When officers set out in 2010 searching for a missing woman along a barrier island parkway near New York’s Gilgo Beach, they made a grim discovery — human remains scattered in the brush. Almost immediately, investigators feared they were dealing with the work of a serial killer.
Over the following years, DNA testing and other investigative tools helped authorities identify the victims, and in some cases, connect those remains to other discoveries made on Long Island years before. That investigation ultimately led to the arrest of Rex Heuermann, who pleaded guilty to murdering seven women and acknowledged in open court that he had killed an eighth.
Below is a chronological account of how this case unfolded:
November 20, 1993: Two hunters come across the body of Sandra Costilla, 28, in a wooded area of North Sea, a hamlet located in the Hamptons. Costilla had been living in New York City at the time of her death.
April 20, 1996: Partial remains belonging to Karen Vergata, 34, are found on Fire Island, a barrier beach along the coast. Investigators would not learn her identity until 2022, when updated DNA technology allowed them to make a positive identification. Vergata had been involved in sex work when she disappeared.
June 28, 1997: The partial remains of a woman are found inside a plastic tub at a state park in West Hempstead, New York. Because of a tattoo found on her body, investigators give her the nickname “Peaches.” Her true identity goes unknown for years, until 2025 when police identify her as Tanya Jackson, a U.S. Army veteran who had been living in Brooklyn before she vanished.
September 2000: Partial skeletal remains of Valerie Mack, 24, who had been working as an escort in Philadelphia, are found in a wooded section of Manorville, New York. Her family last saw her in the spring or summer of that year in Port Republic, New Jersey.
July 26, 2003: Partial skeletal remains of Jessica Taylor, who was 20 years old when she disappeared and had been working as an escort, are discovered in a wooded area of Manorville.
July 9, 2007: Maureen Brainard-Barnes, 25, who had traveled to New York from her home in Norwich, Connecticut, to engage in sex work, is last heard from by a friend. She tells the friend she is leaving her hotel to meet a client. Investigators would later determine through cellphone records that her phone was last active on Long Island.
July 10, 2009: Melissa Barthelemy, 24, a sex worker, is last seen at her apartment in the Bronx. She tells a friend she is going to meet a man and expects to return by morning. Location data from her phone places her last known whereabouts on Long Island. Within days, someone begins using her phone to make taunting calls to members of her family.
May 1, 2010: Shannan Gilbert, a sex worker, vanishes from the barrier island community of Oak Beach, New York, after fleeing a client’s home and knocking frantically on a neighbor’s door. In a recorded 911 call, she tells the dispatcher that people are after her, though she can be heard refusing offers of help. Her pimp, the client, and the neighbor all report to police that she seemed disoriented and ran off into the night on her own.
June 6, 2010: Megan Waterman, 22, who had come to Long Island from Maine for sex work, is last seen at a motel in Hauppauge, New York.
September 2, 2010: Amber Lynn Costello, 27, is last seen leaving her West Babylon home to meet a sex work client. A male acquaintance later tells investigators he believed the client arrived in a Chevrolet Avalanche.
December 11, 2010: A police officer and his dog stumble upon human remains during a training exercise along Ocean Parkway. Authorities initially think they may have found Gilbert, but the remains are later identified as those of Barthelemy.
December 13, 2010: Police discover the bodies of Costello, Brainard-Barnes, and Waterman along the same quarter-mile section of Ocean Parkway where Barthelemy’s remains had been located.
December 14, 2010: Suffolk County Police Commissioner Richard Dormer publicly announces the discovery of the bodies and suggests that a serial killer may be responsible. Police expand their search efforts while continuing to look for any trace of Gilbert.
March 29, 2011: Some of Taylor’s remains are found along Ocean Parkway.
April 4, 2011: More of Valerie Mack’s remains surface along Ocean Parkway. Close to those remains, investigators also discover the remains of a 2-year-old girl, later identified through DNA testing as Tatiana Dykes, the daughter of Tanya Jackson. Elsewhere along the parkway, the remains of an Asian male are found. Investigators estimate he died somewhere between five and ten years earlier and was likely in his late teens or early twenties. He has still not been identified.
April 11, 2011: Additional remains of Vergata are found along Ocean Parkway, several miles to the west of Gilgo Beach. More remains of Jackson are also discovered along the same beach parkway.
December 13, 2011: Gilbert’s skeletal remains are found in a tidal marsh near Oak Beach. Following an autopsy, Suffolk County Police conclude that she accidentally drowned.
January 2022: The Suffolk County district attorney forms a new task force specifically to investigate the Gilgo Beach killings.
July 13, 2023: Heuermann is taken into custody and charged with the murders of Costello, Waterman, and Barthelemy. Critical evidence includes cellphone location data showing Heuermann and the victims were in the same locations at overlapping times, as well as DNA traces recovered from the remains.
January 16, 2024: Heuermann faces an additional charge in the death of Brainard-Barnes. Prosecutors reveal that a hair recovered with her body is genetically consistent with a DNA sample taken from Heuermann’s wife.
May 20, 2024: Investigators conduct a new search of Heuermann’s home, a process that continues for nearly a week.
June 6, 2024: Heuermann is charged with the murders of Costilla and Taylor.
December 17, 2024: A sealed indictment is made public, charging Heuermann in connection with Mack’s death.
December 18, 2025: A Florida man named Andrew Dykes enters a not guilty plea to charges of killing Tanya Jackson and Tatiana Dykes. Investigators say Andrew Dykes was Tatiana’s father, and that DNA evidence connected him to the crime. Though this case ultimately had no connection to the other Gilgo Beach killings, authorities say the investigation benefited from the additional resources that had been directed toward the serial killer probe.
April 8, 2026: Heuermann pleads guilty to seven counts of murder for the killings of Barthelemy, Brainard-Barnes, Costello, Costilla, Mack, Taylor, and Waterman. He also admits in court that he was responsible for the death of Vergata.
June 17, 2026: A judge is scheduled to formally sentence Heuermann to prison for the murders.
