Rex Heuermann

What the record shows

Rex Heuermann, an architect from Massapequa Park on Long Island, New York, pleaded guilty on April 8, 2026, to murdering seven women whose remains were found on Long Island between 1993 and 2010, and admitted in the same hearing to killing an eighth woman, Karen Vergata, whom he had never been charged with killing. The case is known as the Gilgo Beach or Long Island serial killings. On June 17, 2026, he was sentenced in Suffolk County to consecutive terms that keep him in prison for life without the possibility of parole. He is held by the New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision, which said in June 2026 that he was undergoing admission processing at Green Haven Correctional Facility.

Heuermann was born in 1963 and grew up in Massapequa Park, according to the Wikipedia article. He studied architecture and, NBC News reported, had worked as an architect and consultant in Manhattan since 1987, receiving his state license in 1996. His listed clients included Catholic Charities and New York City's Department of Environmental Protection. He lived with his family in a small house in Massapequa Park, about a half-hour drive from the stretch of Ocean Parkway where most of the remains were later found.

The investigation began in December 2010, when police searching the brush along Ocean Parkway near Gilgo Beach for Shannan Gilbert, a missing 24-year-old escort, instead found the remains of Melissa Barthelemy, Maureen Brainard-Barnes, Megan Waterman and Amber Costello. Further remains were found along the parkway in 2011. Gilbert's own remains were found in a marsh in Oak Beach in December 2011; Suffolk County medical examiners ruled her death an accidental drowning, and her cause of death has remained listed as undetermined. Heuermann was never charged in her death, and after the plea his lawyer, Michael Brown, said publicly that Heuermann had nothing to do with Gilbert. Her case is linked here because the search for her led to the discovery of the other victims.

The case stalled for more than a decade. According to CBS News, a Suffolk County task force reopened the evidence in 2022 and focused on a Chevrolet Avalanche registered to Heuermann that matched a witness's description from 2010. FBI analysts compared cell-site records from the victims' phones with records from prepaid burner phones linked to him, and a hair found on burlap used to wrap one victim was matched to DNA taken from pizza crusts he discarded in Manhattan. He was arrested on July 13, 2023, and charged with murdering Barthelemy, Waterman and Costello. He pleaded not guilty and was held without bail.

Prosecutors added charges over the next eighteen months. He was indicted in the death of Brainard-Barnes in January 2024. In June 2024, NBC New York reported, he was charged with murdering Jessica Taylor, 20, whose partial remains were found in Manorville in 2003, and Sandra Costilla, 28, whose remains were found by hunters near North Sea in Southampton in November 1993. According to the Wikipedia article, he was indicted in December 2024 for the murder of Valerie Mack, 24, whose partial remains had been found in Manorville in 2000. He pleaded not guilty each time, and a trial was set for September 2026.

Instead, on April 8, 2026, Heuermann appeared before State Supreme Court Justice Timothy Mazzei in Riverhead and pleaded guilty. ABC7 New York reported that he admitted strangling all of the women, and amNY reported that he described luring them with money arranged over burner phones, wrapping the bodies in burlap, and dismembering Taylor, Mack and Vergata. Vergata, 34, was last heard from on Valentine's Day 1996; her legs were found on Fire Island that year and her skull near Tobay Beach in 2011. Under the agreement described by Suffolk County District Attorney Ray Tierney, Heuermann waived his right to appeal, will not be prosecuted further for the eight deaths, and must cooperate with the FBI. amNY reported that he could still face charges if other victims are linked to him, while his lawyer said he denied involvement in the case of an unidentified Asian man found on Ocean Parkway.

At the June 17, 2026, sentencing, victims' relatives addressed him in court. The agreed sentence was three consecutive terms of life without parole for the murders of Barthelemy, Waterman and Costello, followed by four consecutive terms of 25 years to life for Brainard-Barnes, Taylor, Costilla and Mack. Heuermann told the court he was responsible, FOX 5 New York reported. Other remains found along Ocean Parkway, including those of Tanya Jackson and her young daughter, have not been attributed to him in any court record.