LONG ISLAND, NEW YORK: Rex Heuermann, a suspect in the Gilgo Beach serial killings, has been in the news for allegedly inspiring detectives to revisit other cold case slayings around the nation, including a series of unsolved killings that took place in Atlantic City, New Jersey, back in 2006. According to recent reports, however, the police have ruled out a connection between the Gilgo Beach killings and unsolved slayings in Atlantic City, Independent reports.
Huermann, 59, was arrested on July 13 and charged with six counts of murder in connection with the killings of Amber Castello, Megan Waterman, and Melissa Barthelemy. He is also the prime suspect in the death of Maureen Brainard-Barnes. The women, who were all sex workers in their 20s, went missing in 2009 and 2010 before their corpses were discovered alongside a road in the Long Island shoreline community of Gilgo Beach.
Is Rex Heuermann connected to the Atlantic City murders?
Following Heuermann's arrest, authorities in Las Vegas, South Carolina, New Jersey, and Connecticut looked into any potential connections between the alleged serial killer and nearby cold cases. Earlier this month, Suffolk County Police Commissioner Rodney Harrison told ABC News that investigators were considering looking into Huermanna in relation to the Black Horse Pike Strangler case in Atlantic City. The victims in the Garden State murders were also sex workers, as was the case with the Gilgo Beach murders. Their bodies were discovered in a ditch in the Black Horse Pike motel in 2006.
'We don’t believe'
Harrison, however, recently shared with The New York Post his suspicion that the murders in Atlantic City were not his doing. "We don’t believe that the sex workers killed in Atlantic City are connected to Rex Heuermann," he stated. Sam Taylor, whose 19-year-old niece Molly Dilt was one of the Black Horse Pike casualties, told the Post that the authorities have not gotten in touch with his family. He claimed to have considered the parallels between the Black Horse Pike murders and the Gilgo Beach case for a brief period of time. "When they announced that they caught a serial killer in New York, I just turned to my wife and said, 'Hey, I think they might have got the guy,'" Taylor noted. "We don’t know how my niece was killed or anything, but it’s kind of funny that this guy is murdering all the same type of people."
How was he linked to the Atlantic City murders?
Heuermann was originally linked to the Gilgo Beach killings when a witness described him leaving the home of one of his victims. The witness offered authorities the tip 13 years ago, but it wasn't examined until last year when the Suffolk Police Department restructured its inquiry into the killings. A criminal complaint claims that Heuermann is further linked to the crimes by additional cellphone records, terrifying online searches, and DNA evidence.
Raymond Tierney, the district attorney for Suffolk County, was interrogated last week during a press conference on the horrifying claimed finding of a mattress within a sizable vault in the basement of Heuermann's residence in Massapequa Park. The District Attorney continually declined to confirm or deny the existence of the potentially terrifying piece of evidence but did acknowledge the presence of the walk-in underground vault under the residence he lived with his family. The basement contains a vault that is large enough to walk into, he said, adding that "like the rest of the house, [the vault] was cluttered." Investigators spent over two weeks searching the house, seizing things, and excavating the yard in an effort to find information about the murders or trophies that the alleged killer may have taken from his victims.
The search for the house wrapped up on Tuesday, July 25. Heuermann has entered a not-guilty plea to the killings and is scheduled to return to court on August 1.
