Rex Heuermann to plead guilty in the Gilgo Beach killings, ending long
search for a serial killer
[April 08, 2026]
By MICHAEL R. SISAK and PHILIP MARCELO
A Long Island architect accused in a string of long-unsolved slayings
known as the Gilgo Beach killings is expected to plead guilty on
Wednesday, closing a case that bedeviled investigators, agonized
victims’ relatives and tantalized a true-crime obsessed public for
years.
Rex Heuermann, 62, is charged with murdering seven women, many of them
sex workers, over a 17-year span. A guilty plea would put him in prison
for the rest of his life.
His decision to plead guilty was confirmed by three people familiar with
it. They spoke to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity
because the plea has yet to be entered in court. Heuermann will be
sentenced at a later date.
Suffolk County District Attorney Ray Tierney has scheduled a news
conference for Wednesday afternoon, following a morning court hearing.
He will be joined by members of victims’ families and of the Gilgo Beach
Homicide Investigation Task Force, which cracked the case with the help
of clues that included DNA lifted from a discarded pizza crust.
A message seeking comment was left for Heuermann’s lawyer, Michael
Brown.
The Gilgo Beach investigation began in earnest in 2010 after police
found numerous sets of human remains along a remote beach highway on
Long Island’s South Shore, setting off a search for a potential serial
killer that attracted global interest and spawned a Hollywood movie.
Investigators used DNA analysis and other evidence to identify victims.
In some cases, they were able to connect them to remains found elsewhere
on Long Island years earlier.
Remains of six victims — Melissa Barthelemy, Maureen Brainard-Barnes,
Amber Lynn Costello, Valerie Mack, Jessica Taylor and Megan Waterman —
were found in the scrub along Ocean Parkway near Gilgo Beach. The
remains of another victim, Sandra Costilla, were found more than 60
miles (100 kilometers) away in the Hamptons.
Police have also identified an eighth woman, Karen Vergata, whose
remains were found on Fire Island, more than 20 miles (32 kilometers)
west, in 1996, and near Gilgo Beach in 2011. Heuermann has not been
charged in Vergata's killing.
But despite the attention, including a documentary series and the 2020
Netflix film, “Lost Girls,” the investigation dragged on for more than a
decade, punctuated by fleeting leads and dashed hopes.
In 2022, six weeks after a new police commissioner formed the Gilgo
Beach task force, detectives identified Heuermann as a suspect by using
a vehicle registration database to connect him to a pickup truck that a
witness reported seeing when one of the victims disappeared in 2010.
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Rex Heuermann, charged in a string of deaths known as the Gilgo
Beach killings, appears in Judge Timothy Mazzei's courtroom at
Suffolk County Court in Riverhead, N.Y., for a status conference on
Feb. 25, 2025. (James Carbone/Newsday via AP, File)
Heuermann lived for decades in Massapequa Park, about a 25-minute
drive across a causeway spanning South Oyster Bay to the sandy
stretch where the women’s remains were found. Some of the victims
were believed to have disappeared from that community and their
cellphones were found to have pinged towers in the area, authorities
said.
After the truck discovery, a grand jury authorized more than 300
subpoenas and search warrants, allowing the task force to dig in to
Heuermann’s life.
Detectives collected billing records for burner phones he allegedly
used to arrange meetings with the victims, retested DNA found with
the bodies and scoured Heuermann’s internet search history, which
showed that he had viewed violent torture pornography and exhibited
an intense interest in the Gilgo Beach killings and the renewed
investigation. Cellphone data showed Heuermann was in contact with
some victims just before they disappeared, investigators said.
To obtain Heuermann’s DNA, a task force surveillance team tailed him
in Manhattan, where he worked, and watched as he threw the remnants
of his lunch — a box of partially eaten pizza crusts — into a
sidewalk garbage can.
Investigators rushed in, grabbed the box, and sent it to the crime
lab, which matched DNA from the crust to a male hair found on burlap
used to restrain one of the victims. He was arrested in July 2023.
After Heuermann’s arrest, detectives spent more than 12 days
searching his yard and home, where they found a basement vault that
contained 279 weapons. On his computer, investigators said, they
found what they described as a “blueprint” for the killings,
including a series of checklists with reminders to limit noise,
clean the bodies and destroy evidence.
Last year, a judge rejected Heuermann’s bid to exclude DNA evidence
obtained through advanced techniques that prosecutors say proves
he’s the killer.
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