Long Island Architect Rex Heuermann, 59, has been arrested for serial murder on Gilgo Beach
Long Island architect Rex Heuermann, 59, was arrested today in connection with the Gilgo Beach serial killings in a major police breach.
Heuermann’s home in Massapequa Park was overrun with cops this morning. It is immediately north of Gilgo Beach, with only the South Oyster Bay separating them.
Neighbors there tell DailyMail.com that the homeowner is a family man who has lived there for decades. He is married and has a daughter and a stepson, they said.
Suffolk Police – which are leading the investigation – have yet to release information about the arrest, which comes a day after a man’s skeletal remains were found in a park driveway in West Islip.
Long Island architect Rex Heuermann, 59, was arrested today in connection with the Gilgo Beach serial killings in a major police breach.
The street in Massapequa Park, Long Island, where a suspect was arrested this morning in connection with the Gilgo Beach murders
The suspect’s home is located immediately north of Gilgo Beach across the South Oyster Bay
John Ray, a lawyer representing the families of two of the victims, told DailyMail.com they were warned a week ago that an arrest was imminent.
“About a week ago we got a tip that they were going to do this. We have two names, but of course we don’t want to say them unless we’re 100% sure.’
He confirmed to DailyMail.com that Heuermann’s name was one of the names they were looking for.
Ray believes the discovery of a man’s remains led to the arrest today.
Ray said that while the suspect arrested today is male, he and his clients have “always had an outside theory” that a woman may have been involved.
No one has ever been arrested in connection with the murders.
The New York Post cites Long Island law enforcement sources as saying the man is being investigated for the first four murders — known as the Gilgo Beach four — and not the five others discovered afterward.
A suspect has been arrested in connection with the infamous Gilgo Beach murders on Long Island. Among the victims was Shannan Gilbert, who was found dead in 2011 in an Oak Beach swamp – about a quarter mile from where she was last seen alive.
‘Gilgo Four’: These photos show the first four victims found a decade ago near Gilgo Beach, Long Island, as part of a serial killer investigation
Partial skeletal remains of Valerie Mack were found in a wooded area in Manorville in September 2000. Partial skeletal remains of Jessica Taylor, an escort who worked in New York City, were found July 26, 2003 in a wooded area in Manorville.
A map showing where the remains of the victims were located along the barren stretch of Ocean Beach Parkway in Gilgo Beach, located on the south coast of Long Island
The decade-long investigation has been described as one of the most “intense, prolific” serial killer hunts.
In 2020, a true crime podcast cast suspicion on former Suffolk County Police Commissioner James Burke.
Burke, who served time in jail for assaulting a local man while in office, served as the top cop from 2011 to 2015.
Among the victims was Shannan Gilbert, who was found dead in 2011 in a swamp in Oak Beach – about a quarter mile from where she was last seen alive.
The 24-year-old’s neck was broken before she was killed and had a hole in it that could have been caused by a drill, her family’s lawyer said.
The skeletal remains of an Asian man were discovered along Ocean Parkway on April 4, 2011. Police believe it was a transgender sex worker who had been dead for five years
The first victims were discovered in December 2010.
They were Maureen Brainard-Barnes, 25, Melissa Barthelemy, 24, Megan Waterman, 22, Amber Costello, 27.
Known as the “Gilgo Beach Four,” their bodies were found in burlap sacks.
Some of the four had been missing for three years when their bodies were found.
They were all sex workers who advertised their services on Craiglist, leading police to believe that’s how the killer first contacted them.
Some had also told friends that they planned to meet with a client the day before they disappeared.
In March and April 2011, four more bodies, including that of a toddler, were found in the same area.
Megan Waterman, Gilgo Beach murder victim, standing in the lobby of the Holiday Inn Express in Hauppauge on June 6, 2010, would later meet her would-be killer
They were Jessica Taylor, Valerie Mack and an unknown woman known as “Peaches” or “Jane Doe No. 3′.
Peaches’ toddler daughter was also killed.
Two other remains were found in the following weeks.
One was of an “Asian man” now thought to be a transgender sex worker who had been dead for five or six years, and Jane Doe No. 7, whose remains were found on a beach in the popular tourist town of Fire Island .
Shannan Gilbert’s body was found in December 2011 in a swamp about half a mile from where she was last seen alive.
An aerial view of the area at Gilgo Beach and Ocean Parkway on Long Island