Long Island architect Rex Heuermann pleads guilty to murdering seven women, admits to killing eighth
Michael R. Sisak And Philip Marcelo
New York: A Long Island architect who led a secret life as a serial killer has pleaded guilty to killing seven women and confessed to killing the eighth in a long string of unsolved crimes known as the Gilgo Beach murders.
Rex Heuermann, 62, entered his defense on Wednesday (US time) in a courtroom packed with reporters and relatives of the victims; some cried as they detailed their crimes for the court.
Heuermann’s guilty plea brought finality to a case that baffled investigators, agonized victims’ relatives and frustrated a true-crime-obsessed public for years.
Authorities said Heuermann strangled women, many of them sex workers, for 17 years and buried their remains in remote locations, including an isolated coastal road across the bay from where he lived.
He will be sentenced to life in prison and will be sentenced at a later date.
Suffolk County District Attorney Ray Tierney scheduled a news conference for later Wednesday.
Tierney will be joined by family members of the victims and members of the Gilgo Beach Homicide Investigation Task Force, who solved the case with the help of clues that included DNA from a discarded pizza crust.
The investigation began in earnest in 2010, when police found numerous human remains while searching for a missing woman on Long Island’s South Shore and began searching for a potential serial killer, which attracted global attention and spawned a Hollywood movie.
The remains of the six victims – Melissa Barthelemy, Maureen Brainard-Barnes, Amber Lynn Costello, Valerie Mack, Jessica Taylor and Megan Waterman – were found in brush along Ocean Parkway near Gilgo Beach. The remains of another victim, Sandra Costilla, were found more than 100 miles away in the Hamptons.
Police also identified an eighth woman, Karen Vergata, whose remains were found in 1996 on Fire Island, 232 kilometers to the west, and in 2011 near Gilgo Beach. Heuermann was not charged with Vergata’s murder.
More to come
access point
Take notes directly from our foreign country reporters about things that make headlines around the world. Sign up for our weekly What’s on in the World Newsletter.
