A discarded pizza box, thrown into a 5th Avenue trash can in the middle of Manhattan, would eventually help investigators link Rex Heuermann to DNA evidence collected from the body of a Gilgo Beach victim killed more than 10 years ago.
After reigniting investigative efforts into the Long Island serial killings early last year, officials said Friday that Heuermann became a focus of the unsolved case in early 2022.
"On March 14, 2022, the name Rex was first mentioned. A New York state investigator was able to identify him in a database and from that point on we used the power of the grand jury, over 300 subpoenas and search warrants, looking into this individual's background to bring us to this day," Suffolk County District Attorney Ray Tierney said.
A freshly formed task force had started working six weeks earlier, and would eventually use a combination of cellphone pings of calls and DNA evidence to charge Heuermann for the murders of Melissa Barthelemy, Megan Waterman and Amber Costello. Prosecutors said in court documents that he remains the prime suspect in Brainard-Barnes' death, but there are no charges as the investigation "is continuing and is expected to be resolved soon."
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"Fresh eyes in this case and the resiliency of our investigators allowed us to identify Rex Heuermann," Suffolk County Police Commissioner Rodney Harrison said Friday afternoon. "Rex Heuermann is a demon who walks among us."
Court documents explain how a team surveilling the 59-year-old in midtown, where he worked as an architect, observed him toss a pizza box into a trash can. The leftover pizza crust was collected, swabbed and analyzed by a forensics lab.
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Investigators said the tested sample matched a mitochondrial DNA profile from a male hair collected off burlap recovered from the body of Megan Waterman.
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. Investigators said "it is significant that Defendant Heuermann cannot be excluded from the male hair recovered near the 'bottom of the burlap' utilized to restrain and transport Megan Waterman's naked and deceased body."
Prosecutors and investigators worked to keep details secret because they knew Heuermann was watching, the district attorney said.
“We knew we were playing before an audience of one person,” Tierney said at a news conference.
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"
