Accused Gilgo Beach serial killer admits to strangling 8 women

The accused Gilgo Beach serial killer Rex Heuermann admitted on Wednesday he strangled eight women and discarded their remains on Long Island, New York, marking the culmination of a case that has haunted local communities for over three decades.

At a long-awaited court hearing Wednesday, Heuermann spoke calmly about killing the women, confirming he dismembered some of the victims and bound others by their heads and legs.

Heuermann, a 62-year-old architect based in Massapequa, has been in custody since July 2023. He previously pleaded not guilty to the murders of seven women, including four whose bodies were found on Gilgo Beach in 2010. As part of his guilty plea, Heuermann also admitted to killing an eighth woman whose murder he had not previously been charged with.

Heuermann primarily answered “yes” to questions put to him by the prosecutor and judge. Suffolk County Judge Timothy Mazzei asked Heuermann how he pleaded to each charge related to the women’s deaths.

“Guilty,” Heuermann responded.

Tierney, the Suffolk County DA, questioned Heuermann about the deaths of each of the eight victims. Heuermann admitted he killed all of them before discarding their remains at various locations on Long Island.

Heuermann contacted three of the so-called “Gilgo Four” victims on burner phones and lured them with money, he said. Tierney asked how he murdered them.

“Strangulation,” Heuermann responded, confirming he then bound their heads and legs and wrapped their bodies in burlap.

Prosecutors asked Mazzei for a sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole. Heuermann is scheduled to be sentenced on June 17.

In all, Heuermann confessed to killing eight women: Maureen Brainard-Barnes, Melissa Barthelemy, Megan Waterman, Amber Costello, Jessica Taylor, Valerie Mack, Sandra Costilla and Karen Vergata.

The guilty plea represents the end of a case that dates as far back as 1993 and took decades for investigators to solve – frustrating victims’ families, who felt the investigation was not taken seriously.

On Wednesday, every seat in the courtroom was taken by members of the media, family members and law enforcement officials. Two overflow rooms were set up to accommodate the public interest.

Melissa Cann, the sister of victim Maureen Brainard-Barnes, said the women’s families can finally feel “a sense of relief.”

“This has been a long journey of hope – hope that one day we would stand here and say her name with justice beside it,” Cann told reporters at a news conference Wednesday afternoon. “Today that long, painful journey brings us to this moment – our mission, our promise to Maureen is finally met with accountability.”

The eight women were “wonderful mothers, sisters, friends, and daughters,” Tierney said at the news conference, where he thanked and apologized to all the victims’ families.

“Without them, this defendant would have never been brought to justice and would still be walking amongst us,” Tierney said. “He would still be portraying himself as that same, harmless father-next-door instead of what he is – a convicted murderer.”

The investigation began in earnest with the 2010 disappearance of 23-year-old Shannan Gilbert. The search for her whereabouts led to the discovery of at least 10 sets of human remains, primarily young female sex workers, along Ocean Parkway and launched the hunt for a suspected serial killer.

But the investigation went cold for over a decade. Meanwhile, the Gilgo Beach killings were featured in an acclaimed non-fiction book, a Netflix movie and true-crime documentaries.

In 2022, Suffolk County launched a multiagency task force to reexamine the killings and soon built a case against Heuermann using DNA, hairs, cell phone records and witness testimony, according to court records.

Heuermann was arrested in July 2023 and charged with the killings of three of the “Gilgo Four” victims, and prosecutors later charged him with four more murders in incidents dating as far back as 1993.

Heuermann’s defense attorney Michael Brown said he hoped the plea would give “some peace and some closure” to the women’s families.

“He certainly wanted to save the families of the victims the ordeal of going to trial, coupled with saving his family that ordeal,” Brown said of his client’s decision to plead guilty. He said he expected Heuermann to speak at his sentencing hearing.

For the victims’ families, the guilty plea will indeed be a relief after years of waiting for justice, said Robert Kolker, the author of “Lost Girls,” the 2013 non-fiction book about the killings.

“The point of ‘Lost Girls’ was that the killer chose his victims because he thought that they wouldn’t be missed. And the tragedy is that for many years he was right,” Kolker told CNN prior to Wednesday’s hearing.

Now, he said, “We understand the humanity of victims in cases like these in a way that we didn’t years ago.”

Over nearly two decades, a number of women who police said worked as escorts or sex workers went missing on Long Island.

The remains of Sandra Costilla were found in North Sea in 1993. Karen Vergata, a 34-year-old escort from Manhattan, went missing in February 1996. Her partial remains were found on Fire Island in April 1996.

Partial remains of Valerie Mack, a 24-year-old Philadelphia mother who worked as an escort, were found in Manorville in November 2000, with further remains discovered in 2011, according to police. Jessica Taylor’s remains were discovered in Manorville in 2003, with more found along Ocean Parkway on Gilgo Beach in 2011, according to police.

Maureen Brainard-Barnes was 25 years old when she was last seen on July 9, 2007. Melissa Barthelemy, a 24-year-old sex worker, was last seen on July 12, 2009, in the Bronx, according to Suffolk County police. Megan Waterman was 22 years old and working as a sex worker when she was last seen on June 6, 2010, police said. Amber Lynn Costello was 27 years old and living on Long Island when she was last seen on September 2, 2010.

In May 2010, Shannan Gilbert went missing in the community of Oak Beach after visiting a client, and her mother began a tireless quest to pressure police to search for her and take her case seriously.

That December, police discovered Barthelemy’s remains in bushes along an isolated strip of waterfront property in Gilgo Beach. Two days later, investigators discovered the remains of Brainard-Barnes, Waterman and Costello strewn across a half-mile stretch in Gilgo Beach. Together, they became known as the “Gilgo Four.”

“They were buried in a similar fashion, in a similar location, in a similar way,” Suffolk County District Attorney Ray Tierney said in 2023. “All the women were petite. They all did the same thing for a living. They all advertised the same way. Immediately there were similarities with regard to the crime scenes.”

The four women, whose remains were found wrapped in camouflaged burlap, worked as escorts who advertised on Craigslist and were last seen between July 2007 and September 2010, officials said.

Seven more bodies were found nearby over the following year. Gilbert’s remains were found in Oak Beach in December 2011, and authorities later said they believed her death may have been accidental and not related to the Gilgo Beach slayings.

Some of Vergata’s remains were found along Ocean Parkway during the Gilgo Beach investigation in 2011, officials said. Long known as “Fire Island Jane Doe,” investigators identified her as Vergata in August 2023.

In February 2022, then-Suffolk County Police Commissioner Rodney Harrison formed a multiagency task force to investigate the Gilgo Beach killings. The task force included the Suffolk County Police Department, the Suffolk County Sheriff’s Office, the New York State Police and the FBI.

Heuermann was first mentioned as a possible suspect the next month, according to Tierney.

Investigators homed in on Heuermann by looking at cell tower records, a physical description of the suspect, a green pickup truck, credit card billing records and computer records, according to prosecutors.

They also recovered a male hair from the burlap wrapped around the victims’ remains. Investigators got a sample of Heuermann’s DNA from leftover pizza crust and connected it to the DNA found on the victim, according to prosecutors.

Heuermann was charged in July 2023 with the killings of Barthelemy, Waterman and Costello and was held without bail. He was then charged in January 2024 with the murder of Brainard-Barnes, in June 2024 with the murders of Taylor and Costilla, and in December 2024 with the murder of Mack.

“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 at the news conference following the guilty plea.

The son of an aerospace engineer, Heuermann lived with his spouse and children in the homey village of Massapequa Park near where the victims’ remains were found. He commuted to Manhattan where he worked as an architect at his company RH Consultants & Associates.

Meanwhile, prosecutors say he secretly kidnapped, tortured and killed sex workers for years. He allegedly called the victims’ families using burner phones to taunt them, and he created fake email accounts to search for sadistic pornography and to search for news about the Gilgo Beach investigation, according to a bail application.

In a June 6, 2024, court hearing, prosecutors said investigators found disturbing content on Heuermann’s devices, including a planning document outlining a strategy for future killings.

Last September, Judge Mazzei ruled that evidence derived from cutting-edge DNA technology would be admissible at his trial. Prosecutors had said the evidence connects Heuermann to the killings, while his defense has questioned the accuracy of the technology.

Following her husband’s guilty plea, Heuermann’s wife said her thoughts and prayers were with the victims and their families.

“Their loss is immeasurable, and the focus should be on them at this time and moment,” Asa Ellerup told reporters outside court. “I ask that you give some privacy to my family as they navigate through this very difficult time.”

As part of the plea bargain, Heuermann must cooperate with the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit, Brown said. Suffolk County prosecutors agreed not to bring additional charges against Heuermann related to the eight women named in Wednesday’s hearing.

However, the end of Heuermann’s state criminal case may not mean the end of his legal issues.

On Monday, Valerie Mack’s son, Benjamin Torres, filed a lawsuit against Heuermann and his family, accusing Heuermann of wrongful death and his wife and daughter of aiding and abetting the killing spree.

Heuermann’s attorney did not respond to a CNN request for comment on the suit Tuesday.

Speaking to reporters Tuesday, Robert Macedonio, an attorney for Ellerup and daughter Victoria Heuermann, stressed his clients were not involved in Rex Heuermann’s alleged crimes.

“I want to say this without ambiguity: Mrs. Ellerup and Victoria Heuermann had no knowledge, no involvement in, no connection whatsoever to these horrific crimes. None,” he said, adding Victoria Heuermann was three years old at the time of Valerie Mack’s death.

“The individual responsible acted alone,” Macedonio said.