How Did They Catch The Gilgo Beach Killer
How Did They Catch The Gilgo Beach Killer -: According to the Suffolk County District Attorney, a New York architect was charged with murder in connection to the killings of three of the women who became known as the “Gilgo Four,” in a case that perplexed investigators for more than ten years in suburban Long Island.
Rex Heuermann was arrested for some of the Gilgo Beach killings, an unsolved case connected to at least 10 sets of human remains found since 2010, according to officials. Rex Heuermann has claimed to his attorney that he is not the murderer.
Cell phone data, credit card statements, and DNA testing helped crack up the case, which ultimately resulted in the arrest of Heuermann, 59, according to the investigators.
According to the indictment, Heuermann was accused of committing one first-degree murder and one second-degree murder in each of the three slayings: Melissa Barthelemy in 2009, Megan Waterman, and Amber Costello in 2010. The six charges were brought by a grand jury, according to Suffolk County District Attorney Ray Tierney.
According to a bail application from the prosecution, he is also the main suspect in the 2007 disappearance and passing of a fourth woman, Maureen Brainard-Barnes. Although Heuermann has not yet been accused of that murder, the investigation “is expected to be resolved soon,” according to the document.
The long-forgotten case, which terrified locals and spawned divisive beliefs about whether a serial killer was involved, has now yielded its first arrest.
According to Tierney, authorities moved to make the suspect an arrest Thursday night out of concern that the suspect may learn they were closing in.
He explained to reporters, “We were performing for a party of one. “We were aware that the murderer would be glancing our way,”
Authorities claimed that when Heuermann was named as a suspect in early 2022, they kept an eye on him and his family and collected DNA samples from objects that were thrown away.
The Suffolk County Crime Laboratory identified a male hair from the ‘bottom of the hessian’ the perpetrator used to wrap one of the victims’ bodies during the initial investigation of her skeletal remains and items found in the burial, according to the bail application.
The district attorney claimed that a surveillance team later collected a sample of Heuermann’s DNA from an unfinished pizza crust in a box that he had thrown in the garbage.
Prosecutors claim in the bail application that hair thought to be from Rex Heuermann’s wife was discovered on or close to three of the murder victims, citing DNA tests. The court filing claims that the DNA was obtained from 11 bottles found in a trash can outside of the Heuermann residence.
According to the evidence, Heuermann’s wife and kids were out of the country when the three ladies were killed, Tierney said.
Although DNA testing on the hairs discovered in 2010 was ineffective because they have deteriorated, advances in technology eventually provided the DNA answers that were required.
The suspect has no bail.
According to Michael Brown, Heuermann’s court-appointed counsel, Heuermann was in tears upon his arrest.
Brown claimed that Heuermann informed him, “I did not do this,” during their conversation following his detention.
Heuermann was kept behind bars. He pleaded not guilty through his lawyer. August 1 is the date of his subsequent court appearance.
According to a CNN team outside the house on Friday night, police were still searching his home.
Heuermann, a registered architect and the owner of the New York City-based design and consulting firm RH Consultants & Associates since 1994, according to a source acquainted with the matter, is a father of two.
Heuermann was spoken in 2022 for the “Bonjour Realty” YouTube channel. He mentioned his work in architecture and mentioned that he was a Long Island native. In 1987, he started working in Manhattan.
Heuermann’s company has been contacted by CNN for comment.
Women were restrained using covert hessian.
Over the course of two days in 2010, the Gilgo Four’s bodies were discovered in bushes along a quarter-mile section of Ocean Parkway in Oak Beach.
On December 11, a discovery of Barthelemy’s skeletal remains was uncovered close to Gilgo Beach. According to a Suffolk County webpage about the killings, Barthelemy, a sex worker, was last seen on July 12, 2009, at her apartment when she told a friend she was going to see a man.
On December 13, 2010, the remains of three additional women were discovered: Brainard-Barnes, who advertised escort services on Craigslist and was last seen in New York City in early June 2007, Amber Lynn Costello, who also advertised escort services and was last seen leaving her North Babylon home in early September 2010, and Waterman, who also advertised as an escort but was last seen in early June 2010 at a Holiday Inn Express in Hauppauge.
“They were buried in a similar fashion, in a similar location, in a similar way,” Tierney said of the ladies. The women were all small-framed. They were all employed in the same field. They all used the same methods of advertising. There were instant similarities between the crime scenes.
Tierney claimed that the murderer tried to hide the bodies by wrapping them in hunting-style camouflage hessian.
According to the bail application, the suspect called Barthelemy’s sister in jest, and “some of these calls resulted in a conversation between the caller, who was a male, and a relative of Melissa Barthelemy, in which the male caller admitted killing and sexually assaulting Ms. Barthelemy.”
The court document claims that billing records for Heuermann’s cell phone and credit card show numerous instances where he was in the same general areas as the burner phones used to call the three victims, “as well as the use of Brainard-Barnes and (Barthelemy’s) cellphones when they used to use used to check voicemail and make taunting phone calls after the women disappeared.”
According to the district attorney, the murderer purchased a new burner phone before each murder.
How was Heuermann located?
In the two years since Suffolk County Police Commissioner Rodney Harrison reopened the investigation, the case against Heuermann has come together, according to the authorities.
Harrison assembled a task group made up of detectives from the county police, sheriff’s office, state police, and FBI agents.
According to Tierney, the task force’s initial meeting took place in February 2022.
Six weeks later, on March 14, 2022, Rex Heuermann’s name was first brought up as a potential suspect in the Gilgo case, according to Tierney. He was located in a database by a New York state detective.
According to court filings, investigators had looked backward through phone records gathered from both midtown Manhattan and the Massapequa Park region—two places where a “burner phone” used by the alleged killer was discovered.
Authorities then reduced the number of people in the cell tower data from thousands to hundreds to just a few who might be a suspect.
Authorities then concentrated their efforts on locals who shared the same physical characteristics as the alleged murderer and lived close to the cell tower.
They looked for a connection to a green pickup that a witness had seen the suspect driving in the smaller pool, the sources claimed.
Heuermann, who matched the physical description of a witness, was located by investigators to live close to the Long Island cell site and work close to the New York City cell sites where other communications were recorded.
They discovered he frequently drove a green pickup truck that was registered to his brother. However, they required more proof than just suspicion.
Investigators discovered a troubling internet search history on Heuermann’s computer, including 200 queries for information about the progress of the inquiry, Tierney said on Friday.
He also looked up “depictions of women being abused, being raped, and being killed,” according to Tierney, in addition to searches for porn featuring torture.
According to the DA, the suspect is still obsessively looking for pictures of the victims and their loved ones.
He continued that Heuermann was looking for the family members.
Authorities were stumped by murders for years.
County officials had been baffled by the murder case for many years. In 2020, they discovered a belt bearing the suspect’s initials and created a website to solicit fresh information for the inquiry.
Some of the victims, according to the police, advertised their prostitution services on websites like Craigslist.
In 2010, while looking for Shannan Gilbert, a missing 23-year-old Jersey City, New Jersey woman, authorities stumbled upon the first set of female remains in the bushes along a remote waterfront parcel on Gilgo Beach.
When Gilbert’s body was discovered a year later in nearby Oak Beach, authorities had already discovered ten sets of human remains dispersed across two Long Island counties.
The shocking revelations attracted a lot of local attention and instilled terror throughout various South Shore neighborhoods on Long Island.
Authorities later stated that they do not believe Gilbert’s death was connected to the Gilgo Beach murders and that it may have been an accident.
Gilbert vanished, but others were found after his absence.
Additional remains were discovered in Nassau County, roughly 40 miles east of New York City, and the nearby Gilgo Beach. They included a female toddler, a guy of Asian descent, and a person initially known as “Jane Doe #6,” according to police.
Police in 2020 determined that “Jane Doe #6” was Valerie Mack, a mother from Philadelphia who vanished when she was 24 years old.
According to the Suffolk County police, Mack’s partial bones were first uncovered nearby Gilgo Beach in 2000, and further fragmented remains were discovered in 2011.
Attorney: This case involves a “larger body of water”
John Ray, a lawyer for Shannon Gilbert’s family, stated on Friday that he does not know if Heuermann is also to blame for her passing. Shannon Gilbert’s disappearance and subsequent search led to the discovery of “Gilgo Four” and other remains.
Ray sighed, “We exhale a mighty sigh of relief.” “We’re pleased that the police are finally acting in this way, but this is just the beginning… Let’s imagine that this is merely the edge of a larger body of water where a murder has occurred.
Additionally, Jessica Taylor, a victim of Gilgo Beach, is represented by Ray.
He added, “We don’t know if he is associated with Jessica Taylor’s murder.
In order to solve the other cases, Jasmine Robinson, a family spokeswoman for Taylor, expressed her “hopefulness for the future and hope that a connection is made.”
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