RIVERHEAD, N.Y. — A Long Island architect who led a secret double life as the Gilgo Beach serial killer is facing sentencing Wednesday after confessing in court to the murders of eight women.
Rex Heuermann, 62, of Massapequa Park, is expected to receive a life prison sentence when he appears before a judge in Riverhead, New York. Relatives of his victims are anticipated to deliver statements to the court.
Wednesday’s proceedings mark the conclusion of a remarkable investigation that unraveled one of New York’s most baffling cold cases — one that began with a string of seemingly unrelated disappearances of young women and later captured widespread public attention through true-crime documentaries, books, and podcasts after police began uncovering skeletal remains in the sandy brush along a coastal parkway.
Heuermann, who has largely stayed silent throughout numerous court appearances since his arrest in 2023, will have the opportunity to speak at Wednesday’s sentencing, though it remains unclear whether he will do so. His attorneys did not respond to requests for comment.
His ex-wife, Asa Ellerup, along with their two adult children, have indicated through their attorneys that they will not attend the sentencing, citing respect for the families of the victims.
In April, Heuermann pleaded guilty to charges of murdering seven women: Megan Waterman, Melissa Barthelemy, Amber Lynn Costello, Maureen Brainard-Barnes, Valerie Mack, Jessica Taylor, and Sandra Costilla. Though he was never formally charged in connection with an eighth death, he also admitted in court to killing Karen Vergata. Heuermann stated that he strangled his victims — many of whom were sex workers — and dismembered some of their bodies.
The majority of the women vanished between 2000 and 2010, with most of their remains discovered along a remote parkway near Long Island’s Gilgo Beach, roughly 50 miles (80 kilometers) from Manhattan.
Two of the killings, however, occurred earlier. Costilla’s remains were recovered in 1993, more than 60 miles (100 kilometers) away in the Hamptons, while Vergata’s remains turned up in 1996 on Fire Island, over 20 miles (32 kilometers) east of Gilgo Beach.
The case first came to public attention in 2010 when investigators discovered remains along Ocean Parkway while searching for a missing sex worker named Shannan Gilbert, whose death was ultimately ruled an accidental drowning.
The hunt for the killer of the other women stalled for years before a reinvigorated investigation in 2022 identified Heuermann as a potential suspect. Detectives connected him to a pickup truck that a witness reported seeing around the time one of the victims disappeared in 2010.
A critical break came when DNA recovered from a pizza crust Heuermann had thrown away in a Manhattan trash can was matched to genetic material extracted from badly degraded hair fragments found on the victims’ remains.
Investigators also built a case using cellphone and location tracking data that showed Heuermann had arranged meetings with some of the victims shortly before they went missing.
Following his arrest, prosecutors in 2024 uncovered what they called a “blueprint” for the murders buried in his computer files. Among the documents was a set of checklists with notes reminding him to minimize noise, clean the bodies, and eliminate evidence.
As a condition of his guilty plea, Heuermann has agreed to work with the FBI’s behavioral analysis unit to assist in identifying other serial killers.
Since his arrest in July 2023, Heuermann has been held at the county jail in Riverhead. He will eventually serve his sentence at a state prison yet to be determined.
According to Suffolk County Sheriff Errol Toulon, who oversees the Riverhead jail, Heuermann has spent the past three years in a segregated cell, reading crime novels, receiving occasional visits from attorneys or family members, and briefly exchanging correspondence with the notorious “Happy Face Killer.”
