Suffolk County District Attorney Details Evidence Linking Suspect To Victims In Long Island Serial Killings Depicted In Netflix ‘Lost Girls’ – Update
UPDATED THROUGHOUT: Law enforcement officials and investigators used cell phone data, DNA evidence and computer search histories to zero in on the suspect in the Long Island serial killer case, explained Ray Tierney, Suffolk County, New York, District Attorney, in a press briefing this afternoon.
Among other bits of evidence presented to a grand jury since the formation of an investigative task force last year were hairs found on the bodies of at least three victims, hairs that provided DNA that matched DNA found on a pizza crust discarded by suspect Rex Heuermann.
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Tierney also said that Heuermann had been linked to various “burner” cell phones – a different phone allegedly used to contact each victim and then discarded after the murder – and that cell phone tower data linked locations frequented by Heuermann – his Massapequa Park home, his Midtown Manhattan office – to calls made to the victims.
The victims were sex workers who disappeared between July 2007 and September 2010; their bodies were found in the Gilgo Beach area in December 2010.
Each of the victims were bound by camouflage burlap of the type used in the building of duck blinds used for hunting.
Tierney also noted that the disappearances of the women occurred when Heuermann’s wife and children were out of town on vacation. The D.A. said evidence also existed show that Heuermann phoned survivors of the victims to taunt them.
Heuermann, the suspect in at least some of the “Lost Girls” murders, was indicted by a grand jury this morning on six counts of murder, according to information from the Suffolk County District Attorney. Tierney said the case is ongoing and additional charges are expected.
Today’s charges are connected to the deaths of three women – Melissa Barthelemy, Amber Costello, and Megan Waterman – of the so-called “Gilgo Four,” women whose bodies were discovered along the Ocean Parkway in 2010. Heuermann has pleaded not guilty to the charges, and was remanded without bail.
In court filings by the Suffolk County D.A., Heuermann is referenced as the prime suspect in the disappearance and death of the fourth woman, Maureen Brainard-Barnes. (In all, the remains of nine women were eventually discovered in the Gilgo Beach area, as well as the bodies of a man and a toddler, though only four have, so far, been allegedly connected to the suspect or related to the case).
The suspect in the so-called Long Island Serial Killer case – a series of murders near Gilgo Beach on New York’s Long Island South Shore depicted in the 2020 Netflix film Lost Girls – was arrested last night in Manhattan more than 10 years after the first body was found.
Police sources confirmed to local media last night that the Suffolk County Police Department had the suspect in custody. A large police presence had gathered at the suspect’s home in Long Island’s Massapequa Park last night and remained on site today.
Heuermann, an architect, of Massapequa Park was taken into custody near his Midtown Manhattan office last night and was arraigned today. The New York Times reports that Heuermann has lived most of his life in Nassau County – the location of Massapequa Park.
Actor Billy Baldwin provided a bit of background on the suspect, tweeting today that the two were classmates at Berner High School, Class of 1981. “Woke up this morning to learn that the Gilgo Beach serial killer suspect was my high school classmate Rex Heuermann,” Baldwin writes, adding, “Married, two kids, architect. ‘Average guy… quiet, family man.’ Mind-boggling… Massapequa is in shock.”
In 2010, 24-year-old sex worker Shannan Gilbert of New Jersey was reported missing after she had traveled to Long Island’s Oak Beach, a gated community near Gilgo Beach, for an escort job. Over the next year, four bodies of young women were found in the thick brush of the Gilgo Beach area. In all, the remains of nine women were eventually discovered, as well as the bodies of a man and a toddler.
Gilbert’s remains were found in December 2011.
The killings had long been widely believed to be the work of a serial killer targeting female sex workers.
Last year a multi-agency law enforcement task force was formed after local police had made little progress in the case. Suffolk County Executive Steve Bellone at a press briefing this morning thanked all the various departments that have worked the case over the years, including Suffolk County, the NYPD and the FBI. “We never stopped working on this case,” Bellone said.
In addition to numerous documentaries and episodes of true-crime TV series, the case inspired the popular 2020 Netflix drama Lost Girls, directed by Liz Garbus from a screenplay by Michael Werwie and based on the book Lost Girls: An Unsolved American Mystery by Robert Kolker. Amy Ryan starred as the real-life activist Mari Gilbert, mother of the murdered Shannan Gilbert. (Mari Gilbert died in 2016).
The film premiered at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival and was released the same year on Netflix.
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