Rex Heuermann Should Be on Radar Over Other Disappearances, Attorney Says

Rex Heuermann, the man charged over some of the Gilgo Beach murders, should be investigated for other bodies that have been found, a lawyer representing the families of two victims has told Newsweek.

Police arrested Heuermann, 59, on July 14 on charges of killing Melissa Barthelemy, 24, Amber Costello, 27, and Megan Waterman 22. He has been named as the prime suspect in the death of a fourth woman, Maureen Brainard-Barnes, 25.

Heuermann, an architect who lived Massapequa Park, Long Island, and worked in Manhattan, has pleaded not guilty to the charges.

His arrest was a massive breakthrough in the hunt for a person whose crimes have rocked Long Island since the bodies of the four women, all of them sex workers, were found wrapped in burlap near Gilgo Beach in December 2010. They were dubbed the "Gilgo Beach Four."

Within months, the remains of six other bodies—including an infant—were discovered along the same beach highway. Shannan Gilbert, the missing person whose disappearance sparked the search, was found dead in a nearby coastal marsh in December 2011. Heuermann has not been accused in any of those cases, and police have said multiple killers could be responsible.

Suffolk County Police concluded that Gilbert had drowned accidentally. Her family has not accepted that finding and claim she was also murdered.

John Ray, an attorney representing the families of Gilbert and Jessica Taylor, whose remains were found near Gilgo Beach in March 2011, told Newsweek that Heuermann should be considered a suspect in all of the Gilgo Beach murders, as well as other disappearances in places he is connected to.

"As far as Rex Heuermann is concerned, he certainly should be a chief, or a key, suspect for the killing of the others," Ray told Newsweek. "He's but one suspect, and until the police develop more, we don't really know."

Ray said: "There exists, of course, the real question of whether or not he's killed others that are undiscovered."

There would have been no motive to stop killing in 2010, Ray said.

"There was nobody after him that he knew of," he said. "So between 2010 and now he wasn't aware of anybody chasing him where he would have to hide[…] all he had to do was stay away from the Gilgo Beach area once the police became involved and dump his bodies elsewhere."

Heuermann "should be on the radar as for the others, and as for anybody else that might have disappeared," Ray said. "That's fairly clear. That's why the police seem to be going to the other locations and looking about in the other locations on his property that he owns."

Ray said while there is nothing definitively connecting Gilbert and Taylor's cases to Heuermann, there are some similarities between the women and the "Gilgo Beach Four."

"Here we have, they're all sex workers, they all have virtually the same appearance, they could be sisters of one another," he said. "And they're found like an extended cemetery along Ocean Parkway. Shannan's on one side of the road, the others are on the other."

The task force investigating the Gilgo Beach killings is "continuing to investigate the other murders and if there is a possible connection to Heuermann," a spokesperson for the Suffolk County Police Department previously told Newsweek.

The new task force began looking into the case early last year—within six weeks of their meeting, they identified Heuermann as a suspect early last year after connecting him to a Chevrolet Avalanche pickup truck that a witness reported seeing when one of the victims disappeared. They determined he lived in Massapequa Park, an area linked to some of the victims' cellphone activity.

The Associated Press reported that Heuermann bought the Chevrolet Avalanche, which investigators have seized, on Long Island in 2002 and transferred ownership to his brother Craig in South Carolina in 2012.

Authorities said in a search warrant that they were looking for other clues in the vehicle or at the property the brothers owned in Chester County, South Carolina. Investigators in the case have also searched storage units that had been rented by Heuermann.

Heuermann's lawyer Michael Brown has been contacted for comment via email.

Brown previously told Newsweek that Heuermann has "insisted he did not commit these crimes."

He is a "hard-working" licensed architect with his own firm in New York and no prior criminal history, Brown said.

"There is nothing about Mr. Heuermann that would suggest that he is involved in these incidents," Brown added. "And while the government has decided to focus on him despite more significant and stronger leads, we are looking forward to defending him in a court of law before a fair and impartial jury of his peers."