Gilgo Beach Serial Kil*er Rex Heuermann Admits to Strang*ing 8 Women, Dismembering Multiple Victims

Various sets of remains were found at Long Island’s Gilgo Beach, and not all are believed to have been victims of the same person

Rex Heuermann has entered a guilty plea in connection with multiple killings tied to the long-running Gilgo Beach case. The development marks a significant turning point in an investigation that has drawn national attention for years.

Heuermann, an architect who had lived most of his life on Long Island, has been in custody since his arrest in July 2023 in Manhattan, where he worked. He had previously denied involvement in the killings.

Heuermann, 62, made the admissions in Suffolk County Criminal Court in Riverhead, N.Y., before Judge Timothy Mazzei. He will be sentenced on June 17. The courtroom was packed with reporters, law enforcement and victims’ relatives — some of whom cried as Heuermann admitted to having strangled the victims.

Heuermann kept his gaze straight. He did not look back at the packed gallery during the brief hearing.

Heuermann appeared calm under questioning by Mazzei and said he was entering his pleas — to three counts of first-degree murder and four counts of second-degree murder — of his own free will.

Per the terms of his plea deal, Heuermann also admitted to intentionally causing the death of Karen Vergata, whose dismembered remains were found in 1996 and in 2011 on separate parts of Long Island, though he was never charged in connection with Vergata’s death.

Heuermann, wearing a dark suit and white button-down shirt, also agreed to waive his right to appeal.

Vergata had been involved with drugs and sex work, according to Newsday, which was first to report Tuesday, April 7, that Heuermann would admit guilt in her killing.

In July 2023, Heuermann was arrested and charged with first- and second-degree murder in the killings of Amber Lynn Costello, Megan Waterman and Melissa Barthelemy. More than six months later, in January 2024, he was indicted on a second-degree murder charge in the death of Maureen Brainard-Barnes.

The women — known as the Gilgo Four — disappeared between 2007 and 2010. They were all in their 20s, worked as escorts and were described as having similar builds. Their remains were found without clothes, bound in burlap in close proximity to each other near Gilgo Beach in December 2010. They were discovered accidentally during a search for another woman, Shannan Gilbert, a 24-year-old escort who went missing after visiting a client in a gated community and then fleeing his home.

Heuermann was also charged with second-degree murder in the case of Valerie Mack, 24, who disappeared in 2000, and Jessica Taylor, 20, who went missing in July 2003. Both were mutilated. He was also accused in the murder of Sandra Costilla, whose partially clothed body was discovered in 1993 by two people hunting in the woods in the Town of Southampton. Costilla, a native of Trinidad and Tobago, was 28 at the time of her death, authorities have said.

According to prosecutors, soon after Barthelemy’s disappearance, Heuermann used her cellphone to torment her relatives with calls, including one in which he said he had killed her.

Prosecutors said Heuermann committed the murders while his then-wife, Asa Ellerup, and children were on vacation. They have not been charged in the killings. Heuermann and Ellerup divorced after his arrest.

Heuermann was first identified as the potential culprit in March 2022 after an investigator reviewing the case file learned that Costello had been picked up by a man driving a distinct pickup truck — a green Chevrolet Avalanche — which matched his vehicle. Prosecutors said that DNA matches, phone records and internet activity, including specific searches related to the case, all tie Heuermann to the killings.

To build its case, investigators from the Gilgo Beach Homicide Task Force — made up of local and federal law enforcement — combed cell tower data, deployed advanced DNA testing on strands of hair found on the victims’ bodies and secured Heuermann’s DNA from a leftover pizza crust that they said he discarded in a Manhattan trash can.

Using mapping technology, investigators determined that the victims had received calls from various burner phones before they disappeared and the calls originated from two locations: near Heuermann’s home in Massapequa Park and areas in Manhattan near his office.

Heuermann had been scheduled to stand trial in September.

All of the victims were engaged in sex work, officials have said.

Suffolk County District Attorney Ray Tierney has scheduled a news conference to take place Wednesday afternoon. He will be joined by victims’ family members, as well as members of the task force that cracked the case.