Gilgo Beach murder suspect Rex Heuermann charged with 3 counts of first-degree murder
Police in New York have arrested architect Rex Heuermann in connection to the Gilgo Beach murders, in which 11 sets of human remains were found strewn along a suburban beach highway in Long Island in 2010 and 2011.
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Actor Billy Baldwin disclosed his bizarre connection to the suspect charged in the unsolved Gilgo Beach murders on Long Island, in a candid post to his social media.
"Shocked to learn this morning that the Gilgo Beach serial killer suspect was my high school classmate Rex Heuermann," the 60-year-old wrote.
The men attended Berner High School in Massapequa, New York – both graduates of the class of 1981.
"Mind-boggling," Baldwin wrote. "Massapequa is in shock."
"23andMe strikes again," the "Gossip Girl" actor continued in his caption.
Police previously shared that they were able to match DNA from a pizza Heuermann ate to genetic material found on a woman’s remains, which led to his arrest on Thursday.
Click here to continue reading: Billy Baldwin discloses his Long Island Gilgo Beach murder suspect connection
Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani arrived outside the Long Island home of the suspected Gilgo Beach serial killer on Saturday and reportedly asked a police officer how close he could get.
Giuliani was seen speaking with officers as he sat inside his car near the Massapequa Park home of Rex Heuermann before driving away, the New York Post reported.
A spokesperson for Giuilani told the outlet that the former mayor was there to cover the case as part of his new livestream show “America’s Mayor Live.”
Heuermann, a 59-year-old architect, has so far only been accused of killing Melissa Barthelemy, who disappeared in 2009, and two others, Megan Waterman and Amber Costello, who were reported missing in 2010.
Gilgo Beach would become the focal point of the long-stalled investigation into the discovery of 11 sets of remains, including that of a toddler, all discarded along the parkway that cuts the length of a thin strip of white sand, dirt, brambles and marshes known as Jones Beach Island.
READ: CASE AGAINST REX HEUERMANN
While investigators say he may not be responsible for all the deaths, Heuermann is also the prime suspect in the death of a fourth woman who disappeared in 2010, Maureen Brainard-Barnes.
Heuermann says he is innocent, according to his lawyer.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
A former Federal Bureau of Investigation profiler says that Long Island serial murder suspect Rex Heuermann allegedly made calls to the family member of a victim because he wanted to hear the fear in their voice.
59-year-old Heuermann is charged with six counts of murder: one count of first-degree murder and one count of second-degree murder for each of the three victims. The victims have been identified as Melissa Barthelemy, Megan Waterman, and Amber Costello.
He pleaded not guilty to all charges during a court hearing on Friday afternoon.
According to a bail application released by prosecutors, Heuermann allegedly used Barthelemy's cell phone to call her family on July 17, July 23, August 5, August 19, and August 26, 2009.
Heuermann allegedly told her family that he killed and sexually assaulted the 24-year-old woman, officials wrote.
Barthelemy was last seen in New York City on July 10, 2009. Her body was found in December 2010 on Gilgo Beach.According to the New York Post, at least one call was placed to her sister, Amanda Barthelemy.
"Is this Melissa’s little sister?" asked a man.
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"Yes," replied the sister, who was 16 years old at the time.
"Do you know what your sister is doing?" the man said. "She’s a w---e."
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Mary Ellen O’Toole, a former FBI profiler, told Fox News Digital that Heuermann likely made the call because "he wanted to hear the fear and the horror in the sister's voice."
"I think he found that to be sexually arousing," O'Toole added. "Part of what we're seeing here is someone that wasn't trying to ease her pain, not trying to apologize, not trying to explain away his behavior, he wanted to hear the fear, the anxiety, the horror, the heartache in her voice."
During a press conference on Friday, Suffolk County District Attorney Raymond Tierney said that the four women "did the same thing for a living, they will advertise the same way, and there were similarities with regard to the crime scenes."
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Heuermann is a prime suspect in the death of Maureen Brainard-Barnes but hasn't been formally charged in that case.
His lawyer, Michael Brown, said on Friday that the evidence is "extremely circumstantial," adding that his client said repeatedly "I didn't do this," through tears.
Fox News' Chris Eberhart contributed to this report.
A former profiler for the Federal Bureau of Investigation says that investigators are likely operating off of the belief that there are more victims after the Gilgo Beach serial suspect Rex Heuermann was arrested on Thursday night.
Heuermann is charged with six counts of murder: one count of first degree murder and one count of second degree murder for each of the three victims. The victims have been identified as Melissa Barthelemy, Megan Waterman, and Amber Costello.
He pleaded not guilty to all charges during a court hearing on Friday afternoon.
Mary Ellen O’Toole, a former FBI profiler, told Fox News Digital that investigators are "probably operating off of the theory that there likely are more victims out there."
READ: CASE AGAINST REX HEUERMANN
"So now they're going back and they're looking at cases that have been described as unsolved over the years and moving outside of New York State and New York as well," O'Toole said.
O'Toole said it's "not likely" Heuermann began acting out in his late-30s.
"It's more likely these serial sexual killers start to act out, if they're going to, they start to act out in their early to mid-twenties. So they're going to go back in time and they're going to timeline him. They'll go back to when he was in college and go back beyond," she said.
Heuermann is married and has two children, working as an architect in Manhattan whileliving on Long Island.
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"I'm an architect. I'm an architect consultant. I'm a troubleshooter. Born and raised on Long Island. Then working in Manhattan since 1987," Heuermann said in a February 2022 video interview with Bonjour Realty posted to YouTube. "When a job that should've been routine suddenly becomes not routine, I get the phone call."
The suspected "Long Island Serial Killer" allegedly called one his victims' families at least five times within two months after she vanished, according to court documents.
Rex Heuermann, a 59-year-old married father of two and an architect working in Manhattan, was arrested and charged with the murders of three of four victims known as the "Gilgo Beach 4" in the infamous Long Island cold case.
Heuermann allegedly called Melissa Barthelemey's family on July 17, July 23, August 5, August 19, and August 26, 2009, according to Heuermann's bail application, which detailed his alleged crimes.
He allegedly told her family that he sexually assaulted the 24-year-old woman and killed her, according to the bail application.
SUSPECTED GILGO BEACH KILLER ‘PUT LOVE NOTES IN MY LOCKER’: HIGH SCHOOL CLASSMATE
Barthelemey, a Western New York native from the Buffalo area, was 24 when she was last seen in New York City on July 10, 2009.
Authorities believe she was working as a sex worker at the time.
On July 11 and July 12, 2009, her phone made two outbound calls to check her voicemail, which pinged at cell sites in Babylon, New York, which is less than 15 miles from where her body was found on Gilgo Beach in December 2010.
The bodies of Megan Waterman, Amber Costello and Maureen Brainard-Barnes were also found along the beach in December 2010.
The four victims - known as the "Gilgo 4" - "did the same thing for a living, they will advertise the same way, and there were similarities with regard to the crime scenes," Suffolk County District Attorney Raymond Tierney said during Friday's press conference.
As of Saturday afternoon, Heuermann is accused of killing three of the four women, and he remains the prime suspect in Brainard-Barnes' death.
Heuermann, a hulking man in stature, pleaded not guilty to all six counts of murder. He was charged with first- and second-degree murder for each victim.
More charges are expected to be added, according to the county district attorney, as investigators continue to work to tie Heuermann to Brainard-Barnes' death.
Heuermann's lawyer, Michael Brown, said the evidence is "extremely circumstantial" and told reporters that his client repeatedly said, "I didn't do this," through tears.
Brown was given the case Friday, so he needs time to review the accusations and couldn't comment on specific allegations.
"We obviously don't have any evidence. This is the beginning of the case," Brown said. "Everybody is presumed innocent in our country, there's a presumption of innocence, and we're looking forward to fighting this case in a court of law, not the court of public opinion."
Officials detailed "thousands" of Google searches that Heuermann allegedly made for various graphic pornography and nearby sex workers.
Fox News Digital is not describing many of the Google searches due to their explicit nature, but he allegedly made 200 Google searches between March 2022 and June 2023, related to the disappearances and murders of Brainard-Barnes, Barthelemy, Waterman and Costello, the bail application says.
The Google searches include "Why could law enforcement not trace the calls made by the long island serial killer," "Why hasn’t the long island serial killer been caught," "In Long Island serial killer investigation, new phone technology may be key to break in case" and more, the bail application says.
The Gilgo Beach murders have remained unsolved more than a decade after the search for missing escort Shannan Gilbert, 24, first led police to the bodies of multiple sex workers and other victims east of New York City.
Separate from the "Gilgo 4" include the partial remains of 20-year-old Jessica Taylor, which were found in March 2011 Near Gilgo Beach. Authorities said part of Taylor’s body was discovered eight years earlier and 40 miles away in Manorville, New York.
Two miles west, police discovered the skeletal remains of an unidentified Asian man — or transgender woman — believed to be 17 to 23 years old.
A week later, in April 2011, two more sets of partial remains were found along Ocean Parkway. The first were those of the woman known as "Peaches," believed to be the mother of the toddler found the week before.
Part of her body had been previously discovered in Hempstead Lake State Park in 1997. The second was the skull of a woman who was linked to remains found on Fire Island in 1996.
The half-brother of cold case murder victim JonBenet Ramsey has weighed in on Gilgo Beach murder suspect Rex Heuermann's arrest.
"No criminal record but you can’t hide this level of darkness. It will manifest itself in other areas of your life," John Andrew Ramsey tweeted Saturday, a day after Heuermann was charged with the murders of three women whose remains were found on a stretch of beach highway in Long Island in 2010 and 2011.
Ramsey's tweet quoted a New York Times report in which neighbors recounted how Heuermann exhibited creepy behavior before his arrest.
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"Try as you might you can’t blend. JonBenet’s killer will likely have a similar bio. #psychopath," he said.
Ramsey's 6-year-old sister JonBenet was murdered in the basement of her family's home nearly 26 years ago. The killer was never found.
READ: CASE AGAINST REX HEUERMANN
JonBenet's mother reported the 6-year-old missing to police on the morning of Dec. 26, 1996, after finding a lengthy ransom note demanding $118,000 in exchange for JonBenet. The girl's father, John Ramsey, found her body later that same day in their basement.
An autopsy after JonBenet's death revealed that the girl died of strangulation and a blow to the head. The Boulder City Medical Examiner reported an 8 1/2-inch fracture on her skull. Authorities have not convicted any suspects in the case.
The Boulder Police Department in November said it is partnering with DNA labs and consulting with the Colorado Cold Case Review Team to take a fresh look at Ramsey's case.
Fox News' Audrey Conklin contributed to this report.
Suffolk County Crime Lab detectives were seen loading items from suspect Rex Heuermann's office into a truck on Friday.
Heuermann is an architect who worked in Manhattan and lives in Long Island.
He is charged with six counts of murder: one count of first degree murder and one count of second degree murder for each of the three victims.
Those victims have been identified as Melissa Barthelemy, Megan Waterman, and Amber Costello.
The three victims were found at Gilgo Beach in December 2010.
Heuerman has pleaded not guilty to all counts.
Gilgo Beach murders suspect Rex Heuermann is pictured with alleged victims.
Criminologists who offered a psychological profile of the Gilgo Beach serial killer in 2011 came eerily close to describing suspect Rex Heuermann, who was arrested Thursday.
Serial killer experts told the New York Times in 2011 that Gilgo Beach murders perpetrator was likely to be an educated white male living on the South Shore of Long Island. Profilers said the suspect would have a job and be financially secure, drive an expensive car or truck, was likely to be married and would appear unassuming to most people.
"This is someone who can walk into a room and seem like your average Joe," said Scott Bonn, an assistant professor of sociology at Drew University in Madison, NJ, and serial killer researcher.
"He has to be persuasive enough and rational enough that he is able to convince these women to meet him on these terms. He has demonstrated social skills. He may even be charming," he added, describing the man who murdered Maureen Brainard-Barnes, Melissa Barthelemy, Megan Waterman, and Amber Costello.
Those descriptors are nearly an exact match for Heuermann, a Massapequa Park architect and married father of two who is now charged in connection to the Gilgo Beach murders.
Experts suggested the unknown subject would be in his mid-20s to mid-40s. Heuermann, 59, would have been about 46 when the last victim, Costello, was killed in September 2010.
The placement of the victims' bodies was another major clue for profilers.
Eleven sets of human remains were discovered along a 10-mile stretch of a suburban Long Island beach highway. The area was remote enough to suggest that the perpetrator was familiar with the area, former FBI profiler Jim Clemente told the Times.
"He did not stumble upon that location," Clemente said. Since each of the victims disappeared in the summer, Clemente suggested there may be a "seasonal nature" to the killer's connection to the area. "It may be the time his wife or kids or parents are away for the summer," he suggested. "There are many possibilities."
Investigators said Friday that the murders took place at times when Heuermann's wife, Asa Ellerup, and children were out of town. His wife was in Maryland when Waterman vanished, according to Heuermann's bail application. She was also out of town when Costello and Barthelemy each disappeared.
Police towed a black Chevrolet Avalanche truck from Heuermann's property on Friday.
Rex Heuermann, 59, has pleaded not guilty to six counts of murder: one count of first degree murder and one count of second degree murder for each of the three Gilgo Beach victims. (Suffolk County Sheriff's Office via AP)
Accused Long Island serial killer Rex Heuermann left love notes in his high school crush’s locker, but she and her classmates said they were "shocked" after learning about his arrest.
Maureen Boyle Holpit, who graduated from high school with Heuermann in 1981, told Fox News Digital that he left "little notes" like, "I think you're pretty" or "I like you. Could like me back?"
The flirtatious notes were anonymous, but Holpit caught him one day, but she never saw him as a threat.
"He was quiet, kind of shy. He seemed nice, and pleasant. Mild-mannered," Holpit said. "That's all I could really remember of him. I was always nice and kind to him. He seemed to have gotten teased a little bit because he was shy and maybe a little nerdy.
"But there were no indicators or red flags to me now that I'm looking back that he could do something like this."
Holpit said she learned of Heuermann's arrest from a friend who saw he had been charged in connection to the murders of the "Gilgo Four."
"I didn't see (Heuermann's arrest) at first. My friend called me, and she asked if I saw the news this morning," Holpit said. "I said, ‘No,' and she was telling me the name Rex. That's when I remembered the little love notes, and I was fr****n shocked. I couldn't believe it.
"And just from what I see from other people's comments (on social media), and from the friends that I'm still in contact with, we're just totally blown away and shocked. You just never expect this."
Even actor Billy Baldwin chimed in on his high school classmate Heuermann's arrest.
"Berner High School Massapequa, New York Class of 1981 Married, two kids, architect. 'Average guy… quiet, family man. Mind-boggling… Massapequa is in shock. 23andMe strikes again???"
Fox News' Chris Eberhart contributed to this report.
Defense attorney Michael Brown said Friday the evidence against his client, Rex Heuermann, is "extremely circumstantial."
Heuermann's defense team addressed reporters Friday afternoon outside the Long Island courthouse where Heuermann was arraigned. The suspected killer pleaded not guilty to three counts of murder in the first degree and three counts of murder in the second degree.
"Seeing that we just got involved in this case, I did hear the district attorney outline his case. I will say to you folks that it's extremely circumstantial in nature," Brown told reporters.
He said Heuermann was "in tears" as he told his lawyers, "I didn't do this."
"We obviously don't have any evidence. This is the beginning of the case. Everybody is presumed innocent in our country, there's a presumption of innocence and we're looking forward to fighting this case in a court of law, not the court of public opinion," Brown said.
Rex A. Heuermann, an architect in his late 50s who lived a 20-minute drive from Gilgo Beach in Massapequa Park, appears in what investigators decribe as "selfie" photographs taken from the fictitious Springfieldman9 AOL account, as part of a bail application by the Suffolk County District Attorney's office July 14, 2023. ( Suffolk County Court/Handout via REUTERS)
A young Long Island woman shared her story of a recent disturbing encounter with suspected Gilgo Beach serial murderer Rex Heuermann with the New York Post on Friday.
The woman, identified only as 25-year-old Ally, said she met the man arrested in connection to the killings on July 3 in Brady Park, which is just minutes away from Heuermann's home on 1st Avenue in Massapequa Park.
She described how the 59-year-old architect repeatedly approached her in the park, which creeped her out.
“I was going for a bike ride over in Brady Park and he came up behind me and he asked me what time it was,” Ally told the Post.
“He was trying to compliment me. Asking me if I came here often. Asking me my name,” she said.
“He had very dirty clothes on. He popped right out of the woods. Everywhere I went in the woods he would pop out somewhere,” she continued.
According to Ally's account, the first time Heuermann approached her he got so close she "felt like breathing behind me."
She was so upset by the ordeal that she called her sister to pick her up, Ally told the Post.
Ally said she filed a police report about the incident.
Two weeks later, Heuermann was arrested and charged with three counts of first-degree murder and three counts of second-degree murder in connection to the Gilgo Beach murders.
The county prosecutor leading the investigation into the decade-old murders of mostly women along Ocean Parkway in Gilgo Beach, N.Y., said new advances in DNA technology in part helped break the case.
Suffolk County District Attorney Raymond Tierney told Fox News on Friday that suspect Rex Heuermann's arrest came after five "hairs of significance" from four victims were able to be further studied thanks to mitochondrial DNA technology.
The bodies found at Gilgo Beach, several miles east of the better-known Jones Beach, had been exposed to weather for so long that the DNA was too degraded to be properly analyzed using standard nuclear DNA technology.
"When people think of DNA, it's nuclear DNA that's the traditional DNA analysis that is done. But as the science advanced and although the hairs were [too] degraded for nuclear DNA, we were able to use them for mitochondrial DNA," Tierney said.
"So we were able to use that technology, but we still had to develop a suspect. And that's where the phone evidence and the evidence with regard to the car and some of [Heuermann's] other activities came in."
Fox News' Charles Creitz contributed to this report.
Rex Heuermann is led into Arthur M. Cromarty Criminal Complex in Riverhead, NY on Friday, July 14, 2023. The 59-year-old is being charged with three counts of murder in relation to the deaths of victims found on Gilgo Beach. (Matt Agudo/Splash for Fox News Digital)
New York architect Rex Heuermann faces three counts of murder in the first degree and three counts of murder in the 2nd degree following his arrest in connection to the Gilgo Beach murders, according to court documents.
The counts are in related to the deaths of Melissa Barthelemy, Megan Waterman, and Amber Costello, three of the victims found in Gilgo Beach in December 2010.
Heuermann was arraigned in court in Yaphank, New York, on Friday afternoon. He was taken into custody last night in Manhattan, according to Suffolk County Police, and investigators searched a home in Massapequa Park in Long Island, about a 25-minute drive from where New York authorities discovered 11 sets of human remains strewn along a suburban beach highway in 2010 and 2011.
"I've lived with the Gilgo Beach investigation for my entire tenure as county executive, and I can tell you that during that time, the focus for me, members of our team have been on bringing justice for these victims and closure to these families who have suffered," Suffolk County Executive Steven Bellone earlier told reporters gathered outside the home Friday in Massapequa Park.
"Today's developments take us a major step forward in doing exactly that," he said, adding, "I want the public to know the message to the public is that we have never stopped working on this case."
Fox News' Maria Paronich contributed to this report.
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