Starting in 2010, police searching for a missing woman found ten sets of human remains in the brush along a parkway on a barrier island, not far from the sands of New York’s remote Gilgo Beach. Police almost immediately feared some had been abandoned by a serial killer.
Over the years, investigators have used DNA analysis and other clues to identify the victims. In some cases, they were able to link them to remains found elsewhere on Long Island years earlier. Investigators concluded that an eleventh person found dead – the first subject of their missing persons search – accidentally drowned.
Prosecutors have charged a Long Island architect, Rex Heuermann in four massacres, but the majority of the killings remain unsolved.
Here’s a timeline of the investigation:
April 20, 1996: The partial remains of Karen Vergata are discovered on Fire Island, a barrier beach off the south coast of Long Island. Her name will remain unknown to investigators until 2022, when new DNA analysis will help them make an identification. Vergata, 34, last had contact with her family on February 14, 1996. When she disappeared, she was involved in sex work.
June 28, 1997: The partial remains of a woman, nicknamed “Peaches” by investigators after a tattoo on her body, are discovered in a plastic bathtub at a state park in West Hempstead, New York. Her identity remains unknown.
September 2000: The partial skeletal remains of Valerie Mack, who had worked as an escort in Philadelphia, are found in a wooded area in Manorville, New York. Mack, 24, was last seen by her family in the spring or summer of that year in Port Republic, New Jersey.
July 26, 2003: The partial skeletal remains of Jessica Taylor are discovered in a wooded area of Manorville. She was 20 when she disappeared and was working as an escort in New York City.
July 9, 2007: Maureen Brainard-Barnes, 25, who had traveled from her home in Norwich, Connecticut, to New York City for sex work, was last heard from by a friend. She says she is leaving her hotel to meet a client. Investigators later say cell phone records show her phone was last used on Long Island.
July 10, 2009: Melissa Barthelemy, a 24-year-old sex worker, was last seen in her Bronx apartment. She tells a friend that she is going to see a man and would be back in the morning. Cell phone location data shows her phone’s last known location on Long Island.
July 17, 2009: A man begins using Barthelemy’s cell phone to make harassing calls to her family members. There will be additional calls on July 23, August 5, August 19 and August 26. In one case, a man says he killed her.
May 1, 2010: Shannan Gilbert, a sex worker, disappears in the barrier island community of Oak Beach, New York, after fleeing a client’s home and banging on a neighbor’s door. In a recorded 911 call, she tells a dispatcher that people are after her, but she can also be heard refusing offers of help. Her pimp, the client and his neighbor all tell police that she appeared disoriented and ran off into the night alone.
June 6, 2010: Megan Waterman, 22, who had traveled from Maine to Long Island for sex work, was last seen at a motel in Hauppauge, New York.
September 2, 2010: Amber Lynn Costello, 27, was last seen leaving her West Babylon home to meet a sex work client. A male friend later tells investigators that he spotted a Chevrolet Avalanche, believed to be driven by the customer.
December 11, 2010: A police officer and his dog discover Barthelemy’s remains during a training exercise along Ocean Parkway.
December 13, 2010: Police find the bodies of Costello, Brainard-Barnes and Waterman on the same quarter-mile stretch of Ocean Parkway where Barthelemy’s remains were located.
December 14, 2010: Suffolk County Police Commissioner Richard Dormer publicly announces the discovery of the bodies and says a serial killer may be to blame. Police expand the search, looking for additional remains or any sign of Gilbert.
March 29, 2011: Some of Taylor’s remains are discovered along Ocean Parkway.
April 4, 2011: Additional remains of Valerie Mack are found along Ocean Parkway. Near those remains, investigators also find the remains of an unidentified female toddler, later identified via DNA as the daughter of “Peaches.” Elsewhere on the Parkway, investigators discover the remains of an Asian man. Researchers estimate he died five to 10 years earlier and was in his late teens or early 20s. He has still not been identified.
April 11, 2011: Additional remains of Vergata are discovered along Ocean Parkway, several miles west of Gilgo Beach. Police also find remains of “Peaches” along the beach parkway.
December 13, 2011: Gilbert’s skeletal remains are discovered in a tidal marsh near Oak Beach. Following an autopsy and further investigation, Suffolk police say she most likely drowned accidentally. Her family still suspects she was murdered. An expert hired by the family said it was possible her death was a homicide.
January 2022: The Suffolk County District Attorney convenes a new task force to investigate the Gilgo Beach slayings.
July 13, 2023: Investigators arrest Heuermann and charge him with the murders of Costello, Waterman and Barthelemy. They say they also believe he killed Brainard-Barnes, but did not initially accuse him of her murder.
January 16, 2024: Heuermann is charged in Brainard-Barnes’ death. Prosecutors say a hair found on her corpse is genetically similar to a DNA sample from Heuermann’s wife.
Late April 2024: Police conduct another multi-day search of a wooded area in Manorville where Taylor and Mack’s remains were discovered more than a decade earlier.
May 20, 2024: Investigators begin a new search for Heuermann’s home. It takes almost a week.
June 6, 2024: Prosecutors plan to announce a “significant development” in the investigation.