After more than a decade of investigating serial discoveries of prostitutes' corpses near the beaches of Long Island, east of New York, a suspect has been arrested and charged with the murders of three of them, authorities announced Friday, July 14.
Presented in court Friday, suspect Rex Heuermann, a 59-year-old New York architect, has been charged and pleaded not guilty to the murders of Melissa Barthelemy, Megan Waterman and Amber Costello, in 2009 and 2010, while he is the number one suspect in the murder of a fourth, Maureen Brainard-Barnes, according to a court document from the Suffolk County Prosecutor's Office.
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According to US media, this father was arrested Thursday night near his offices in Manhattan, while his residence, in the village of Massapequa Park which is near the beaches where the victims were found, was searched.
Eleven human bodies found
The victims, found within a radius of less than 500 metres, were sex workers between the ages of 22 and 27. They were all found "in the same position, tied in the same way or by belts or tape, and three of them wrapped in burlap-like material," prosecutor Ray Tierney said at a news conference.
The case began with the May 2010 report of the disappearance of a 24-year-old prostitute from neighboring New Jersey, Shannan Gilbert, for whom Rex Heuermann is not being prosecuted.
In total, the remains of eleven human bodies, nine women, a man and a girl, were found between 2010 and 2011 along the beaches of Gilgo Beach, in Oak Beach, in scrubs of brambles located between the sand and the road, among the dunes. These discoveries had frightened the local population and kept the police in check for years.
DNA evidence
According to the court document, the investigation focused on the architect in 2022 after it was discovered that a vehicle in which a victim had been seen at the time of his disappearance was registered in his name. From there, investigators uncovered DNA and phone evidence against the suspect.
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According to the prosecutor, Rex Heuermann also conducted hundreds of internet searches on the investigation, with questions such as "Why hasn't the Long Island serial killer been arrested?" Pornographic torture images were also found in his computer, the prosecutor said.