A Manhattan-based architect who led a secret life as a serial killer pleaded guilty on Wednesday to murdering seven women and admitted to killing an eighth in a string of long-unsolved crimes known as the Gilgo Beach killings.
Rex Heuermann, 62, entered the pleas in a courtroom packed with reporters and victims’ relatives, some of whom wept as he detailed his crimes for the court.
Heuermann’s guilty pleas — to three counts of first-degree murder and four of intentional murder — bring finality to a case that bedeviled investigators, tormented victims’ relatives and was tracked online for years by ardent true-crime readers.
Under questioning by Suffolk County district attorney Ray Tierney, Heuermann admitted that he strangled all eight victims and dismembered some of them, that he used burner phones to contact them and that he wrapped their bodies in burlap before dumping them.
Wearing a black suit coat and white button-down shirt, Heuermann appeared matter-of-fact and unemotional as he answered questions from Tierney and the judge. He never looked back at the packed courtroom gallery, keeping his gaze fixed straight ahead.
He faces life in prison and will be sentenced in June.
Long-running investigation with twist and turns
The Gilgo Beach investigation began in earnest in late 2010, after police found numerous sets of human remains along a remote beach highway on Long Island’s South Shore. Those remains were sparked by a search for Shannan Gilbert, a sex worker whose death at Gilgo Beach was ultimately ruled by Suffolk County officials to be an accidental drowning.
Gilbert’s relatives disputed that finding. Heuermann’s defence attorney Michael Brown said Wednesday that his client “had nothing to do with Shannan Gilbert.”
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 100 kilometres away in the Hamptons.
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Heuermann pleaded guilty to those killings as well as admitting to transporting the body of Karen Vergata. Vergata’s remains were discovered in two different locations, several kilometres and 15 years apart.
The disappearances have been the subject of numerous true crime shows and documentaries. Robert Kolker’s 2013 book about several of the missing women, Lost Girls, served as the basis for a Netflix movie seven years later starring Amy Ryan, Gabriel Byrne and Lola Kirke.
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.
Media and members of the public packed the courtroom on Wednesday morning. Reporters and camera operators swarmed Heuermann’s ex-wife, Asa Ellerup, and their daughter as they walked into the building.
Ellerup has said she found it very difficult to believe her husband was a serial killer, because he never gave off warning signs during their time together.
“My thoughts and prayers are with the victims and their families,” Ellerup said. “Their loss is immeasurable and the focus should be on them at this time and moment. I ask that you give some privacy to my family as they navigate through this very difficult time.”
Surveillance, DNA from a pizza box
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 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 to near his architectural consulting firm in Manhattan, where he worked, and watched as he threw 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. Heuermann was arrested in July 2023.
After his 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.
Last year, a judge rejected Heuermann’s bid to exclude DNA evidence obtained through advanced techniques, making his defence more challenging.
Brown, the attorney, said Wednesday that one of Heuermann’s concerns was sparing the victims’ families and his own family from the ordeal of the case going to trial.
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.”
As part of his guilty plea, Heuermann agreed to co-operate fully with the FBI’s behavioural analysis unit.
