What to Know
- Investigators finished with their digging up of the backyard of alleged serial killer Rex Heuermann after police searched the home in connection to the Gilgo Beach case — and walked away with what they described as a "massive amount" of potential evidence.
- Law enforcement investigating the murders brought in heavy equipment like an excavator over the weekend to dig behind the Massapequa Park home. Suffolk County DA Ray Tierney did not offer further details on what specific items were found in the home, but did say it appears no human remains were discovered during a search of Heuermann's backyard
- Heuermann was arrested July 14 and charged 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 a suspect in a fourth killing, of Maureen Brainard-Barnes.
Investigators finished with their digging up of the backyard of alleged serial killer Rex Heuermann after police searched the home in connection to the Gilgo Beach case — and walked away with what they described as a "massive amount" of potential evidence.
The police tape around the Massapequa Park home came down 12 days after the arrest of the hulking Heuermann, as police were searching for clues or anything connected to the deaths of the four women killed and dumped on Gilgo Beach.
Suffolk County District Attorney Ray Tierney said while there were many things taken from the dilapidated and cluttered home — including many guns stored in a basement vault — there wasn't any key piece of evidence found.
"I think everyone wanted that singular piece of evidence but I don’t think there’s any one thing that jumps out at us at this juncture," said Tierney.
He did not offer further details on what specific items were found in the home, but did say it appears no human remains were discovered during a search of Heuermann's backyard. As for whether any of the three women he is charged with killing were actually murdered at the home, Tierney said that "evidence doesn’t point one way or the other."
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The DA said everything taken from Heuermann’s home will be analyzed for blood, hair and DNA — a process Tierney said could take some time.
"Justice is gonna be served. That’s the main thing," DA Tierney said.
Law enforcement investigating the murders had brought in heavy equipment like an excavator over the weekend to dig behind the house where Heuermann lived with his wife and children. It was not immediately clear what officials were looking for in particular, though ground-penetrating radar was being used, according to Suffolk County Police Commissioner Rodney Harrison.
The ground-penetrating radar is helpful because it does not disturb any potential evidence that is underground.
While the commissioner shot down reports of a secret room underneath the yard or in the basement, he did say Heuermann had a concrete vault where his guns were found. There was no mention of any secret or soundproof room on the property, according to Harrison, who said the digging was not being done based on any tip.
He said the search was part of due diligence to search the home, adding that the search had been fruitful, with numerous items taken from inside. It's not clear what had been found in the home.
"Just doing a total investigation around the house to see if there’s anything back there that we need to take a closer look at," Harrison said. "There have been items we have taken into our possession. That makes it fruitful."
The commissioner said that among the items seized were roughly 200 guns stored in a walk-in vault in the basement of the house.
"It’s still an active crime scene. We will go into every crevice to make sure there’s nothing we miss," he said.
Harrison did not state whether any of the victims Heuermann is accused of killing was murdered at the house being searched.
The search comes after investigators on July 20 said they were looking at unsolved murder cases nationwide for any connection to Heuermann, a Suffolk County Police spokesperson confirmed to NBC 4 New York. Among the cases being looked at for a possible connection to Heuermann are the murders of four women in Atlantic City in 2006, according to the spokesperson. However, in the past, police have not seen any connections between the bodies dumped at Gilgo Beach and the Atlantic City killings.
It also comes nearly a week after Heuermann's wife filed for divorce, according to her lawyer, Robert Macedonio. A summons and complaint had been filed on behalf of Asa Ellerup in Suffolk County Supreme Court, Macedonio said, declining further comment.
Authorities have previously said Ellerup was out of state at the time of the killings and isn't considered a suspect.
Investigators previously executed a search warrant at a storage facility in Amityville connected to Heuermann. It wasn't immediately clear what police were looking for in the multiple storage sheds that were searched. Suffolk County police and New York State Police had been on the scene, located in front of a middle school, for two days.
Police confirmed that the search at the storage facility was linked to the Gilgo investigation, but did not provide any additional details. The manager for the facility declined to comment when asked if Heuermann owned any units there; neither the Suffolk County district attorney nor Heuermann's lawyer responded to requests for comment.
Heuermann was arrested on July 14 and charged 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, according to court documents. He is also a suspect in a fourth killing, of Maureen Brainard-Barnes.
Police have continued to search Heuermann's house in Massapequa Park — across a bay from where some of the bodies were found — for days. Investigators scoured the he small, dilapidated red house to see if any evidence inside might link Heuermann, 59, to the killings.
The Suffolk County Sheriff's Office said that Heuermann was "on suicide watch which is determined by the County’s mental health staff.”
In court documents, prosecutors described the alleged murders as "planned and heinous in nature."
The towering Heuermann pleaded not guilty during an initial court appearance, but said nothing else. He was remanded without bail and is due back in court on Aug. 1.
Heuermann's attorney, Michael Brown, said after the initial court hearing that the evidence against his client is "extremely circumstantial in nature." He also described Heuermann as in tears as he told him "I didn't do this," denying the charges made against him.
Who is Rex Heuermann: How police zeroed in on suspect
Among the breaks in the case that allowed police to hone in on the suspect were cellphone pings of calls he made to one of the victim's families that traced back to the Massapequa area.
Law enforcement officials felt strongly that the alleged killer was from Long Island because that cell phone tower ping – which came from a phone belonging to one of the victims after her death – originated from the Massapequa area, according to two senior law enforcement officials briefed on the case.
Heuermann allegedly used burner phones to meet his victims and was seen on surveillance videos in cellphone stores buying the burners. He even stole two cellphones from victims, prosecutors alleged, using one to taunt the victim's family.
As NBC News previously reported officials believed the alleged killer used Melissa Barthelemy’s cell phone to call her teen sister repeatedly soon after Melissa disappeared in 2009. The alleged killer made explicit sexual comments, claimed to have killed Melissa and related details of her killing that only the murderer would know. Police believed the caller was a white man and the calls came from midtown Manhattan.
It was previously unreported that the same victim’s cellphone briefly pinged off of a tower in the Massapequa area around the same time. It was that potential clue that led officials to believe the suspect could one day be found in that area.
Heuermann has worked as an architect in Manhattan, sources said, and police were seen Friday searching his midtown office at Fifth Avenue and East 36th Street. Some of the calls investigators identified had come from or near the architecture firm where he worked. For years, police had been looking into whether the suspect lived on Long Island and worked in Manhattan, commuting through New York-Penn Station.
In a YouTube video, Heuermann was seen speaking about his life on Long Island, his family, and how he has been working in NYC since the 1980s. The suspect’s house is a little over a 15-mile car ride away from Gilgo Beach.
As part of the investigation, law enforcement looked into his internet search history. According to prosecutors, Heuermann repeatedly searched for child pornography, sadistic material and online images and information of his victims. His email account was connected to more than 200 searches between March 2022 and June 2023 about known and active serial killers, the disappearances of his alleged victims, and articles written about investigations into the murders.
Among the searches were:
- "why could law enforcement not trace the calls made by long island serial killer"
- "why hasn't the long island serial killer been caught"
- "FBI active serial killers"
- "Map of all known serial killers"
- "8 Terrifying Active Serial Killers (We Can't Find)"
- "Mapping the Long Island Murder Victims"
- "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"
Investigators said DNA evidence from a hair found on tape used to tie up one victim (Megan Waterman) is believed to be a hair from Heuermann's wife — a hair strand likely initially stuck on the tape from him or his residence, court documents state.
But it was a pizza box discarded by Heuermann that allowed investigators to get his DNA sample, swabbing a leftover pizza crust inside. Prosecutors said they can match the DNA from the pizza crust to a strand of male hair also found on the tape used to tie up Waterman, according to the documents.
The DNA test results that allegedly linked Heuermann to the Gilgo Beach bodies came back on June 12 — with the results having a 99.96 degree of accuracy.
The case has drawn immense public attention since human remains were found along the beach highway more than a decade ago. The mystery attracted national headlines for many years and the unsolved killings were the subject of the 2020 Netflix film “Lost Girls.”
Determining who killed them, and why, has vexed a slew of seasoned homicide detectives through several changes in police leadership. Last year, an interagency task force was formed with investigators from the FBI, as well as state and local police departments, aimed at solving the case.
Gilgo Beach Murders: The Victims
The Gilgo Beach murder case has haunted police for 13 years, dating back to 2010 when the body of Shannan Gilbert, a 24-year-old escort from Jersey City, was found in the area. That led police to find nearly a dozen other sets of human remains in the vicinity, including that of the so-called "Gilgo Four" — Maureen Brainard-Barnes, Melissa Barthelemy, Megan Waterman and Amber Costello.
The four women in their 20s, all believed to be sex workers who advertised on sites like Craigslist and more, were found dead and wrapped in burlap sacks along the remote stretch of Ocean Parkway, within a quarter of a mile of one another near the now-notorious beach in 2010. Gilbert's cause of death has been disputed by officials and her family, but officials have said the Gilgo Four were all murdered, possibly the work of a serial killer.
Brainard-Barnes, 25, was last heard from in July 2007; Barthelemy, 24, went missing on July 12, 2009; Waterman, 22, was reported missing on June 8, 2010, and investigators believe she left a Holiday Inn in Hauppauge the night of June 6 to meet her killer; Costello, 27, was last seen Sept. 2, 2010.
For more information on each of the women known collectively as the Gilgo Four, click here.
In April and May of 2011, the remains of six other individuals were also found in the area, including a partially dismembered woman later identified as another sex worker, Jessica Taylor. An unidentified Asian man, two unidentified women and an unidentified female toddler were also found. Through DNA testing, the toddler was determined to be the daughter of another woman whose body was discovered about seven miles away.
One of the unidentified women, previously known as "Jane Doe #6," was identified in 2020 as Valerie Mack. The 24-year-old similarly was working as an escort in the Philadelphia area at the time and vanished after going to meet a client on Long Island's Oak Beach in 2010. Mack sometimes went by the name Melissa Taylor (no relation to fellow victim Jessica Taylor) and was never reported missing.
Mack's dismembered remains were located in separate locations over an 11-year span. Her torso was found in Manorville, not long after she was last seen. In 2011, her head, hands and right foot were found by Gilgo Beach.
Here's a timeline breakdown of the bodies found in the Gilgo Beach area:
- May 2010: Shannan Gilbert goes missing.
- Dec. 11, 2010: Remains of Melissa Barthelemy found.
- Dec. 13, 2010: Remains of Maureen Brainard-Barnes, Megan Waterman and Amber Costello found off Ocean parkway (these three plus Barthelemy known as the “Gilgo Four”).
- March 29, 2011: Remains of Jessica Taylor found in Manorville.
- April 4, 2011: Remains of Valerie Mack (aka Jane Doe #6 until May 2022), unidentified toddler and Asian male found. Mack’s remains found years apart in Manorville and Gilgo Beach, toddler’s remains found along Ocean Parkway near where Mack’s remains were found. Remains of Asian male found along Ocean Parkway.
- April 11, 2011: Two more bodies found. One unidentified known as Jane Doe 7, other believed to be mother of toddler who remains found earlier.
- Dec. 2011: Shannan Gilbert’s remains found in marsh, 11th set of remains found.
While 11 sets of remains were discovered between Dec. 2010 and Dec. 2011, investigators believe the first four — all of whom had been strangled — were killed by one person. Heuermann was charged with first- and second-degree murder in the deaths of Melissa Barthelemy, Megan Waterman and Amber Costello. He was considered a suspect in the death of Maureen Brainard-Barnes, but was not formally charged in Friday's indictment.
How the bodies were first discovered: The Shannan Gilbert case
Shannan Gilbert disappeared in Oak Beach, a quiet gated community off Suffolk County's Ocean Parkway, on May 1, 2010, after meeting with a client. The skeletal remains of Gilbert weren't found until Dec. 2011, months after the others, after investigators said she disappeared into the marsh. The remains were found about three miles east of where the other 10 sets were discovered.
Suffolk County detectives have long said Gilbert's killing was not connected to the others — a belief her sister, Sherre Gilbert, has intensely disagreed with. She spoke to reporters in May 2022 for the first time in years after police released three 911 calls her sister made on May 1, 2010 (including a nearly 22-minute one).
Sherre Gilbert was adamant local authorities "dropped the ball from the beginning."
"I don't believe it. I just feel like they've never cared ... and I just feel like it's a way to just confirm what they've always said," Sherre Gilbert said in 2022 of the longstanding contention her sister's death was, as Suffolk police have previously said, a "tragic accident."
Sherre Gilbert said local law enforcement was pushing the same theory even before her sister's remains were found in a reedy marsh near Oak Beach -- not far from where the other grim discoveries were made along the desolate stretch of Long Island highway.
The sister has her own ideas about what happened. She says she believes someone found her sister after she tried to get help at the house of the woman who made the third 911 call and potentially drugged her to calm her down since she had become hysterical. Sherre Gilbert says maybe her sister died after that, an accident, and someone (or someones) took her body and dumped it on the marsh, scattering her belongings along the way to make it appear she wandered there herself.
"If you notice on the map, when you see where her remains were, from where her clothes are, they're in two different locations," Sherre Gilbert explained. "So I feel like they took her remains and put her there from the roadside and then went back to put her clothing on the opposite side. I don't believe that my sister would run."
An autopsy proved inconclusive as far as Shannan Gilbert's cause of death. A private pathologist hired by the Gilbert family also found insufficient evidence to determine how she died. But the pathologist, the noted Michael Baden, who has been hired to do independent autopsies by George Floyd's family and others, did say Gilbert's remains showed signs that could be consistent with manual strangulation as a potential cause.
Details on the report were previously reported by News 4. Read it here.
Despite police not considering Gilbert as part of the same investigation, families of the other victims hoped the 911 calls could shed some light on their outstanding mysteries.
John Ray, an attorney who represents the families of Shannan Gilbert and Jessica Taylor, told NBC News he is "delighted" that there was an arrest in the Gilgo Beach murders. But he added that he feels "very strongly" that Heuermann is not responsible for all 11 murders, including Gilbert's and Taylor's.
"It gives us something of a sigh of relief, but it's partial," Ray said in an interview Friday morning. "There's still much to be done on this."
Given that Heuermann has not been accused of or linked to the murders of Gilbert and Taylor, their families are still holding out hope for another arrest, Ray said.
"There undoubtedly is" another suspect, he said, telling the AP "We’re happy to see that they’re finally active, the police, in accomplishing something. Let’s wait and see what it all leads to."
Tom Winter and Chloe Atkins of NBC News Investigations contributed to this report.
