A New York man has admitted to strangling and dismembering eight sex workers then dumping their remains along desolate stretches, including a beach, close to the major US city.
Rex Heuermann, an Manhattan architect who lived in the Long Island suburb of Massapequa Park made the guilty plea on Wednesday US time.
He has been charged with killing seven women since 1993 — and an eighth victim newly linked to him.
The murders have become known as the Gilgo Beach killings after the remote beach off Long Island, in New York State, where the remains of 10 people have been found.
The victims’ relatives gasped in Suffolk County Court, in Long Island, as the notorious killer repeatedly answered, “strangulation,” when asked how he murdered each of the women, reports The New York Post.
The serial killer displayed no emotion as prosecutors went down the list. Heuermann also confessed that he dismembered the women and tied them up in burlap, bringing his daughter, Victoria, to tears inside the Riverhead, Long Island, courtroom.
“He will serve three consecutive life sentences with no chance of parole,” prosecutors said. The gruesome confession brings an end to a heartbreaking saga that has haunted Long Island for three decades.
Heuermann, 62, admitted he murdered Amber Lynn Costello, Megan Waterman, Melissa Barthelemy, and Maureen Brainard-Barnes, who were famously known as the “Gilgo Four” — as well as Valerie Mack, Jessica Taylor, and Sandra Costilla, the first victim killed in 1993.
The married father of two also confessed to killing Karen Vergata, whose 1996 murder had not previously been linked to him.
Heuermann, who was arrested in 2023, will be sentenced on June 17.
“You know, the regular guy who goes to work, has kids in the local school and in a good neighbourhood, but he’s killing people on the side,” a neighbour told NBC News about Heuermann in 2023.
Suffolk County prosecutors on Wednesday released stomach-turning details of each of the killings, which show he struck every few years.
The first murder was in November 1993, when Heuermann picked up Ms Costilla, strangled her and dumped her body near Fish Cove Road in Southampton, where she was discovered by hunters just days later.
He struck again in April 1996, when he arranged to meet Ms Vergata, strangled her, then cut up and scattered her remains.
Ms Vergata’s legs were found on Blue Point Beach later that month, but her skull wasn’t discovered until April 12, 2011, on Ocean Parkway, a highway, not far from the Gilgo Beach victims.
The 34-year-old mum was only identified as “Jane Doe No. 7” until a DNA test revealed her true name in 2023.
Heuermann’s next victim was Ms Mack, who disappeared between September and November 2000. Prosecutors said the killer dismembered her body and dumped the remains on Gilgo Beach and in a wooded area in Manorville a town inland on Long Island.
Her body was found during a police search of Gilgo in 2011.
In July 2003, the architect strangled Ms Taylor, again dismembering the body and using the same two dump sites on Gilgo Beach and in Manorville, where she was found in 2011.
Heuermann used a burner phone to arrange a rendezvous with the next victim, Ms Brianard-Barnes, in July 2007. Prosecutors said the body was “secured” with three belts and left on Gilgo Beach, where she was found in December 2010.
In July 2009, he used another burner phone to arrange a date with Ms Barthelemy, strangling her to death, wrapping her body with tape and burlap, and dumping her on Gilgo Beach.
Her remains were found during the 2010 search of the beach.
Ms Waterman became the seventh victim in June 2010, when Heuermann picked her up at a Holiday Inn hotel, killed her, and left her on Gilgo Beach taped up in burlap.
Ms Waterman’s body was found six months later.
Ms Costello was the serial killer’s last victim. He picked her up in the Long Island town of West Babylon in September 2010, later leaving the body also wrapped and tape and burlap on Gilgo Beach, where she was found on the north side of Ocean Parkway that December, prosecutors said.
Clever police work and cutting-edge DNA evidence helped identify the killer,
Investigators even scraped DNA from a used pizza box Heuermann tossed into a New York rubbish bin to help crack the cold case.
Since his arrest, sickening details have emerged.
Prosecutors said he killed all of the women in the basement of his home, which appeared to be in squalid conditions compared to other houses in the pristine Long Island neighbourhood.
His family — including his longtime wife — has claimed they had no idea what Heuermann was doing in his spare time.
He also kept a Tinder account and buzzed sex workers on burner phones more than 500 times, prosecutors revealed in March.
Heuermann made “significant searches for pornography related to bindings, torture, rape, snuff videos, crying, bruised and impaled women and/or girls,” according to prosecutors.
Heuermann had long maintained his innocence as his defence team tried to contest DNA evidence and point to other potential suspects.
Now it appears his fight for freedom will end on Wednesday.
Though a source pointed out to The Post, “The end to this is he dies in prison.”
This article originally appeared in The New York Post and was reproduced with permission.
