What to Know
- Rex Heuermann and the shocking headline-grabbing Gilgo Beach murders take center stage in Netflix's new docuseries "Gone Girls: The Long Island Serial Killer," which debuted Monday.
- The docuseries directed by Academy Award-nominated and Emmy-winning director Liz Garbus examines the horrific murders that haunted the small Long Island beach town of Gilgo Beach, and the unsuspecting man who is thought to have committed the heinous crimes.
Rex Heuermann and the shocking headline-grabbing Gilgo Beach murders take center stage in Netflix's new docuseries "Gone Girls: The Long Island Serial Killer," which debuted Monday.
The docuseries directed by Academy Award-nominated and Emmy-winning director Liz Garbus examines the horrific murders that haunted the small Long Island beach town of Gilgo Beach, and the unsuspecting man who is thought to have committed the heinous crimes.
The unsolved killings gained national interest -- eventually becoming the subject of the 2020 Netflix film “Lost Girls," which focused on the mother of one of the victims and her search for justice.
Now, the three-part series gives the audience a look at the young women who worked in the sex industry in New York City and Long Island when they went missing, and their families desperate search for answers concerning their loved ones. It features interviews with journalists, law enforcement and the loved ones of victims as well as Heuermann, the accused killer.
“These family members were never going to give up. These women knew that there was a need to shake [up] the establishment to get attention for this case,” says director Liz Garbus. “Of course, they shouldn’t have [had] to work so hard. The system should work to protect them and should’ve protected their family members. But at the end of the day, their voices really mattered.”
WHO IS REX HEUERMANN?
Not much has come to light about Heuermann, but one neighbor who previous spoke to NBC New York said he was born and raised on Long Island and has lived in the Massapequa area his entire life.
Actor Billy Baldwin said he went to high school at the same time as Heuermann who graduated in the class of 1981. "Mind-boggling… Massapequa is in shock. 23andMe strikes again???," the Massapequa native wrote in a tweet.
Other former classmates also posted Heuermann's yearbook photo in an alumni Facebook group and said that they were shocked to learn the news of the arrest.
Heuermann was married to Asa Ellerup, who reached a divorce settlement with Heuermann following his arrest, and has two adult children. Although now divorced, Ellerup has been present at many Heuermann trial dates.
Heuermann worked as an architect in Manhattan. In an interview with "Bonjour Realty," a YouTube channel that highlights life in New York City, Heuermann said he has been working in the city since 1987 and he has worked extensively with the Department of Buildings.
Prosecutors with the Suffolk County District Attorney's Office revealed that Rex Heuermann spent about four summers in the 1980s working at Jones Beach, which allowed him to become very familiar with the area where the remains of six his seven alleged victims were found.
DNA testing was the focus again in the case against accused Gilgo Beach serial killer Rex Heuermann. An expert took the stand to answer questions on the accuracy and reliability of the results the defense team is challenging, and a judge will decide if it can be used as evidence. NBC New York's Pei-Sze Cheng reports.
THE CASE AGAINST HEUERMANN
Heuermann is accused of murdering a total of seven people.
Since late 2010, police on Long Island have been investigating the deaths of at least 10 people — mostly female sex workers — whose remains were discovered along an isolated highway not far from Gilgo Beach.
Heuermann, who lives in nearby Massapequa Park, was arrested in 2023 and charged in the deaths of three of the victims between 2009 and 2010: Melissa Barthelemy, Amber Lynn Costello and Megan Waterman.
While in custody, he was subsequently charged in the deaths of four other women: Valerie Mack in 2000, Jessica Taylor in 2003, Maureen Brainard-Barnes in 2007 and Sandra Costilla in 1993.
Heuermann has maintained his innocence and pleaded not guilty to all counts.
In the latest murder charges he faces, Heuermann is accused of murdering Valerie Mack, an escort working in Philadelphia, who vanished in 2000 and in whose death he had been considered a suspect, the district attorney said. Prosecutors say DNA evidence secured the forensic link, that analysis of a hair found with Mack’s remains, has been linked to Heuermann’s wife and daughter.
Heuermann pleaded not guilty telling the judge "I am not guilty of any of these crimes."
Michael Brown, the lawyer for Heuermann, described his client as frustrated by allegations that he’s the Gilgo Beach serial killer. The attorney also vowed to challenge the validity of the DNA findings.
Mack, 24, had been working as an escort in Philadelphia and was last seen by her family in New Jersey the year she disappeared.
According to prosecutors, Heuermann’s so-called “planning document,” recovered from a personal computer during a search over the summer, references the dumping site where parts of Mack's body were first found, on Mill Road in Manorville.
New details were revealed in the Gilgo Beach killings, including a more detailed sketch of a potential victim whose remains were found more than a decade ago. Investigators released new sketches of a potential victim, which could be the first-known male victim of alleged serial killer Rex Heuermann, who thus far has been charged with murdering six women. NBC New York's Greg Cergol reports.
That document was created in 2000, the year Mack went missing and was killed, according to prosecutors' bail application. They also allege Heuermann mutilated Mack's right leg, the same leg that bore a tattoo with her son's name, to thwart efforts to identify her.
In addition, prosecutors say their searches of Heuermann’s home yielded varied magazine and newspaper clippings of the Long Island serial killer, allegedly serving as “souvenirs or mementos” of his alleged crimes
Authorities have also been looking into the death of Karen Vergata, whose remains were first discovered in 1996 and finally identified in 2022 after a new DNA analysis.
Heuermann, 61, was first arrested in July 2023 in the deaths of three of the so-called "Gilgo Four," whose remains were found in burlap sacks along a remote stretch of Ocean Parkway in 2010. He was later charged with the fourth.
The bodies of Maureen Brainard-Barnes Amber Lynn Costello, Melissa Barthelemy and Megan Waterman were discovered during a search for a missing escort, Shannan Gilbert, who later was found dead in a marsh. Her case was ruled an accidental drowning, though attorneys for her family maintained the autopsy was inconclusive.
Investigators say Gilbert's case is not tied to the others. Additional sets of remains turned up in that search for Gilbert, too. Authorities are still trying to identify some of them, including remains belonging to an "Asian Doe."
In June, authorities charged Heuermann with two additional murders, those of Jessica Taylor, whose hands and forearm were found along Ocean Parkway years after her torso turned up in the Manorville woods; and Sandra Costilla, who allegedly died a violent death by his hands in November 1993.
Heuermann has pleaded not guilty to the charges.
Heuermann has been held without bail since his initial arrest. If convicted, he faces multiple sentences of life without parole.
