RIVERHEAD, N.Y. (1010 WINS/WCBS 880) – Suspected Gilgo Beach serial killer Rex Heuermann was charged Thursday in the murders of two more women, bringing the total number of women he allegedly killed to six, as prosecutors indicated he's a suspect in a seventh killing and revealed chilling new details about a "planning document" found in the basement of his home.
Heuermann, 60, was appeared in court in Riverhead, where he was indicted on second-degree murder charges in the killings of Jessica Taylor and Sandra Costilla.
Taylor disappeared in the early 2000s, while Costilla was killed in 1993. The new charges came just days after police finished extensive searches of Heuermann’s Massapequa Park home and a wooded area in Manorville.
Heuermann pleaded not guilty to killing Taylor and Costilla during the hearing and was ordered held without bail. Afterward, Suffolk D.A. Ray Tierney said the new charges provide “some small measure of closure” for the victims' families. Here's a timeline of the case.
In a court filing, prosecutors said they were able to use new forensic testing methods to match hairs found on or near the vicinity of both victims to a DNA profile that is a likely match to Heuermann. Additionally, prosecutors say they discovered a “planning document” on the hard drive found in his basement used to “methodically blueprint” his killings.
The document lays out a series of tasks to complete before, during and after the killings, as well as practical lessons for “next time." Among the dozens of entries written in all caps are reminders to clean the bodies and destroy evidence, to “get sleep before hunt” and to “have story set."
One section, titled “things to remember,” appears to highlight lessons from previous killings, prosecutors said, including the importance of using heavy rope and limiting noise in order to maximize “play time.”
Another section, “body prep,” includes notes to “remove head and hands” and “packaging for transport." Prosecutors believe those notes relate to the condition of both Taylor and another victim who disappeared in 2000, Valerie Mack, whose partial remains were found discovered near the body of Taylor.
Heuermann has not been charged in the death of Mack, but asked at a news conference after Thursday's hearing whether he is a suspect in Mack’s death, D.A. Tierney replied: “That’s fair to say.” He added that investigators are still working the case, noting that the “method of the crime scene” in Mack's killing was consistent with those of the other victims.
Heuermann has also denied involvement in the deaths of four other women whose murders he's been charged with: Megan Waterman, Melissa Barthelemy, Amber Lynn Costello and Maureen Brainard-Barnes. They all worked as sex workers before their remains were found in the Gilgo area in late 2010 and early 2011.
The Gilgo Beach Homicide Task Force has continued to investigate any potential links between Heuermann, who was arrested last July outside his Midtown Manhattan architectural office, and other cold cases on Long Island, leading to the new charges.
“It seems as though there must have been some piece of evidence that they were able to now connect to one or more of the other bodies that were found at Gilgo,” said attorney Steven Politi before the court hearing.
Politi said the new charges likely won’t affect the start of the trial early next year.
Taylor, 20, vanished in 2003 while working as an escort in New York City. Some of her remains were discovered in Manorville that year. Other remains were found in a 2011 search along Ocean Parkway near Gilgo Beach.
Costilla’s case stretches back to the early 1990s—her remains were found along Cove Road in North Sea in November 1993. She was from Queens and died at the age of 28, reportedly from strangulation.
That Heuermann is charged with Costilla’s murder is significant because it would take the case beyond the Gilgo Beach area and further back in time, from the 2000s to the 1990s.
Prosecutors said the new task force used mobile phone location data and DNA samples to link the architect to some of the victims. They searched his home extensively and dug up his yard last summer before returning to the house again last month, when they spent nearly a week searching it again. In the most recent search, they focused their efforts mostly in the basement, according to a lawyer for Heuermann’s wife.
That followed a search in April of a wooded area in Manorville, about 40 miles east of Heuermann’s home. Investigators in April also spent days searching a property in North Sea, where Costilla's body was discovered in 1993.
Costilla’s remains were not among the remains of 10 people—mostly female sex workers—discovered along Ocean Parkway since 2010, when the Gilgo case began. Indeed, investigators only recently linked Heuermann to her.
A decade ago, Suffolk County prosecutors said publicly that they believed Costilla had been killed by a carpenter who lived in the area, John Bittrolff, who was convicted of murdering two other women whose bodies had been found in the same part of Long Island. But Bittrolff was never charged with Costilla's death due to lack of evidence. He insists he is innocent of any murders.
Heuermann's lawyer and the lawyers separately representing his wife and two adult children declined to comment.
Heuermann, who has been in custody since his arrest, has pleaded not guilty to all charges. He had been set to return to court on June 18 for a status hearing. No trial date has been set.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.