Gilgo Beach murders new search underway
Law enforcement members conduct a new search at the home of Rex Heuermann, a suspect in the Gilgo Beach murders. (Credit: FOX 5 NY's Jodi Goldberg)
Long Island, New York, investigators have linked a fifth alleged victim to Rex Heuermann, the suspected Gilgo Beach serial killer who was accused last year of murdering four women and dumping their bodies along a remote highway more than a decade ago, sources tell Fox News Digital.
The Suffolk County District Attorney's Office declined to comment but acknowledged that Heuermann is due back in court Thursday morning for a previously unscheduled hearing.
Unnamed sources told Newsday, the local newspaper, that the suspected serial killer has already been indicted on unspecified charges in connection with new developments in the case.
A task force including police K-9s from Suffolk County, the NYPD and New York State uncovered evidence in Manorville in April, a month before investigators returned to Heuermann’s house in May for a second search warrant.
REX HEUERMANN'S FAMILY KEPT GRUESOME PIECE OF EVIDENCE, SOURCE SAYS
The "Gilgo Four" clockwise from top left: Maureen Brainard-Barnes, Melissa Barthelemy, Megan Waterman and Amber Costello. The background shows a wooden cross in the marsh next to Gilgo Beach, New York, where the victims' remains were found in the brush just yards from Ocean Parkway. (Suffolk County Police Department/Mega for Fox News Digital)
In July 2023, they arrested Heuermann outside his Manhattan architecture firm and spent nearly two weeks scouring through his home in Massapequa Park, about 20 minutes from where police found the bodies of Melissa Barthelemy, 24; Megan Waterman, 22; and Amber Costello, 27, in 2010. Prosecutors later tacked on charges for the murder of Maureen Brainard-Barnes, 25, whose remains they found near the others.
Collectively, those women are known as the Gilgo Four because they were found close together and under similar circumstances.
Alleged Gilgo Beach serial killer Rex A. Heuermann, right, appears in Judge Tim Mazzei’s courtroom next to his attorney Michael Brown at Suffolk County Court in Riverhead on Wednesday, April 17, 2024. (James Carbone/Newsday/Pool)
Seven other victims were found farther east along Ocean Parkway. Most of those deaths remain under investigation.
Two of those belonged to Jessica Taylor and Valerie Mack, who were both dismembered and dumped in separate locations.
Police discovered their partial remains in Manorville in 2000 and 2003. Additional remains of both victims were uncovered near the Gilgo victims.
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Paul Mauro, a former NYPD inspector who has been following the case for years, said the search in Manorville likely turned up DNA evidence that police wanted to compare to something at Heuermann's home.
Heuermann has pleaded not guilty to murder charges in connection with the Gilgo Four.
Jessica Taylor, left, and Valerie Mack, right, were both murdered and dismembered. Suffolk County police discovered partial remains of each victim in both Manorville, New York, and along a stretch of Ocean Parkway near Gilgo Beach. (Suffolk County Police Department/Handout)
He is being held without bail at the Suffolk County Jail in Riverhead, New York.
The case has not yet gone to trial.
SUSPECTED SERIAL KILLER REX HEUERMANN'S HOME SEARCHED AGAIN
Police discovered 11 sets of remains scattered across several miles of the brush alongside Ocean Parkway after Shannan Gilbert, 24, went missing from Oak Beach around 5 a.m. on May 1, 2010.
Shannan Gilbert’s remains were found near Oak Beach, New York on Dec. 13, 2011. (The family of Shannan Gilbert)
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She placed a panicked 911 call and begged neighbors for help before vanishing into the marsh.
Police in 2020 said they believed her death had actually been an accident, a decision the attorney for her family has opposed.
Police said she suffered from mental illness and was known to use drugs that had a disorienting effect.
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Dr. Michael Baden, the famed forensic pathologist and former chief medical examiner of New York City, was hired by the family. He found "insufficient information to determine a definite cause of death, but the autopsy findings are consistent with homicidal strangulation."
Key bones in her throat were missing, but the adjacent ones had "a roughness at the margins." He also found no drugs in her system.
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