What to KnowRex Heuermann, 61, was first arrested in July 2023 within the deaths of three of the 4 girls whose stays have been present in burlap sacks alongside a distant stretch of Gilgo Seashore’s Ocean Parkway in 2010; the fourth homicide was added in a superseding indictment in January 2024The architect from NYC pleaded not responsible of their circumstances; different units of stays have been discovered amid that investigation. In June, he was charged with murdering a type of girls — Jessica Taylor — and a beforehand unknown sufferer, Sandra Costilla, whose case dates again to 1993Now he is accused of killing Valerie Mack. Heuermann has pleaded not responsible to the fees towards him; a planning doc for his alleged kills was seized at his dwelling throughout a current search, in accordance with the bail utility
For years, girls had been disappearing on Lengthy Island. Then in 2010, investigators looking for a lacking lady started discovering 10 units of human stays within the scrub alongside a barrier island parkway, not removed from the sands of New York’s distant Gilgo Seashore. Police nearly instantly feared some have been left by a serial killer.
Over time, investigators used DNA evaluation and different clues to establish the victims, lots of whom have been intercourse staff. In some circumstances, they have been capable of join them to stays discovered elsewhere on Lengthy Island years earlier. Police additionally started reexamining different unsolved killings of ladies discovered lifeless on Lengthy Island.
Prosecutors have now charged a Lengthy Island architect, Rex Heuermann in seven killings.
Here’s a timeline of the investigation:
Nov. 20, 1993: Two hunters uncover the physique of Sandra Costilla, 28, in a wooded space of North Sea, a hamlet within the Hamptons close to the japanese finish of Lengthy Island. Costilla had been residing in New York Metropolis.
April 20, 1996: The partial stays of Karen Vergata are found on Hearth Island, a barrier seaside off Lengthy Island’s southern coast. Her identify stays unknown to investigators till 2022, when new DNA evaluation helps them make an identification. Vergata, 34, was final involved together with her household on Feb. 14, 1996. She was concerned in intercourse work when she vanished.
June 28, 1997: The partial stays of a lady, nicknamed “Peaches” by investigators after a tattoo on her physique, are found stuffed inside a plastic tub in a state park in West Hempstead, New York. Her identification stays unknown.
September 2000: The partial skeletal stays of Valerie Mack, who had been working as an escort in Philadelphia, are present in a wooded space in Manorville, New York. Mack, 24, was final seen by her household within the spring or summer season of that 12 months in Port Republic, New Jersey.
July 26, 2003: The partial skeletal stays of Jessica Taylor are found in a wooded space of Manorville. She was 20 when she vanished and had been an escort working in New York Metropolis.
July 9, 2007: Maureen Brainard-Barnes, 25, who had traveled to New York Metropolis from her dwelling in Norwich, Connecticut, for intercourse work, is final heard from by a good friend. She says she is leaving her lodge to fulfill a shopper. Investigators later say cellphone information confirmed her telephone was final used on Lengthy Island.
July 10, 2009: Melissa Barthelemy, a 24-year-old intercourse employee, is final seen at her condo within the Bronx. She tells a good friend she goes to see a person and might be again within the morning. Cellphone location knowledge places her telephone’s final recognized location on Lengthy Island. Days later, a person begins utilizing Barthelemy’s cell phone to make taunting telephone calls to her kin.
Could 1, 2010: Shannan Gilbert, a intercourse employee, disappears within the barrier island group of Oak Seashore, New York, after fleeing the home of a shopper and banging on a neighbor’s door. In a recorded 911 name, she tells a dispatcher that individuals are after her, however she will also be heard refusing provides of assist. Her pimp, the shopper and his neighbor all inform police she appeared disoriented and bumped into the evening on her personal.
June 6, 2010: Megan Waterman, 22, who had traveled to Lengthy Island from Maine for intercourse work, is final seen at a motel in Hauppauge, New York.
Sept. 2, 2010: Amber Lynn Costello, 27, is final seen leaving her dwelling in West Babylon to fulfill with a intercourse work shopper. A male good friend later tells investigators he observed a Chevrolet Avalanche, presumably pushed by the shopper.
December 11, 2010: A police officer and his canine uncover Barthelemy’s stays whereas conducting a coaching train alongside Ocean Parkway.
Dec. 13, 2010: Police discover the our bodies of Costello, Brainard-Barnes and Waterman on the identical quarter-mile stretch of Ocean Parkway the place Barthelemy’s stays have been positioned.
Dec. 14, 2010: Suffolk County Police Commissioner Richard Dormer publicly proclaims the invention of the our bodies and says a serial killer is perhaps accountable. Police develop the search, on the lookout for extra stays or any signal of Gilbert.
March 29, 2011: A few of Taylor’s stays are found alongside Ocean Parkway.
April 4, 2011: Extra stays of Valerie Mack are discovered alongside Ocean Parkway. Close to these stays, investigators additionally discover the stays of an unidentified feminine toddler, later recognized by means of DNA because the daughter of “Peaches.” Elsewhere on the parkway, investigators uncover the stays of an Asian male. Investigators estimate he died 5 to 10 years earlier and was in his late teenagers or early 20s. He nonetheless has not been recognized.
April 11, 2011: Extra stays of Vergata are found alongside Ocean Parkway, a number of miles west of Gilgo Seashore. Police additionally discover stays belonging to “Peaches” alongside the seaside parkway.
Dec. 13, 2011: Gilbert’s skeletal stays are found in a tidal marsh close to Oak Seashore. After an post-mortem and additional investigation, Suffolk Police say she most definitely unintentionally drowned. Her household nonetheless suspects she was slain.
January 2022: The Suffolk County district legal professional convenes a brand new job power to analyze the Gilgo Seashore killings.
July 13, 2023: Investigators arrest Heuermann and cost him with murdering Costello, Waterman and Barthelemy. The important thing proof within the case is cell phone location knowledge suggesting that Heuermann and the ladies have been in the identical locations at a number of the similar instances, and traces of DNA discovered on the stays.
Jan. 16, 2024: Heuermann is charged within the loss of life of Brainard-Barnes. Prosecutors say a hair discovered together with her corpse is genetically much like a DNA pattern from Heuermann’s spouse.
Late April 2024: Police conduct a brand new, multiday search of a wooded space in Manorville the place Taylor and Mack’s stays have been found greater than a decade earlier. In addition they carry out a brand new search on the spot the place Costilla’s physique was found in 1993.
Could 20, 2024: Investigators launch a brand new search of Heuermann’s dwelling. It lasts almost every week.
June 6, 2024: Heuermann is charged with murdering Costilla and Taylor. He pleads not responsible.
Dec. 17, 2024: An indictment is unsealed charging Heuermann in Mack’s loss of life. Heuermann pleads not responsible.
