New York architect Rex Heuermann is facing charges in the murders of three Gilgo Beach victims, court documents released by the Suffolk County District Attorney on Friday revealed.
Mr Heuermann, 59, is accused of murdering Melissa Barthelemy, Megan Waterman, and Amber Costello — all sex workers in their 20s who disappeared in the Long Island area before their bodies were found during a separate missing person investigation in 2010.
The women’s remains along with the body of Maureen Brainard-Barnes, who is also believed to be one of the “Gilgo Four,” were found within one-quarter mile of each other, similarly positioned and bound in a similar fashion by either belts or tape.
The unsolved murders sent fear through the shoreline community of Gilgo Beach for more than a decade.
Few developments were made in the case until earlier this year, when the Suffolk County Police Department, New York State Police, Suffolk County Sheriff’s Office and the FBI revamped the probe into the killings that ultimately led to Mr Heuermann’s bombshell arrest outside his Midtown office on Thursday.
Mr Heuermann was first linked to the cold case in March after investigators discovered that a first-generation Chevrolet Avalanche registered to Mr Heuermann was possibly the one spotted by a witness in Costello’s disappearance. Mr Heuermann, a married father of two, also lives in Massapequa Park, near where the victims disappeared from.
As law enforcement closed in on Mr Heuermann, they served more than 300 subpoenas and search warrants that uncovered cellphone records for burner phones used to arrange meetings with three of the “Gilgo Four” victims before they went missing.
Further analysis also allegedly linked Mr Heuermann to taunting calls made to family members of the victims, according to investigators. The calls were made from the Midtown Manhattan area, where the offices of Mr Heuerman’s architecture business are located.
A bail application released by the Suffolk County District Attorney revealed that Mr Heuermann was linked to the serial killings through cellphone evidence and surveillance.
Prosecutors argued in the application that no bail should be set for Mr Heuermann due to his recent searches for “sadistic materials, child pornography, images of the victims and their relatives.”
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