Gilgo Beach Murders suspect Rex Heuermann (via Suffolk County (N.Y.) District Attorney’s Office court filing).
The man suspected of killing multiple sex workers on Long Island allegedly used a collection of burner phones and junk email accounts to search for sadistic images of sexual violence online and to cruelly taunt the family members of at least one of his alleged victims.
Rex Heuermann, 59, was arrested Thursday near his architecture office in midtown Manhattan. He is believed to be the serial killer behind the deaths of at least three women whose deaths have remained unsolved for over a decade. According to court filings, he is facing three charges of first-degree murder and three charges of second-degree murder in the deaths of Melissa Barthelemy, Megan Waterman, and Amber Costello.
In a court filing Friday, investigators provided detailed support for their argument that Heuermann should not be released on bail.
“[B]ased on the serious, heinous nature of these serial murders, the planning and forethought that went into these crimes, the strength of the People’s case, the length of incarceration the defendant faces upon conviction, the extended period of time that this Defendant was able to avoid apprehension, his recent searches for sadistic materials, child pornography, images of the victims and their relatives, counter-surveillance conducted online as to the criminal investigation, his use of fictitious names, burner email and cellphone accounts, and his access to and history of possessing firearms, the only means to ensure Defendant Rex A. Heuermann’s return to court is to remand him without bail,” prosecutors wrote in the filing.
At least 11 sets of human remains have been discovered along Ocean Parkway, near Gilgo Beach, since 2010, according to Suffolk County police. The victims known as the “Gilgo Four” — Maureen Brainard-Barnes, Melissa Barthelemy, Megan Waterman, and Amber Lynn Costello — were found across a quarter-mile area of the parkway after disappearing between 2007 and 2010. Their bodies were discovered in December 2010 during the search for the remains of Shannan Gilbert, a 23-year-old sex worker living in Oak Beach when she disappeared. The search for her led to the grim discovery of multiple possible victims in the Gilgo Beach area of the Ocean Parkway, including partial remains belonging to Jessica Taylor and the remains of Valerie Mack.
Police also discovered a female toddler, a woman believed to be the toddler’s mother and an Asian male who has not been identified.
According to the prosecution’s filing, a renewed joint investigation involving local law enforcement, state police, and the FBI was launched in January 2022. Within months, a “comprehensive review” of all the evidence led to the discovery of a “first-generation Chevrolet Avalanche” registered to Heuermann at the time of the murders.
“[T]his was significant, because a witness to the disappearance of Amber Costello identified a first-generation Chevrolet Avalanche as the vehicle believed to have been driven by her killer,” the prosecutor’s filing said.
A “comprehensive investigation” of Heuermann was soon underway. According to prosecutors, the investigation involved more than 300 subpoenas, search warrants, and “other legal processes to obtain evidence.”
Investigators found that cellphone billing records corresponded to cell site locations for the burner cellphones used to set up meetings with three of the four victims, the “taunting calls made to a relative of Ms. Barthelemy,” a “call made by a detective to Ms. Barthelemy’s cellphone while looking into her disappearance,” and calls “checking voicemail on Ms. Brainard-Barnes’ cellphone after her disappearance.”
Heuermann is believed to have used the cellphones of Brainard-Barnes and Barthelemy after their deaths. Investigators say he used their phones to check their voicemail and also make “taunting phone calls” to family members.
“On July 17, July 23, August 5, August 19, and August 26, 2009, the Barthelemy Phone made taunting phone calls to Ms. Barthelemy’s family members, some of which resulted in a conversation between the caller, who was a male, and a relative of Melissa Barthelemy, in which the male caller admitted killing and sexually assaulting Ms. Barthelemy,” the filing says.
Cell site records showed that all these taunting phone calls were made from midtown Manhattan, where Heuermann owned an architecture business. Heuermann’s cellphone, the filing noted, was “located in the same general locations as the burner cellphones used to contact the victims.
“Significantly, investigators could find no instance where Heuermann was in a separate location from these other cellphones when such a communication event occurred,” the filing said.
Heuermann also allegedly had an account on Tinder under a fake name.
The discovery of additional burner cellphones led investigators to a so-called “burner” or “junk” email account. It was this account, referred to as the “Thawk Email Account,” Heuermann allegedly used to conduct “thousands of searches related to sex workers, sadistic, torture related pornography, and child pornography,” the filing says.
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Law&Crime will not reproduce most of those search terms, many of which specifically sought out depictions of girls in distress. Some of them include:
pretty girl with bruised face porn
torture redhed porn
skinny red head tied up porn
Girl with face beat up
Chubby 10 year old girl crying
Blonde hair girl young depressed
Crying teen porn
That same email account “was also used to conduct in excess of two-hundred (200) searches, between March 2022 and June 2023, related to active and known serial killers, the specific disappearances and murders of Maureen Brainard-Barnes, Melissa Barthelemy, Megan Waterman, and Amber Costello, and the investigation into their murders,” the filing says.
Those searches included:
“why could law enforcement not trace the calls made by the long island serial killer”
“why hasn’t the long island serial killer been caught”
“Long Island killer”
“Long Island Serial Killer Phone Call”
“Long Island Serial Killer update”
“Long Island Serial Killer Update 2022”
“Inside the Long Island Serial Killer and Gilgo Beach”
“In Long Island serial killer investigation, new phone technology may be key to break in case”
In addition, Heuermann allegedly searched specifically for family members of Barthelemy and Waterman, the filing says.
Heuermann seemed particularly interested in the investigation into the unsolved murders. He searched for podcasts and documentaries regarding the investigation and “repeatedly [viewed] hundreds of images depicting the murdered victims and members of their immediate families,” the filing says.
“Significantly, Defendant Heuermann also searched for and viewed articles concerning the very Task Force that was investigating him,” investigators noted.
Heuermann also allegedly used his burner accounts to solicit sex and set up sexual encounters.
In January, investigators were finally able to link Heuermann’s DNA to male hairs found on the victims.
“[O]n or about January 26, 2023, a surveillance team observed and recovered a pizza box thrown by Defendant Rex A. Heuermann into a garbage can located in front of 385 5th Avenue in Manhattan,” the filing says. A DNA swab taken “from the pizza crust abandoned by Defendant Heuermann” was a 99.96% match to a hair found near the “bottom of the burlap” used to restrain and transport Megan Waterman’s body.
Images via Suffolk County (N.Y.) District Attorney’s Office court filing.
Investigators also linked hair from Heuermann’s wife to the victims, surmising that “it is likely that the burlap, tape, vehicle(s) or other instrumentalities utilized in furtherance of these murders came from Defendant Heuermann’s residence, where his wife also resides, or was transferred from his clothing.” Heuermann’s wife, the filing notes, was out of town when at least two victims went missing.
As the filing notes, Heuermann, if convicted, faces multiple life sentences without the possibility of parole.
You can read the prosecution’s motion to keep Heuermann behind bars here. Warning: the document contains several disturbing and graphic search terms and descriptions of sexual violence against women and children.
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