Serial killer jailed for life over eight Long Island murders

Gilgo Beach serial killer Rex Heuermann sentenced to life in prison without parole Thu 18 Jun 2026 at 6:57am In short: Gilgo Beach serial killer Rex Heuermann will serve three life sentences for first-degree murder, plus 25 years to life on four second-degree murder charges. Heuermann, a 62-year-old architect, admitted to eight killings more than a decade after human remains were uncovered along a roadside in Long Island, New York. Police said they tracked multiple burner phones and matched DNA taken from Heuermann's discarded pizza crusts to link him to the murders. A Long Island architect unmasked as a serial killer has been sentenced to life in prison without parole after confessing to the murder of eight women. Rex Heuermann, 62, pleaded guilty to the string of long-unsolved murders, known as the Gilgo Beach killings. He will serve three life sentences for first-degree murder, plus 25 years to life on four second-degree murder charges, all running consecutively. Heuermann will be transferred to a state prison after having spent the past three years alone in a segregated cell at the Suffolk County jail, reading crime novels and striking up a brief correspondence with the infamous "Happy Face Killer". As part of his guilty plea, Heuermann agreed to cooperate with the FBI's behavioural analysis unit to help catch other serial killers. The case began unravelling when police found multiple sets of human remains during a search for another missing woman in 2010. The first four victims, identified as Maureen Brainard-Barnes, Melissa Barthelemy, Megan Waterman and Amber Lynn Costello, were found in the Gilgo Beach area. The remains of three more women, Jessica Taylor, Karen Vergata and Valerie Mack, were found nearby in 2011. Heuermann would not be arrested until 2023. Initially charged with seven murders between 1993 and 2010, Heuermann later admitted to an eighth, a woman last seen alive in 1996. Karen Vergata's remains were then found along Ocean Parkway during searches in 2011, but she was not identified until 2023. All eight women had been working as escorts when they were hired by Heuermann, who then strangled them, wrapped them in burlap and left them on Ocean Parkway. He told his wife he had killed seven of the women in a downstairs room in their Long Island home, when prosecutors say she and their children were away on holiday. Asa Ellerup filed for divorce just days after Heuermann's arrest in July 2023. Heuermann's daughter, Victoria, told a Peacock television documentary crew earlier this year her father had told her "his demons got to him". "I'm like, 'well, did you see them as somebody's daughter?'" she said she asked her father. "He told me he didn't even see them as human." Pizza crusts and burner phones lead to arrest A renewed investigation launched in January 2022 linked Heuermann's first-generation Chevrolet Avalanche to the murders. The car had been seen outside the home of one woman, 27-year-old Amber Costello, in September 2010, according to court documents. Witnesses described the driver as "a large, white male, approximately 6'4 to 6'6 in height". "A witness described him to police as appearing like an 'ogre'," documents said. Amber Costello was last seen leaving her house on foot, having been contacted multiple times by the same burner phone. As they looked into Heuermann, prosecutors said, police uncovered phone bills for multiple burner phones. These phone were used both to arrange meetings with several of the victims, as well as to check one woman's voicemails and to call and taunt another woman's family. When 24-year-old Melissa Barthelemy disappeared in July 2009, her younger sister began receiving calls from an unidentified man. The girls' mother, Lynn Barthelemy, said the calls never lasted longer than a few minutes. "In the final call, he said he had killed her," she told the New York Times in 2011. The calls were made from a location in Midtown Manhattan, where Heuermann worked at the time. "When analysing devices and accounts … there appeared to be a clear pattern," documents said. "[Heuermann] used 'burner' phones [and] email addresses to contact sex workers and sex partners. "[And to] conduct extensive searches related to sex and prostitution, violent sadistic and child pornography [and] seek online information about the information about the authorities investigating his crimes." Loading...In July 2022, investigators took 11 bottles from a rubbish bin outside Heuermann's home. DNA samples on the bottles matched hairs found on the victims' bodies, and was believed to belong to Heuermann's wife. In January 2023, a pizza box was recovered by police after it was thrown away outside Heuermann's office. DNA on the crusts matched more hair found on a victim's body. Heuermann was arrested several months later.