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An expert on serial killers broke down the differences on Friday between the various Gilgo Beach murders and discussed the possibility that Rex Heuermann could be linked to more.
On Thursday, Heuermann, a 59-year-old architect and resident of Massapequa Park on Long Island, New York, was arrested and charged with three counts of first-degree murder and three counts of second-degree murder in connection to the Gilgo Beach murders investigation. Police have linked him to the deaths of Amber Costello, 27, Melissa Barthelemy, 24, and Megan Waterman, 22, and have called him the main suspect in the death of Maureen Brainard-Barnes, 25. Heuermann has pleaded not guilty to all charges, with his lawyer dismissing the evidence against him as "extremely circumstantial."
The remains of the four women known as "The Gilgo Four," who were all sex workers, were found within a quarter mile of each other near Southern Long Island's Gilgo Beach in December 2010, after authorities began searching for a missing woman named Shannan Gilbert, a 24-year-old sex worker from New Jersey. Within the following months, six more sets of remains, believed to predate "The Gilgo Four" were found in Nassau and Suffolk counties, spurring a decade-long investigation into a potential serial killer on Long Island.
Speaking with NewsNation, Dr. Katherine Ramsland, a professor of forensic psychology and author of various books about serial killers, broke down the differences between the various killings turned up during the investigation while discussing the possibility of Heuermann being linked to more deaths.
"The others don't seem to have been handled in the same way," Ramsland said of the cases that Heuermann has not been linked to. "Serial killers don't always do the same thing all the time. Geographically, those other victims are close to these [that Heuermann is accused of killing], but some of them were dismembered with parts distributed to various places. We have a male [victim], we have an infant who was attached to one of the victims as the girl's mother."
She continued: "So there's a lot of difference in the way some of those victims were treated and then left, so I'm not sure that he's attached to them. I couldn't rule it out, but they don't look like the same kinds of things we're seeing with the four victims we're talking about tonight."
Ramsland added that it could not be ruled out if Heuermann might have continued to be active after allegedly killing "The Gilgo Four" nearly 15 years ago.
Following his arrest, prosecutors explained that Heuermann first came to police attention after a witness reported seeing a pickup truck, similar to the one owned by the suspect, near where the victims were found in 2010. DNA left on uneaten pizza crust was then used to link Heuermann to DNA evidence found on one the victims.
Meanwhile, the case has long mystified police and captured the public's attention when Netflix released a film in 2020 called Lost Girls that was based on the murders.
Newsweek reached out to the Suffolk County Police Department via email for comment.
About the writer
Thomas Kika is a Newsweek weekend reporter based in upstate New York. His focus is reporting on crime and national ... Read more