After more than a decade of investigating serial discoveries of the bodies of prostitutes near the beaches of Long Island, east of New York, a suspect has been arrested and charged with the murders of three of the prostitutes.
Introduced in court Friday, the suspect, Rex Heuermann, a 59-year-old New York architect, was charged and pleaded not guilty to the 2009 and 2010 murders of Melissa Barthelemy, Megan Waterman and Amber Costello, while serving as suspect number one in the murder of a fourth, Maureen Brainard-Barnes, according to a court document from the Suffolk County prosecutor’s office.
According to the US media, this father was arrested on Thursday night near his offices in Manhattan, while his residence was being searched, in the town of Massapequa Park, which is near the beaches where the victims were found.
Victims from 22 to 27 years old
The victims, discovered within a radius of less than 500 meters, were sex workers between the ages of 22 and 27. They were all found “in the same position, tied in the same way or by belts or ribbons, and three of them wrapped in burlap-type material,” prosecutor Ray Tierney explained during an emergency conference.
The case began with the May 2010 report of the disappearance of a 24-year-old prostitute from neighboring New Jersey, Shannon Gilbert, for whom Rex Heuermann is not being prosecuted.
In total, the remains of eleven human bodies, nine women, one man and one girl, were found between 2010 and 2011 along the beaches of Gilgo Beach, Oak Beach, in brambles located between the sand and the road, between the dunes. . These discoveries scared the local population and kept the police in check for years.
The suspect betrayed by his vehicle
According to the court document, the investigation focused on the architect in 2022 after a vehicle a victim had been seen in at the time of her disappearance was found to be registered in his name.
From there, investigators discovered DNA and phone evidence against the suspect.
According to the prosecutor, Rex Heuermann also conducted hundreds of Internet searches about the investigation, asking questions such as “Why wasn’t the Long Island serial killer arrested?” Pornographic images of torture were also found on his computer, the prosecutor said.
Source: BFM TV
