Architect charged in Gilgo Beach serial killings: What we know

After more than ten years of a series of killings on Long Island remaining unsolved, an architect has been arrested and charged in connection to the deaths of three women. 

Rex Heuermann, a 59-year-old resident of Massapequa Park, N.Y., was arrested Thursday night in Manhattan and formally charged on Friday with three counts of first-degree murder and three counts of second-degree murder in the deaths of Melissa Barthelemy, Megan Waterman and Amber Costello. 

He is also considered the top suspect in the death of Maureen Brainard-Barnes. 

Heuermann’s attorney entered a not guilty plea for his client in court on Friday. The judge in the case ordered Heuermann to be held without bail based on “the extreme depravity” of the allegations against him. 

The attorney told reporters that his client told him, “I didn’t do this.” 

Heuermann’s home is just north of a sandy area known as Gilgo Beach where remains were found in 2010 and 2011, some of which could have been left there as far back as 1996. At least 10 bodies were found in a three-mile stretch near the beach. 

Heuermann was first identified as a possible suspect in the case in March 2022 after detectives connected him to a pickup truck that a witness reported when a victim disappeared in 2010. 

The New York Times reported that Heuermann was regularly under surveillance by this January. Officials later obtained some of his DNA from pizza crust in a box he discarded in a Manhattan trash can and matched it to hair that was found on a restraint used in the killing of Waterman. 

Prosecutors said they were then able to tie him to other evidence, including burner cell phones that he allegedly used to set up meetings with the women who were killed and calls that were made to one of Barthelemy’s relatives claiming to be her killer taunting them. 

Suffolk County District Attorney Ray Tierney said Heuermann “searched obsessively” online on the status of the investigation in recent months, looking into the names of the women he has been charged with killing and documentaries and podcasts that have been made about the case. 

Tierney said Heuermann was charged now based on concern of him fleeing or continuing to be a danger to the community, but officials are working to charge him with the death of the fourth woman, Brainard-Barnes. 

Authorities found the remains of eight women, one man and one toddler near Gilgo Beach. Most belonged to young female sex workers.

Barthelemy was the first victim whose remains were found. She set up dates at two hotels located near Heuermann’s home in Massapequa Park before she disappeared. 

Heuermann is married and has a daughter and stepson. He has worked for a Manhattan-based architectural firm that has performed store buildouts and renovations for retailers, offices and apartments. 

The Associated Press contributed to this report.