
Tierney also praised the Gilgo Beach Homicide Investigation Task Force, which cracked the case with the help of clues that included DNA lifted from a discarded pizza crust.
Gloria Allred, an attorney for some of the victims’ families, described several of the women as young mothers who were just trying to earn extra money to support their children.
“Little did they know that the defendant, Rex Heuermann, did not care about their hopes and dreams, or that they had families and friends who loved them,” Allred said at the news conference.
Elizabeth Baczkiel, whose daughter Jessica Taylor was murdered by Heuermann, said: “I am glad that this is over as far as him pleading guilty. It took a big chunk of stress off of me and my family.”
How did we get here?
The Gilgo Beach investigation began in earnest in 2010 after police found numerous sets of human remains along a remote beach highway on Long Island’s South Shore. They had been looking for a missing escort from Jersey City, Shannan Gilbert, when they made the discovery.
Investigators used DNA analysis and other evidence to identify victims. In some cases, they were able to connect them to remains found elsewhere on Long Island years earlier.
Remains of six victims — Melissa Barthelemy, Maureen Brainard-Barnes, Amber Lynn Costello, Valerie Mack, Jessica Taylor, and Megan Waterman — were found in the scrub along Ocean Parkway near Gilgo Beach. The remains of another victim, Sandra Costilla, were found more than 60 miles away in the Hamptons.
Police also identified an eighth woman, Karen Vergata, whose remains were found on Fire Island, in 1996, and near Gilgo Beach in 2011. While Heuermann admitted to killing Vergata, he would not face charges in her death, as per his plea deal.
Despite the attention, including a documentary series and the 2020 Netflix film, “Lost Girls,” the investigation dragged on for more than a decade, punctuated by fleeting leads and dashed hopes.
In 2022, six weeks after a new police commissioner formed the Gilgo Beach task force, detectives identified Heuermann as a suspect by using a vehicle registration database to connect him to a pickup truck that a witness reported seeing when one of the victims disappeared in 2010.
Heuermann lived for decades in Massapequa Park, about a 25-minute drive across a causeway spanning South Oyster Bay to the sandy stretch where the women’s remains were found. He worked as an architect in Manhattan.
Some of the victims were believed to have disappeared from that community, and their cellphones were found to have pinged towers in the area, authorities said. Data showed Heuermann was in contact with some victims just before they disappeared, investigators said.
After the truck discovery, a grand jury authorized more than 300 subpoenas and search warrants, allowing the task force to dig into Heuermann’s life.
Detectives collected billing records for burner phones he allegedly used to arrange meetings with the victims, retested DNA found with the bodies and scoured Heuermann’s internet search history, which showed that he had viewed violent torture pornography and exhibited an intense interest in the Gilgo Beach killings and the renewed investigation. Cellphone data showed Heuermann was in contact with some victims just before they disappeared, investigators said.
To obtain Heuermann’s DNA, a task force surveillance team tailed him in Manhattan, where he worked, and watched as he threw the remnants of his lunch — a box of partially eaten pizza crusts — into a sidewalk garbage can.
Investigators rushed in, grabbed the box, and sent it to the crime lab, which matched DNA from the crust to a male hair found on burlap used to restrain one of the victims. He was arrested in July 2023.
After Heuermann’s arrest, detectives spent more than 12 days searching his yard and home, where they found a basement vault that contained 279 weapons. On his computer, investigators said, they found what they described as a “blueprint” for the killings, including a series of checklists with reminders to limit noise, clean the bodies and destroy evidence.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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