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LONG ISLAND, NEW YORK: The suspect in the Gilgo Beach murders, Rex Heuermann, has recently been connected to the deaths of Shannan Gilbert and Karen Vergata, two victims he has not yet been charged for allegedly murdering as well.
New witnesses claimed that they allegedly saw Heuermann with Gilbert and Vergata before they were found dead, the Daily Mail reported.
On Wednesday, October 18, the attorney for the Gilbert family, John Ray, announced that four new witnesses had come forward in recent weeks, with two of them providing sworn affidavits.
Heuermann, 59, is charged with the murders of Melissa Barthelemy, Megan Waterman, and Amber Lynn Costello and is suspected in the murder of Maureen Brainard-Barnes, collectively known as the "Gilgo Beach Four."
The disgraced architect has pled not guilty to the murder charges and is yet to be charged in connection with Brainard-Barnes' death.
Where was Shannan Gilbert's body found?
The remains of Shannan Gilbert, who worked as an escort and advertised her services on Craigslist, were discovered in a marsh near Oak Beach on December 13, 2011.
She had reportedly gone missing on May 1, 2010, after traveling from Manhattan with her driver, Michael Pak, to meet a client named "Joseph Brewer" at his Oak Beach Association residence.
During her meeting with the client, Gilbert allegedly started displaying troubling behavior, which led Brewer to contact her driver in an effort to have Gilbert leave his home.
According to Gilgo News, Gilbert refused to leave the location at the request of her client and eventually fled into the Oak Beach community on foot.
She reportedly knocked on several doors and interacted with two homeowners before disappearing.
As per NBC News, Gilbert called 911 before her disappearance and said, "Somebody is after me."
It was the search for Gilbert that led officials to Barthelemy's remains near Gilgo Beach on December 11, 2010, and eventually to several other victims.
Gilbert's body was discovered north of a trench, about 3/4 of a mile from where she was last seen, Suffolk Homicide Section Commanding Officer Kevin Beyrer had previously confirmed.
Her cause of death remained undetermined, and an autopsy conducted by a private pathologist hired by Gilbert's family concluded there was insufficient evidence to discover this information.
However, the pathologist's findings were consistent with homicide and strangulation, the publication reported.
Where was Karen Vergata's body found?
Karen Vergata's remains were first found on Fire Island, New York, on April 20, 1996.
She had been reported missing on Valentine's Day of the same year, as reported by the BBC.
Her remains were spotted by people walking along Blue Point Beach in Davis Park.
At the time of her disappearance, Vergata was 34 years old and was later referred to as "Jane Doe Seven" in the Gilgo Beach serial killings investigation.
She was also known as "Fire Island Jane Doe" as her legs were found wrapped in plastic at the park located on Fire Island.
Officials previously said there were marks and scars on Vergata's legs.
Vergata's skull was reportedly found off Ocean Parkway, near Tobay Beach in Nassau County, before investigators recovered her torso and hands.
Authorities investigating Heuermann's case finally identified Vergata after a DNA analysis matched her remains with other bones found near Gilgo Beach in 2011.
Although officials did not link Vergata's death with Heuermann, district attorney Raymond Tierney said she was "believed to be working as an escort" at the time she went missing.
Witness reports link Rex Heuermann to Shannan Gilbert and Karen Vergata
On Wednesday, October 18, Attorney Ray provided details about the first witness, a 54-year-old individual with ties to the New York City sex club scene.
According to the attorney, this witness spent a night at Heuermann's residence with a woman she suspects was Karen Vergata.
The witness asserted that she had been invited to Heuermann's home in February 1996 for a swingers party.
Accompanied by her partner, who was a police officer at the time, the witness claimed to have engaged in sexual activity with Heuermann during the event.
Ray, who said that the witness "appears to be credible," shared that she identified Vergata as one of the guests present at Heuermann's house on the same night.
She said they picked up Vergata on the way to the party and recalled that the then 34-year-old was "hungry and homeless."
According to the affidavit, the witness said while she was leaving the party with her partner, Vergata appeared to be "scared" as she ran out of the house naked.
The witness then recalled that she saw Heuermann "start a fire in what appeared to be a large barrel."
She said she told her officer partner that he was uncomfortable leaving Vergata at Heuermann's home but claimed he told her "she was okay, they were only playing a game."
"We left without her. I felt uneasy that we left without the woman. I saw Rex on TV recently, and a picture of Karen Vergata. I recognized her as the woman who [the police officer] and I brought to Heuermann's home," the affidavit from the first witness read.
"I was shocked and deeply sorrowful for having left her behind at Heuermann's house," she mentioned.
Ray shared that he interviewed the witness three times for nine hours and noted that she recently "broke down" after seeing an image of Vergata and remembering the night.
The second witness was described as a single mother and female banker who worked as a taxi driver at night to support her family.
In her sworn affidavit, the witness claimed that she picked up a girl, who was "crying and shaking" from Sayville Motor Lodge on Sunrise Highway in 2009 and saw a man, she now identifies as Heuermann, also walking out of the lodge "with his arms above his face."
The affidavit said that the girl was a sex worker who was serving Heuermann and described the latter as a "big man."
The witness then described the girl as "petite" and said, "She entered by taxi, she said that we had to get away from there. I noticed that one of her eyes had something defective about it, that it appeared to droop."
"Her hair was pulled back neatly like a ballerina would have done. She wore jeans and a shirt. She was not dressed provocatively. She said that she was glad that she had gotten me as a driver," the witness recalled.
The taxi driver said she spoke with the woman inside the vehicle and that she tipped her five dollars. "I saw her on TV where she was identified as Shannan Gilbert," the witness mentioned.
"I am certain that the girl was Shannan Gilbert. I recognized her unusual eye droop and her voice," she confirmed.
The same taxi driver witness also said that she once picked up Rex Heuermann one night from a bar not far from Exit 59 of the Long Island Expressway.
The witness said he sat in the back of her taxi and said, "we're going for a long ride in the woods." The driver said when she told him she could not cover that journey, the man allegedly threatened to kill her.
She said when her dispatcher yelled the words, "you got a gun on my driver, I see you, I got a call in," the man left her vehicle before walking into a nearby wooded area and allegedly shooting "his gun off two times."
The witness said she reported the incidents to cops at the time, but no action was taken. Speaking to Ray, the second witness claimed that the woman who was in hysterics in her taxi was Gilbert.
Suffolk County Police Commissioner Rodney Harrison confirmed that he was also in the interview with the taxi driver witness.
The third witness from Oklahoma, who has not given an affidavit but has been interviewed, was a street walker. She claimed that Heuermann picked her up in Queens, New York City, and took her into a park in Flushing.
She reportedly had to keep her head down in the car to perform oral sex on Heuermann before he told her, "get out the car or I'm going to kill you" while holding a pistol in her direction.
Attorney Ray said that the statement from the third witness proved Heuermann was someone who "haunts and hunts" sex workers.
The fourth new witness, who has also not given an affidavit, was a sex worker. She claimed that she serviced Heuermann "over 20 times" around the same time when the killings were occurring.
The witness told Ray that Heuermann was a serial user of sex workers and would often book two at a time. She claimed he brought them to his home while his wife was upstairs.
Following the witness interviews, Ray was asked if they were inching closer to solving the case, to which he replied, "it’s hard to know."
"I am not inside their inner workings. It is troubling they haven’t arrested him for the fourth girl. They are struggling with something otherwise, they would have arrested him," the attorney told the Daily Mail.
Meanwhile, DA Tierney urged any other potential witnesses to speak to police before attorneys.
"Private attorneys are not part of the Task Force, and potential witnesses should not be reaching out to a private attorney with an interest in the outcome of the case," he stated.
Netizens weighs in on new witnesses in Rex Heuermann case
Several true crime enthusiasts took to Reddit to share their theories on the witnesses who spoke about Heuermann's possible link to the deaths of Gilbert and Vergata.
"How can Rex be connected to Shannan, though? Was he hiding in the bushes, waiting for her or something? I don’t get it," one user asked.
"There was a theory advanced in this subreddit that Rex was part of the sex parties that Burke was involved in, which the theorists claim as to why Burke didn't pursue the evidence provided by Amber's roommate. Evidence that, if pursued at the time, would have led to the same results as it did this past summer," another user replied.
"The unknowns about who was there and whether RH was a participant the night Shannan disappeared is probably why this guy called the press conference," they added.
"I don't know how plausible that is, but it is rather strange that all these victims were dumped similarly by different random killers. The possibility that these murders are all related seems pretty high to me," the user mentioned.
"When I lived on LI (moved in 1988), Ocean Parkway was our off-season "go drive a car fast" place because it was sparsely traveled. I can think of other places on LI where bodies could be dumped and not noticed for a very long time, but that stretch of Ocean Parkway is definitely the most remote," they explained.
"I think there is a strategy behind this. Perhaps they think that Asa tends to sue people, and maybe they are going to see if she tries to sue someone for libel which would pull her into a deposition," one user theorized.
"They are stating that she was present at the last known location of Karen Vergata, who was running outside screaming. They have to interview her about this. She may know more than people think," they added.
One said, "In summary — John Ray said a bunch of crazy stuff about a couple of witnesses with some pretty weird stories."
"The police commissioner used this as an example to show that they’re investigating everything. Like, everything. Even the crazy shit we just heard from John Ray. That’s what I got out of it," a user mentioned.
Another questioned, "How do we know that Rex wasn’t at Brewer’s the same night Shannon was there? There would then be a possible connection, would there not?"
While another said, "The moment he said Asa called and was livid that she thought a sex worker stole her iron, I believed that his witness was credible."
One user wrote, "I guess I’ll go against the grain here and just say I’m just glad there’s an update. I don’t really care who is giving it."
"I swear some people here hate John Ray more than they hate Rex Heuermann. It’s odd," they pointed out, while another responded saying, "No information is better than disinformation."
