Rex Heuermann, who has lived for many years throughout a bay from the place the stays have been discovered, is charged with killing Melissa Barthelemy, Megan Waterman and Amber Costello.
He can be thought-about the prime suspect within the demise of a fourth girl whose physique was sure and hidden in thick underbrush alongside a distant seashore freeway, authorities mentioned.
Investigators have mentioned through the years that it is unlikely one individual killed all 11 victims.
Heuermann, 59, was arrested late on Thursday amid a renewed investigation that first recognized him as a suspect in March 2022, when detectives linked him to a pickup truck {that a} witness reported seeing when one of many victims disappeared in 2010.
In March, detectives tailing Heuermann recovered his DNA from pizza crust in a field that he discarded in a Manhattan trash can and matched it to a hair discovered on a restraint used within the killings, authorities mentioned.
Heuermann’s lawyer entered a not responsible plea on his behalf on Friday in state court docket in Riverhead. Judge Richard Ambro ordered him jailed with out bail, citing “the extreme depravity” of his alleged conduct.
Heuermann’s lawyer, Michael Brown, mentioned they simply discovered in regards to the prices on Friday morning.
Speaking to reporters after the arraignment, he mentioned Heuermann instructed him: “I didn’t do this”.
Heuermann, sporting khaki pants and a gray collared shirt, didn’t converse in court docket.
Heuermann lives in Massapequa Park, a group simply north of South Oyster Bay and the sandy stretch often called Gilgo Beach the place the stays have been present in 2010 and 2011.
Most of the victims have been younger girls who had been intercourse staff. Their deaths lengthy stumped investigators, a thriller that fuelled immense public consideration and led to a 2020 Netflix movie, Lost Girls.
Determining who killed them, and why, vexed a slew of seasoned murder detectives by means of a number of adjustments in police management. Last yr an interagency activity drive was fashioned with investigators from the FBI, in addition to state and native police departments, geared toward fixing the case.
“Ladies and gentlemen, Rex Heuermann is a demon that walks among us – a predator that ruined families,” Suffolk County police Commissioner Rodney Harrison mentioned.
“If not for the members of this task force, he would still be out on the streets today.”
After connecting Heuermann to the pickup, prosecutors mentioned, investigators have been capable of hyperlink him to different proof, together with burner cellphones used to rearrange conferences with the slain girls, and taunting calls that an individual claiming to be the killer made to certainly one of Barthelemy’s kinfolk utilizing her cellphone after she disappeared in 2009.
In latest months, Heuermann sought to maintain tabs on the probe and “searched obsessively” on the web for information in regards to the Gilgo Beach killings, together with the names of ladies he is accused of killing, in addition to podcasts and documentaries in regards to the case, Suffolk County District Attorney Ray Tierney mentioned.
Tierney mentioned authorities moved to cost Heuermann now with three of the killings “out of concern for this defendant fleeing and the danger to the community”. They are persevering with to work towards charging him within the demise of a fourth sufferer, Maureen Brainard-Barnes.
Until his arrest, Heuermann continued to make use of burner telephones, patronise intercourse staff and search the web for sadistic supplies, together with sexually exploitative photos of youngsters, Tierney mentioned. He additionally has permits for 92 weapons, the prosecutor mentioned.
“This is a day that is a long time in coming, and hopefully a day that will bring peace to this community and to the families — peace that has been long overdue,” New York Governor Kathy Hochul mentioned throughout an unrelated look on Long Island.
The arrest got here as a shock and a reduction to a number of the victims’ kinfolk.
“I never thought they’d find this person,” Barthelemy’s cousin, Amy Brotz, mentioned.
Law enforcement personnel converged on Friday morning on Heuermann’s residence, a small pink home about 64 kilometres east of midtown Manhattan. Dozens of residents mingled alongside police and media, watching as a half-dozen investigators, some in protecting fits, conferred outdoors the entrance porch, which was in disrepair, its roof propped up by 2-by-4s.
The residence, the place Heuermann has lived since childhood, belonged to a household that had lengthy saved to themselves, neighbours mentioned, noting that the dilapidated property appeared misplaced amongst rows of single-family properties and well-kept lawns.
Barry Auslander mentioned the person who lived in the home commuted by prepare to New York City every morning, sporting a go well with and tie and carrying a briefcase.
What serial killers ate as their final meal on demise row
“It was weird. He looked like a businessman,” Auslander mentioned. “But his house is a dump.”
Heuermann, married with a daughter and a stepson, is a licensed architect with a Manhattan-based agency that, in response to its web site, has accomplished retailer buildouts and different renovations for main retailers, places of work and residences.
“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,” mentioned John Ray, the lawyer for the households of two different girls whose stays have been discovered, Shannan Gilbert and Jessica Taylor.
Gilbert’s disappearance in 2010 triggered the hunt that uncovered the bigger thriller. A 24-year-old intercourse employee, she vanished after leaving a shopper’s home on foot within the seafront group of Oak Beach, disappearing into the marsh.
Months later, a police officer and his cadaver canine have been in search of her physique within the thicket alongside close by Ocean Parkway after they occurred upon the stays of a special girl. Within days, three different our bodies have been discovered, all inside a brief stroll of each other.
By spring 2011, that quantity had climbed to 10 units of human stays – these of eight girls, one man and one toddler. Some have been later linked to dismembered physique components discovered elsewhere on Long Island, making for a puzzling crime scene that stretched from a park close to the New York City limits to a resort group on Fire Island and out to far japanese Long Island.
Gilbert’s physique was present in December 2011, about 5 kilometres east of the place the opposite 10 units have been found.
Source: www.9news.com.au
