MASSAPEQUA PARK, N.Y. (1010 WINS/WCBS 880/AP) -- A Midtown Manhattan architect was charged Friday with multiple counts of first-degree murder in the unsolved Gilgo Beach serial killing spree that has gripped Long Island for more than a decade, according to officials, who said a piece of pizza helped crack the case wide open.
Officials identified the defendant as Rex Heuermann, 59, of Massapequa Park, Nassau County. He owns a small architecture firm on Fifth Avenue, where he was trailed by agents and arrested Thursday night.
Heuermann was arraigned Friday afternoon at the Arthur M. Cromarty Criminal Court Complex in Riverhead. A bail application shows he was charged with first-degree murder and second-degree murder in connection with the killings of three women in their 20s who worked as sex workers: Melissa Barthelemy in July 2009, Megan Waterman in June 2010 and Amber Costello in September 2010.
Authorities said he's also the “prime suspect,” but hasn't been charged, in the murder of Maureen Brainard-Barnes, 25, whose body was also found bound and hidden in thick underbrush along a remote beach highway after she went missing in July 2007. The four victims are among the remains of 11 people—nine women, a man and a toddler-age girl—found wrapped in burlap in the Gilgo Beach area.
Heuermann pleaded not guilty through his attorney and was ordered held without bail by Judge Richard Ambro, who cited the “the extreme depravity” of his alleged conduct.
Prosecutors laid out the "serious, heinous nature of these serial murders, the planning and forethought that went into these crimes," as well as Heuermann's permits for 92 guns and “his recent searches for sadistic materials, child pornography, images of the victims and their relatives,” as they made their case for keeping him behind bars.
Heuermann stood quietly in court during his arraignment. Bulky and well over 6 feet tall, he was dressed casually in a gray shirt and khaki pants. After the court appearance, his attorney Michael Brown told reporters that Heuermann had broken down in tears and told him, “I didn't do this.” He said his client had just learned of the charges Friday morning following his surprise arrest.
"He's distraught, he's clearly distraught about the charges here," Brown said, adding that the case was "extremely circumstantial in nature."
"We’re looking forward to fighting this case in a court of law, not the court of public opinion," he said.
"Rex Heuermann is a demon that walks among us, a predator that ruined families," Suffolk County Police Commissioner Rodney Harrison said at an afternoon news conference in which local authorities and the FBI hailed the arrest following years of meticulous investigative work.
Asked by reporters if Heuermann was surprised by his arrest, Suffolk County District Attorney Raymond Tierney said, "I would say he was."
Detectives set their sights on Heuermann in March 2022 after a joint task force was formed between local authorities and the FBI. The task force did a "comprehensive review of every item of evidence and information," which led them to a first-generation Chevrolet Avalanche that was registered to Heuermann at the time of the murders. It proved to be a major lead in the case, as a witness to the disappearance of victim Amber Costello had identified that model of truck as the one driven by the killer. The discovery ultimately led to "over 300 subpoenas, search warrants and other legal processes to obtain evidence," according to court docs.
Further investigation linked Heuermann to "taunting calls" made to the family of Barthelemy, as well as to disposable "burner" cellphones "used to arrange meetings with three of the four victims," prosecutors said. Connections to Heuermann continued to pile up from there, court docs allege, including DNA on bottles seized from outside his home in July 2022 that matched DNA found on victims.
Heuermann was under regular surveillance by January of this year, and in March detectives tailing him recovered his DNA from pizza crust in a box that he'd discarded in a Manhattan trash can. In June, they matched it to DNA from a hair found on a restraint used in the killings.
Heuermann was actively seeking out sex workers "at all hours of the night" around the time of his arrest and was also keeping close tabs on the Gilgo Beach case, according to prosecutors, who said the investigation was cut short so that he could be arrested amid fears he may flee or even strike again.
“This is a day that is a long time in coming, and hopefully a day that will bring peace to this community and to the families — peace that has been long overdue,” Gov. Kathy Hochul said at an unrelated news conference from Jones Beach on Friday.
On Thursday night, a swarm of state police and county police from Nassau and Suffolk descended on Heuermann's unkempt red house on First Avenue, near Michigan Avenue, in Massapequa Park. Throughout the day Friday, investigators were seen carrying evidence boxes out of the house, which sits in a quiet neighborhood just across the bay from where the bodies of his alleged victims were found.
Heuermann has a wife, an adult daughter and a stepson and is a licensed architect and owner of a firm that has done store buildouts and other renovations for major retailers, offices and apartments. Authorities said his family was traveling out of New York state on the dates when the killings happened.
"I’m an architect, I'm an architectural consultant, I'm a troubleshooter, born and raised on Long Island," Heuermann told Bonjour Realty in a February 2022 interview posted to YouTube. "Been working in Manhattan since 1987—a very long time."
Neighbors said he'd lived at the home since he was a kid. A man next door said he's known him for decades and has had no issues with him.
"There's never been a problem at all—not a scream, not a yell, nothing," he said. "We've been here for about 30 years, and the guy's been quiet, never really bothers anybody. We're kind of shocked to tell you the truth."
Hundreds of stunned residents came and went throughout the day to watch the investigation unfold on the unassuming street now packed with police vehicles and members of the media.
"It's crazy, it's mind-blowing—you know, it's quiet Massapequa Park," one woman said.
The long-unsolved Gilgo Beach murders case involves the remains of 11 people—many of them missing women—found along Ocean Parkway more than a decade ago.
The first sets of remains were found in 2010, with more victims discovered in 2011.
The case has attracted national headlines for years, and the killings were even the subject of the 2020 Netflix film “Lost Girls,” as well as books and podcasts.
Most of the victims were young women who had been sex workers. Several of the bodies were found near the town of Gilgo Beach, leading to the case being known by that name.
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. Police even set up a website to track the case, gilgonews.com.
Shannan Gilbert's disappearance in 2010 triggered the hunt that exposed the larger mystery. A 24-year-old sex worker, she vanished after leaving a client’s house on foot in the seafront community of Oak Beach, disappearing into the marsh.
Months later, a police officer and his cadaver dog were looking for her body in the thicket along nearby Ocean Parkway when they happened upon the remains of a different woman. Within days, three other bodies were found, all within a short walk of one another.
By spring 2011, that number had climbed to 10 sets of human remains -- those of eight women, one man and a 2-year-old girl who was the daughter of one of the women. Some were later linked to dismembered body parts found elsewhere on Long Island, making for a puzzling crime scene that stretched from a park near the New York City limits to a resort community on Fire Island and out to far eastern Long Island.
Police have said they believe Gilbert’s death near Gilgo Beach was a “tragic accident” unconnected to the 10 other remains. “Based on the evidence, the facts, and the totality of the circumstances, the prevailing opinion in Shannan’s death, while tragic, was not a murder and was most likely noncriminal,” Suffolk Police Commissioner Rodney Harrison said last year.
Gilbert’s family has been skeptical of the police account. An independent autopsy performed for Gilbert’s family in 2016 concluded her death was “consistent with homicidal strangulation,” family lawyer John Ray said.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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