1. Rex Heuermann, a 59‑year‑old architect who lives in Nassau
County, was charged with killing three women and is the “prime
suspect” in the death of a fourth woman.
The district attorney said that law enforcement officers used DNA samples and
cellphone data to track down the suspect, Rex Heuermann.
Johnny Milano for The New York Times
By Maria Cramer, William K. Rashbaum, Joseph Goldstein and Corey Kilgannon
Published July 14, 2023 Updated July 15, 2023, 1:22 a.m. ET
The bodies were unearthed near remote Gilgo Beach on Long
Island’s South Shore more than a decade ago, terrifying residents
and leaving the victims’ families bereft. In all, the remains of nine
women, a man and a toddler were discovered.
Since then, investigators have tried to determine whether the
killings had been committed by one person or by multiple
attackers. But for more than a decade the cases went unsolved.
Then Rex Heuermann, an architect who had lived most of his life in
Nassau County and worked in Manhattan, was taken into custody
on Thursday, accused of killing three women and is suspected in
the murder of a fourth. Before his arrest, investigators had sifted
through clues as simple as a monogrammed belt wrapped around
one of the victims and as sophisticated as the electronic signals of
disposable mobile phones.
Mr. Heuermann was charged with three counts of first degree
murder and three counts of second degree murder in the killings of
Amber Lynn Costello, Megan Waterman and Melissa Barthelemy,
whose bodies were found wrapped in hunting camouflage burlap
within a quarter mile of each other on a stretch of beach. All had
been in their 20s, petite and working as escorts. They disappeared
between 2009 and 2010.
The remains of a fourth woman, Maureen Brainard-Barnes, 25,
who went missing in July 2007, were also found alongside their
The Gilgo Beach
Serial Killings Suspect Arrested Timeline of Events The Victims
ADVERTISEMENT
Suspect Arrested in Serial Killings of
Women Near Gilgo Beach
Give this article 923

2. who went missing in July 2007, were also found alongside their
bodies and buried in a similar way.
Mr. Heuermann was not charged with the killing of Ms. Brainard-
Barnes, but he “is the prime suspect in her death,” according to the
bail application filed by Allen Bode, the chief assistant district
attorney in Suffolk County. The evidence in her case “fits the
modus operandi of the defendant.”
Prosecutors asked in the court papers that Mr. Heuermann be held
without bail based on circumstances including “the serious,
heinous nature of these serial murders,” the planning that went
into them, the suspect’s history of firearm possession and “his
recent searches for sadistic materials, child pornography, images
of the victims and their relatives.”
Mr. Heuermann, who had been arrested in Midtown Manhattan on
Thursday night, appeared Friday afternoon in a Suffolk County
courthouse, where he spoke in a low voice only to identify himself.
Handcuffed, his hair disheveled, he grimaced and sighed as
District Attorney Raymond A. Tierney described DNA evidence
linking him to the crime, gathered from pizza crust, bottles and
human hairs.
Mr. Tierney said Mr. Heuermann had licenses for 92 guns and an
“irresistible” motive to flee.
Judge Richard Ambro said he was ordering him held “because of
the extreme depravity of the allegations.”
Outside the courthouse, Michael Brown, Mr. Heuermann’s lawyer,
said the evidence was circumstantial and that his client had wept,
telling him, “I didn’t do this.”
Prosecutors said Rex Heuermann
took selfies that he sent to help
arrange sexual assignations.
Suffolk County District Attorney
Raymond Tierney, district attorney of Suffolk County, said the suspect was heavily
armed and had every reason to flee. Johnny Milano for The New York Times

3. “We’re looking forward to fighting this case in a court of law, not
the court of public opinion,” he said.
Investigators said they linked Mr. Heuermann to the killings using
not only DNA, but technology that pinpointed the locations of
disposable cellular phones they believed the killer used to contact
the victims in the hours before they disappeared.
“Rex Heuermann is a demon that walks among us, a predator that
ruins families,” said Rodney K. Harrison, the Suffolk County
commissioner. Despite criticism over the long investigation, he
said, investigators had never been discouraged.
The Case Against Rex Heuermann: Read the
Document
Suffolk County, N.Y., prosecutors argued against bail for Mr.
Heuermann in a 32-page document that explicitly details the
investigation into the Gilgo Beach killings. The New York
Times has redacted phone numbers, email addresses,
personal addresses and the names of private social media
accounts. It has also redacted offensive material that was
included in Mr. Heuermann’s internet searches.
READ DOCUMENT
The body of Ms. Barthelemy was the first that was discovered, on
Dec. 11, 2010, when a police officer conducting a training exercise
with his canine partner found her remains. Two days later, the
police found the remains of the three other women.
Later that year, they found the remains of Valerie Mack, a 24-year-
old mother from southern New Jersey who had paid the bills as an
escort and had been missing for 20 years. The remains of six other
people — four women, one man and a 2-year-old girl who was the
daughter of one of the women — were also unearthed in the
months that followed. Those six deaths remain unsolved.
“The work is not done, but this is a major, major step forward,” said
Steve Bellone, the Suffolk County executive.
The families of some victims said the arrest of Mr. Heuermann
made them feel optimistic that their loved ones’ cases would also
be solved.
“I’m grateful for the hard work that has been done,” said Jasmine
Robinson, a cousin of Jessica Taylor, a 20-year-old woman who had
worked as an escort in New York. Some of her remains were found
in 2003, soon after she went missing. More were found along Ocean
Parkway around Gilgo Beach in early 2011.
“I’m grateful that today is happening,” Ms. Robinson said. “And I’m
hopeful for the future.”
Prosecutors laid out an intricate investigation that saw a break in
March 2022 when investigators discovered that Mr. Heuermann
had owned a Chevrolet Avalanche truck at the time of the killings.
A witness had seen an Avalanche parked in one of the murdered
women’s driveways shortly before she disappeared, Mr. Bode, the
prosecutor, wrote in his filing.
By the time detectives learned of the truck, they had already
narrowed their search to several men who were in a small area of
Jasmine Robinson, center, said that the arrest gave her hope that her cousin’s slaying
would be solved. Eduardo Munoz Alvarez/Associated Press

4. Massapequa Park where cell-site information had led them to
believe that the killer lived, according to a person with knowledge
of the matter.
Investigators learned that the killer had used burner phones to
contact victims in the hours before they disappeared. Using
mapping technology, they found that the calls to the victims
originated from two key locations connected to Mr. Heuermann:
near his home on First Avenue in Massapequa Park and parts of
Midtown Manhattan near his office at Fifth Avenue and 36th
Street.
It was near that office that a series of “taunting” calls was made to
Ms. Barthelemy’s family, using her phone, according to the court
filing. One came in July 2009 to Ms. Barthelemy’s sister, Amanda.
“Do you think you’ll ever speak to her again?” a bland, calm voice
said to her, according to a person with knowledge of the call.
When she told the caller that she hoped to talk to her sister again,
he replied that he had killed her after having sex with her. Several
seconds later, the caller hung up.
Investigators learned that Mr. Heuermann used burner phones to
contact prostitutes or massage parlors and used false names to set
up an email account to search for “sex workers, sadistic, torture-
related pornography” and imagery and videos of women and
children being sexually assaulted.
The account was also used to send selfies “to solicit and arrange
for sexual activity” and to search for podcasts and documentaries
related to the investigation. He “repeatedly” viewed “hundreds of
images depicting the murdered victims and members of their
immediate families,” Mr. Bode wrote.
Mr. Heuermann also searched for articles about a task force set up
in 2022 to investigate the killings.
But while he was finding out about the task force, it was finding out
about him. In July 2022, a detective took 11 bottles from a trash can
outside Mr. Heuermann’s house. Investigators compared DNA
from the bottles to DNA extracted from hairs found on some of the
bodies.
It was an apparent match for Mr. Heuermann’s wife, who had been
out of the country or out of state when each of the three women
disappeared. Detectives concluded that Mr. Heuermann had
somehow transferred his wife’s hair to the victims.
By January 2023, Mr. Heuermann was under regular surveillance,
and investigators saw him throw a pizza box into a sidewalk
garbage can outside his office building. The Suffolk County Crime
Laboratory swabbed the discarded crusts for DNA, which in June
matched with a hair found on Ms. Waterman’s body.
Mr. Tierney said that the task force used a grand jury to issue more
than 300 subpoenas and search warrants. The grand jury helped
investigators quietly pursue Mr. Heuermann, Mr. Tierney said
during a news conference.
“We knew this one person would be watching,” he said.
Investigators combed through remote areas of Long Island in 2011 as bodies kept
appearing. Robert Stolarik for The New York Times

5. “We knew this one person would be watching,” he said.
Mr. Heuermann lived most, if not all, of his life in a tidy working-
class suburb roughly an hour by train or car from Midtown
Manhattan.
Neighbors said he had attended Alfred G. Berner High School and
lived in his longtime family home, which had vegetation on a roof
that was partly supported by bare wood. With its cracked and
faded shingles and unkempt yard, the small house stood out from
the neatly kept homes on the block.
Neighbors said they avoided it on Halloween.
Residents described Mr. Heuermann as an “average” man who
went to the Massapequa Park station every day, wearing a suit and
toting a briefcase. “You’d never think he was anything but a
businessman,” said a neighbor, Barry Auslander.
In a February 2022 interview, Mr. Heuermann described himself as
an architect and consultant who closely read building and
administrative codes and kept an “extensive library of obsolete
books.”
“I’m a troubleshooter, born and raised on Long Island, been
working in Manhattan since 1987 — very long time,” he said in the
18-and-a-half-minute interview with Antoine Amira, a real estate
agent and host of a show called Bonjour Realty on YouTube, who
spoke with Mr. Heuermann at his office.
On Friday, police officers and reporters swarmed the white and
beige brick building where Mr. Heuermann worked. Around 3:15
p.m., law enforcement officers left carrying boxes, a mallet and
other large tools as curious passers-by stared.
In the interview with Mr. Amira, Mr. Heuermann said his father
was an aerospace engineer who helped build satellites and crafted
furniture at home. Mr. Heuermann said he also built furniture out
of a workshop at his house.
Sitting at a desk and dressed in a light blue button-down shirt, Mr.
Heuermann described the “patience” and “tolerance” needed to
deal with out-of-town architects intimidated by New York’s
byzantine building regulations.
His job, he said, taught him more about “how to understand
people.”
At the end of the interview, Mr. Amira asked Mr. Heuermann to
pose for a selfie. Mr. Heuermann, a 6-foot-4, heavyset man who
towered over Mr. Amira, put on a pair of black sunglasses.
“Can you smile?” Mr. Amira asked.
Mr. Heuermann replied that he was smiling.
Andy Newman, Nate Schweber, Erin Nolan and Ellen Yan contributed reporting. Jack
Begg contributed research.
Maria Cramer is a reporter on the Metro desk. Please send her tips, questions and
complaints about the New York police and crime at maria.cramer@nytimes.com. More
about Maria Cramer
William K. Rashbaum is a senior writer on the Metro desk, where he covers political and
municipal corruption, courts, terrorism and law enforcement. He was a part of the team
Neighbors in Massapequa Park cluster outside the suspect’s home. Residents said
little stood out about its inhabitant. Johnny Milano for The New York Times

6. © 2023 The New York Times Company
NYTCo Contact Us Accessibility Work with us Advertise T Brand Studio Your Ad Choices Privacy Policy Terms of Service Terms of Sale Site Map Help Subscriptions
awarded the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News. More about William K. Rashbaum
Joseph Goldstein covers health care in New York, following years of criminal justice and
police reporting for the Metro desk. He also spent a year reporting on Afghanistan from
The Times’s Kabul bureau. More about Joseph Goldstein
Corey Kilgannon is a Metro reporter covering news and human interest stories. He was
also part of the team that won the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for breaking news. More about
Corey Kilgannon
A version of this article appears in print on , Section A, Page 1 of the New York edition with the headline: Pizza Crusts
Helped Police Identify Suspect in Unsolved Killings. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe
923
Give this article 923
ADVERTISEMENT