Co-worker: Rex Heuermann once unnerved her by tracking her down on a cruise:

This story initially aired on Sept. 16, 2023. It was up to date on June 15, 2024.

Not removed from a quiet stretch of Gilgo Beach on Long Island, New York, investigators uncovered the hidden remains of 4 younger girls. The thriller of who they have been and the way they received right here might need stayed a secret if not for a girl named Shannan Gilbert.

FINDING THE GILGO FOUR

In the early morning hours of May 1, 2010, 23-year-old Shannan Gilbert, working as an escort, called 911.

911 OPERATOR: State Police.

SHANNAN GILBERT: Yeah, there’s any person after me.

The name got here from a neighborhood not removed from Gilgo Beach.

SHANNAN GILBERT (to 911): These persons are making an attempt to kill me. 

Shannan begins operating, knocking on doorways.

911 OPERATOR: Where are you, Shannan?

She screams. And then, nothing. Shannan was gone.

911 OPERATOR: Hello? Hello?

Dominick Varrone: Okay-9 … searched the realm … exhaustively for Shannan Gilbert.

Dominick Varrone was chief of detectives on the Suffolk County Police Department. Months handed with out a signal of the lacking girl. Then, in December 2010 close to Gilgo Beach, a police officer and his Okay-9 named Blue discovered human stays.

Dominick Varrone:  Everyone assumed it was Shannan Gilbert.

But it wasn’t Shannan. Stunned searchers would go on to find the stays of 4 different girls. The girls have been recognized as Maureen Brainard-Barnes, Melissa Barthelemy, Megan Waterman and Amber Costello. Like Shannan, all have been of their 20s. All have been on-line escorts. All petite. Three of the 4 have been wrapped in burlap — the type yow will discover in looking shops. They turned often called the Gilgo Four.

Missy Cann: It’s actually, actually arduous. …’Cause I miss her a lot.

“48 Hours” has reported on this case since 2010. Over the years, we have secured unique interviews with the household and buddies of the Gilgo Four. Missy Cann will always remember the wintry day when she received the devastating information.

Missy Cann: The detectives got here to my home and simply mentioned that Maureen has been positively recognized as one of many victims on Ocean Parkway.

Her sister, Maureen Brainard-Barnes, a mom of two, was the primary to vanish, on July 9, 2007.

Missy Cann: She was very sensible and really artistic.

Erin Moriarty: She appreciated being a mother? 

Missy Cann: She cherished being a mother.

But life as a single mother residing in Norwich, Connecticut, was tough. Cann did not understand it, however Maureen had turned to escort work, and that July went to New York City for a weekend to earn cash. On her method residence, she known as Missy from Penn Station in midtown Manhattan.

Missy Cann: I may hear the commotion … from the practice station. … From the time that she known as me, it was poof. She was gone.

She reported Maureen lacking. Eventually, officers would inform Cann that after her sister’s disappearance, somebody had used Maureen’s cellular phone to make a name from Long Island. It wasn’t recognized then, however these two areas – Long Island and midtown Manhattan – would develop into essential clues within the hunt for a serial killer.

Nearly two years to the day that Maureen vanished, 24-year-old Melissa Barthelemy went lacking in July 2009 – additionally from midtown Manhattan. Lynn Barthelemy is Melissa’s mom.

Erin Moriarty: How typically do you consider Melissa? 

Lynn Barthelemy: Every single minute of the day. … And It simply did not occur to the ladies. I imply it destroyed all of our households.

Melissa moved from Buffalo to New York City to work as a hairdresser. At some level, she additionally started working as an escort after which disappeared. About a week after she went lacking, Melissa’s then-15-year-old sister, Amanda, began getting calls from Melissa’s telephone.

Steven Cohen: And she solutions, you already know, “Melissa, where have you been?” … And this voice is saying, “Oh, this isn’t Melissa.”

Steven Cohen was the household’s lawyer on the time. 

Steven Cohen: He … was taunting Amanda … and he mentioned, “Do you know what I did to your sister?” …  “I killed Melissa.”

Lynn Barthelemy: All I can say is he is sick. And he’ll make a mistake. And we will catch him. 

Those calls from Melissa’s personal telephone might very effectively have been that mistake. When police traced them, the calls positioned the individual they believed to be Melissa’s killer in midtown Manhattan.

The following yr, Megan Waterman, the mom of a 3-year-old woman, disappeared from a lodge on Long Island.

Liliana Waterman: Part of you is, like, lacking. It’s simply, like, one thing’s at all times off.

“48 Hours” spoke with Megan’s daughter, Liliana, in 2020.

Liliana Waterman: I might do something to convey her again, however I can not and it simply, like, frustrates me so unhealthy.

Megan’s household says the 22-year-old was a artistic, however troubled, younger girl who cherished trend and was dedicated to her daughter. 

Erin Moriarty: What would you say to your mother when you may? 

Liliana Waterman: I might simply need to inform her that, like, I really like her. … I simply need her to know, like, she has a particular place in my coronary heart, nobody can ever substitute her.

Like the opposite two girls, Megan disappeared in the summertime. On June 6, 2010, she was working as an escort on Long Island.

Liliana Waterman: No matter what her job was … she was a individual … and … she wants justice.

Haunting video from a Holiday Inn Express is the final time she was seen alive — moments earlier than she went to satisfy a consumer. Cellphone information later positioned her telephone in a Long Island neighborhood known as Massapequa Park.

Amber Costello was the final of the Gilgo Four to vanish. She lived seven-and-a-half miles from Massapequa Park.

Dave Schaller: She used to say she was 4’11”, but she wasn’t. She was like 4’9″, you already know. I imply, she was small.

Amber’s good friend and former roommate, Dave Schaller, spoke with “48 Hours” in 2011.

Dave Schaller: She was a tremendous individual, she actually was.

He says Amber was hooked on medicine and used intercourse work to help her behavior.

Dave Schaller: But as wonderful as she was, was as tormented as she was.

After Amber disappeared, police say Schaller instructed them about her purchasers. He described considered one of them as trying like an “ogre” and having “a first-generation Chevrolet Avalanche.” On the night time she went lacking, Schaller says, a consumer supplied Amber $1,500 for the night time – six instances her hourly price.

Dave Schaller: This man was so relentless. … He known as a number of instances. He was on the telephone with her for fairly a whereas every time. 

He says the consumer received Amber, an skilled escort, to do one thing she by no means did: depart with out her purse or cellphone and meet him in his automobile.

Dave Schaller: I walked out the entrance door with her. She – she gave me a hug. … She’s like, “I love ya.” And she left.

It was practically midnight. Schaller says that when Amber left their home, she walked down the road and he by no means noticed her once more.

Schaller instructed “48 Hours” that he did not see the consumer’s face that night time however suspects he had seen him earlier than.

Erin Moriarty: So, that is a man you might need seen? 

Dave Schaller: Yeah, that is any person that I seen. … I could be the — one of many solely individuals who is aware of who he’s.

It can be greater than a decade earlier than Schaller’s description would result in a break within the case — and a prime suspect.

WHO IS REX HEUERMANN?

Muriel Henriquez: My co-worker known as me and … she mentioned, “Did you hear what happened to Rex?” And I’m like, “no.”

NEWS REPORT: A New York City architect charged with homicide.

Muriel Henriquez: She says, “It’s Rex.” I mentioned, “No way.”

NEWS REPORT: This home was a essential focus they usually introduced out a lot of proof.

Mary Shell: I simply did not assume it was actual.

Mary Shell: I even thought to myself, “it’s crazy that there’s two Rex Heuermann’s out there.”

Mary Shell and Muriel Henriquez labored with Rex Heuermann and could not wrap their heads across the information.

Muriel Henriquez: We by no means thought he can be that sort of individual.

Mary Shell: It’s surprising.

In July 2023, practically 13 years after the Gilgo Four have been found, Suffolk County police commissioner Rodney Harrison made the announcement: authorities imagine Rex Heuermann is the Long Island serial killer.

RODNEY HARRISON (information convention): Rex Heuermann is a demon that walks amongst us, a predator that ruined households.

The man he calls a demon is a six-foot-four architect. He’s charged with killing Melissa Barthelemy, Megan Waterman and Amber Costello. And he’s the prime suspect within the loss of life of Maureen Brainard-Barnes.

MICHAEL BROWN | REX HEUERMANN’S LAWYER (to reporters): What has my consumer instructed me? He instructed me he did not do that.

Heuermann was residing about 20 minutes from Gilgo Beach, in Massapequa Park. It’s the exact same city the place Megan’s telephone final related with a cell tower. And Heuermann labored at his architectural agency in Midtown Manhattan, simply blocks from the place Maureen disappeared. The similar space the place a number of of the threatening calls to Melissa’s little sister have been made.

NEWS CONFERENCE: The explanation for loss of life with regard to the three victims is homicidal violence.

A married man, Heuermann lived in a run-down home, and has a daughter and stepson along with his second spouse, Asa Ellerup. Ellerup, who was born in Iceland, would take the kids to see her household there within the summers. It was throughout these journeys and others, police imagine, that Heuermann killed the ladies.

Erin Moriarty: You by no means received any sort of trace of one other life?

Muriel Henriquez: No, no.

Muriel Henriquez labored at Heuermann’s firm, RH Consultants & Associates, and spoke solely to “48 Hours.” She recalled a reward he gave her in the summertime of 2007.

Muriel Henriquez (holding sweater): This is a sweater he requested his spouse to convey again from a journey to Iceland.

Henriquez, who says she was touched on the time by Heuermann’s considerate gesture, now wonders if his spouse’s absence that summer season gave him a chance to kill Maureen Brainard-Barnes, who disappeared on July 9, 2007.

Erin Moriarty: How do you are feeling about this sweater now?

Muriel Henriquez: No, I’m positively not going to put on the sweater now.

Still, she says she noticed nothing alarming concerning the Rex Heuermann she noticed every day.

Muriel Henriquez: A little bit little bit of a nerd in a method. … he appreciated to speak about himself, what he knew … not a narcissist, however a little little bit of a, you already know, I do know the whole lot sort of man.

Erin Moriarty: Pompous.

Muriel Henriquez: Pompous.

She remembers him operating to and from job websites consuming quick meals on the run.

Muriel Henriquez: Pizza. That was his primary factor.

When she heard that police had recovered virtually 300 firearms from a vault in Heuermann’s basement, she was stunned solely by the quantity. She knew him as an avid hunter.

Muriel Henriquez: Going out capturing, looking, that was his ardour.

Erin Moriarty: What was it about looking he appreciated?

Muriel Henriquez: I do not know. I suppose — I suppose it was like, he — he appreciated the concept of getting a prize.

Erin Moriarty: Stalking prey?

Muriel Henriquez: Stalking prey and profitable. He appreciated to win.

And whereas she says it by no means occurred to her that Heuermann might be harmful, she does bear in mind a time when his tracking abilities unnerved her. It was her fortieth birthday and she or he had booked a cruise trip.

Muriel Henriquez: “Where are you going?” I mentioned, “I’m going to — you know, I’m going to be in the middle of the ocean. You’re not going to find me in the middle of the ocean.” … He mentioned,” Oh, yes, I can.”

Henriquez did not assume a lot of the remark, till the second day of her journey.

Muriel Henriquez: There was a white envelope underneath my door … it was a notice from him. The notice mentioned, “I told you I could find you anywhere.”

Mary Shell: He had pictures from looking journeys.

Mary Shell was simply out of artwork college in the summertime of 2010 when she labored for Heuermann. It was the identical summer season that each Megan Waterman and Amber Costello vanished.

Mary Shell: He would speak concerning the meat … specifically that bear meat may preserve within the freezer for months.

Hearing authorities now say a number of the victims have been wrapped in a burlap that hunters typically use was chilling.

Mary Shell: The burlap actually received to me.

Since Heuermann’s arrest, Mary has written about her expertise with him. She’s additionally talked to different former feminine staff who mentioned they weren’t at all times handled with respect.

Mary Shell: He would have considered one of them, uh, clear the bathroom if he thought the cleansing individual hadn’t achieved a ok job.

Erin Moriarty: A lady within the workplace?

Mary Shell: Yes. Mm-hmm. … he — greater than once commented on girls’s our bodies … if somebody maybe had gained some weight, you already know, that sort of — that sort of factor.

John Parisi grew up with Heuermann. He says Heuermann was bullied as a baby.

John Parisi: I bear in mind assembly Rex after I was in first or second grade. … he was a loner, not many buddies. … The kids have been tremendous imply to him … made enjoyable of him and teased him.

But Parisi says he by no means noticed Heuermann combat again.

John Parisi: He was sufficiently big that if he received upset and began swinging, he would harm any person. But he by no means did.

As Heuermann received older, John factors out, issues did not get a lot better.

John Parisi: He was rejected by many women. … all of us undergo that awkward stage rising up, and it appeared like that awkward stage stayed with him longer than normal.

Still, he says, many in the neighborhood discover it arduous to imagine that Heuermann is the infamous serial killer residing a double life for greater than a decade.

John Parisi: People … have been saying, oh my God, I can not imagine now we have a serial killer in our city, and we grew up with, and we walked amongst the killer.

Another classmate of Heuermann’s, actor Billy Baldwin, took to social media when the information broke, tweeting it was “Mind-boggling.”

The awkward Long Island teenager grew as much as be a assured and seemingly profitable architect. Antoine Amira met and interviewed him in 2022.

REX HEUERMANN (“L’Interview”): Born and raised on Long Island … then working in Manhattan since 1987.

Antoine Amira: There’s nothing in my interview that made me assume that this individual in entrance of me is a harmful individual.

Amira is a lodge meals and beverage supervisor in New York who loves actual property. He has a YouTube interview present known as “L’Interview”the place he handpicks visitors whom he thinks are attention-grabbing and completed.

Amira says Heuermann was well-known for his talent at serving to firms and people get constructing permits.

REX HEUERMANN (“L’Interview”): I’m an architect, and architectural guide, a troubleshooter.

REX HEUERMANN: When a job that ought to have been routine all of the sudden turns into not routine, I get the telephone name.

ANTOINE AMIRA: Gotcha.

Antoine Amira: What actually, uh, uh, stood out for me was that he — he was very, very, very sensible.

And recognized, says Amira, for his capability to seek out loopholes within the guidelines.

Antoine Amira: He was happy when he was doing it.

Erin Moriarty: That he may —

Antoine Amira: That he — may outwit the — the system.

But Amira says he remembers it was arduous to get Heuermann to crack a smile. Not even in the course of the signature sun shades selfies he takes with each visitor.

ANTOINE AMIRA (YouTube interview present): That’s it, of us. That was Rex.

ANTOINE AMIRA: It’s. Selfie time. Can you smile?

REX HEUERMANN: That is.

If police are proper, Rex Heuerman was capable of disguise a life as a serial killer — and if he did, his behavior of consuming pizza on the go would turn into his undoing.

CONNECTING THE CLUES

For greater than a decade after the invention of the Gilgo Four, Rex Heuermann’s identify by no means appeared on a suspect checklist till a new process power was shaped with Suffolk County police commissioner Rodney Harrison and Suffolk County D.A. Ray Tierney.

Ray Tierney: In February of 2022 we shaped the duty power … after which a mere six weeks later … Rex Heuermann was recognized for the primary time.

A suspect in six weeks? So how did they do it? It seems that buried within the unique case recordsdata have been a variety of critical clues that the brand new process power was lastly capable of join. Remember Amber’s roommate Dave Schaller?

Dave Schaller:  She’s like, “I love you.”  You know, she gave me a hug. … And she left.

He had instructed police about considered one of Amber’s purchasers and his automobile.

Ray Tierney: Just a giant, constructed man … and that, he was driving this, this first-generation Chevy Avalanche.

A primary-generation Chevy Avalanche. With a description of an ogre-like man, and the make and mannequin of his truck, police took a nearer have a look at Amber’s telephone information from 2010. Schaller had instructed them that earlier than Amber disappeared, there was one explicit consumer calling incessantly.

Dave Schaller: He known as a number of instances. He was on the telephone with her for fairly a whereas every time.

Police again then knew the consumer was utilizing a burner telephone. That’s a pay as you go telephone that anybody should buy and use anonymously. And they knew that Maureen, Melissa and Megan had all been in touch with burner numbers proper earlier than they disappeared.

In 2012, with the assistance of the FBI, they decided that the majority of these calls related to cell towers inside a small space of Massapequa Park. They known as it “the box.”

Erin Moriarty: So how giant an space is that field?

Ray Tierney: It’s, you already know, a couple of blocks inside — inside Massapequa Park.

The new process power started the seek for a large-built man who additionally lived in that small space and owned a Chevy Avalanche on the time of the disappearances.

Erin Moriarty: Was there a “aha!” second when, all of a sudden, his identify got here up?

Rodney Harrison: Once we have been capable of connect the … Avalanche inside that Massapequa field, which then connected to Rex Heuermann, that was a second the place we mentioned, OK, there’s one thing right here.

The process power now had a prime suspect. And after they checked out Heuermann’s private cellphone information, they discovered that his telephone was in the identical space as these burner telephones after they have been used to contact a sufferer in Massapequa Park or in midtown Manhattan.

RAY TIERNEY (at information convention): it was at all times constant.

Tierney says this was additionally true for these terrible calls Melissa’s household received from that man utilizing her telephone again in 2009.

Steve Cohen: He mentioned, “Do you know what I did to your sister?” … and he mentioned …  “Well, I killed Melissa.” 

The process power says that it confirmed that Heuermann does in truth use burner telephones. Investigators say he had two totally different burner numbers in 2022, they usually say they watched him put cash on a type of accounts at a cellphone retailer in Midtown Manhattan.

And in response to court docket papers, the group additionally documented three electronic mail accounts utilizing pretend names, together with John Springfield, Thomas Hawk and Hunter1903a3, and all linked to these burner numbers. And prosecutors say that Heuermann was utilizing a burner telephone to ship these selfies to “solicit and arrange for sexual activity.”

One of these accounts linked to Heuermann, prosecutors wrote, was used to conduct “thousands of searches related to sex workers, sadistic, torture-related pornography and child pornography.”

RAY TIERNEY (at information convention): There was a lot of torture, porn, and … depictions of girls, being abused, being raped, and being killed.

Investigators additionally say that whereas they have been busy watching Heuermann, Heuermann was making an attempt to look at them — conducting searches on the duty power and the Gilgo victims.

RAY TIERNEY (at information convention): Not solely footage of the victims, footage of their family members … their sisters, their kids, and he was making an attempt to find these people.

The circumstantial proof was constructing, however investigators additionally had bodily proof from the Gilgo Four—together with one male hair that was discovered within the burlap used to “restrain and transport” Megan Waterman’s physique. They needed to see if they may hyperlink it to Heuermann.

Police tailed Heuermann, and when he threw out a pizza box in a trash can in midtown Manhattan — they pounced.

Ray Tierney: The pizza, which was … clearly very vital.

Tierney says that Heuermann’s DNA that was discovered on that pizza crust was per a DNA profile from the hair discovered with Megan Waterman’s physique, and that DNA profile is barely present in .04 p.c of the inhabitants.

Ray Tierney: That was a exceptional day. It was, you already know, the weekend and, you already know, you learn, you get the report and also you learn it and then you definitely learn it once more, and then you definitely learn it a third time and then you definitely learn it a fourth time, and then you definitely begin making calls.

With the DNA, the search histories and the burner telephone evidence, the group felt it was time.

Ray Tierney: When we determined to take down the case, we, you already know, it was a sudden choice. … We did see him contacting a quantity — of intercourse employees … utilizing a burner telephone, which clearly is regarding.

Plainclothes officers arrested him across the nook from his workplace.

Rodney Harrison: I do not assume he had any clue. I do not assume he had any clue that we have been onto him.

Police spent 12 days trying by means of Heuermann’s residence, pulling these weapons out of the basement, and digging within the yard. They say it’s going to take a while to comb by means of what they’ve now, they usually have been tight lipped about what they discovered.

REPORTER 1 (at information convention): Has the search been fruitful?

RODNEY HARRISON: Great query and the answer is sure. 

REPORTER 2: … Can you elaborate on fruitful? You mentioned sure, it is fruitful.

RODNEY HARRISON: There have been objects that now we have taken into our possession, that makes it fruitful. 

And yet one more massive piece of proof taken into possession: a first-generation Chevy Avalanche Heuermann once used. It was sitting on property he owns in South Carolina after they recovered it.

RAY TIERNEY (at information convention): We have been capable of seize that Chevy Avalanche pursuant to a search warrant. And we’re actually going to research that.

But there have been feminine hairs discovered on a number of the sufferer’s our bodies that do not belong to the victims. So, who do they belong to?

THE FAMILY OF A SUSPECTED SERIAL KILLER

After Rex Heuermann’s arrest, his quiet neighborhood in Massapequa Park was overrun by investigators and media, focusing intense scrutiny on the ramshackle residence and its remaining residents: his stepson, Christopher Sheridan; daughter, Victoria Heuermann, and his spouse greater than 25 years, Asa Ellerup.

Bob Macedonio: So, their life going ahead is at all times gonna be the spouse or the kids of (a) suspected serial killer. That’s what it is gonna be from now on.

Attorney Bob Macedonio represents Ellerup, who has since filed for divorce from Heuermann. He says she was as surprised as anybody by the accusations.

Bob Macedonio: She had no concept any of this was going on … The allegations are surprising. Nobody needs to assume that they have been residing with, sleeping subsequent to a serial killer for the previous 25 years.

As it seems, Ellerup might have inadvertently helped focus the investigation on her husband. Investigators say they’ve recognized strands of feminine hair that have been discovered on two of the victims.

D.A. Ray Tierney | Suffolk County: One hair on Waterman … comes again to his spouse, or the DNA profiles are constant. And then … the DNA profile from Costello is per … the spouse.

Although prosecutors have proof that Ellerup was out of city when these murders occurred, they should clarify how these hairs received on the victims. Suffolk County D.A. Ray Tierney says it might be so simple as switch.

Ray Tierney: You reside at residence with a partner a little little bit of your hair falls on your shoulder, in addition to your partner’s. Then you exit and also you work together with the third get together and that hair will get on them.

Ellerup has not been charged or named a suspect in any of the murders.

Erin Moriarty: You do not imagine that Rex Heuermann’s spouse was concerned on this in any method?

Ray Tierney: There’s no proof to point that. No.

Along with the general public scrutiny of Ellerup, there has additionally been help from people who maybe know all too effectively what she’s going by means of. Kerri Rawson, the daughter of serial killer Dennis Rader, who named himself BTK, tweeted: “Asa and her kids are also victims.”

MELISSA MOORE (at information convention): I can inform that they’re going by means of hell.

And from Melissa Moore, the daughter of Keith Jesperson — a serial killer often called the “Happy Face Killer” for taunting authorities with letters signed with a comfortable face.

BOB MACEDONIO (at information convention): She reached out instantly to myself and we put her in touch with Asa.

At a information convention, Macedonio introduced Moore arrange a GoFundMe web page for Ellerup, which raised over $50,000. It is cash he says will largely go to medical payments — Asa is battling breast and pores and skin most cancers. And as a result of Rex Heuermann was the only supplier for the household, Macedonio says she’s going to quickly lose her medical health insurance.

BOB MACEDONIO (at information convention): Asa would love me to precise her thanks for the help she has obtained. Um, she goes by means of a very tough time.

Ellerup’s kids have additionally paid a heavy worth. Her daughter, Victoria, who labored for her father on the architectural consulting agency, and her son, Christopher, are each now unemployed. Ellerup struggles to help them, says Macedonio, whereas she’s additionally making an attempt to determine begin over.

Erin Moriarty: How is she getting by means of each day?

Bob Macedonio: Honestly?

Erin Moriarty: Yeah.

Bob Macedonio: Minute by minute. … She has nobody else to show into at the moment. … Family and buddies have been hesitant to have her come over as a result of they do not need the media consideration. She will get adopted wherever she goes.

For the second, she and her kids proceed to reside in the home in Massapequa Park, which the household says was excessively broken throughout the police search. It’s a every day reminder of the unimaginable crimes her estranged husband is charged with and the investigation that continues into what else he might have achieved.

THE ONE WHO GOT AWAY?

Rex Heuermann, awaiting trial, is locked inside a Suffolk County jail in a 60-square-foot cell. He denies killing Melissa Barthelemy, Megan Waterman, and Amber Costello — their voices now silent because the sand the place they’d been ruthlessly discarded.

Erin Moriarty: How positive are you as you are sitting right here now that Rex Heuermann is the Long Island serial killer?

Ray Tierney: So, we’re simply initially stage of this case … however we’d not have introduced this indictment if we weren’t assured in our case.

Rodney Harrison: He took away any person’s mom, any person’s daughter, any person’s sister — not only one individual, a number of people.

Heuermann is at present the prime suspect for the homicide of Maureen Brainard-Barnes.

And for investigators, an apparent query nonetheless hangs heavy: if Heuermann is a killer, are there different victims? 

Erin Moriarty: I imply, is not there a actual concern that there could also be different victims on the market?

Ray Tierney: Always.

Rodney Harrison: Who’s to say there’s no more our bodies on the market that we have to examine?

In 2011, police did discover different our bodies alongside Ocean Parkway after discovering the Gilgo Four.

There is sufferer quantity 5, Jessica Taylor – an escort who went lacking in 2003.

• Another set of stays police known as “Jane Doe # 6” is now recognized as Valerie Mack, additionally working as an escort.
• Number 7: To investigators’ shock they discovered a toddler woman.
• Number 8: An Asian male wearing girls’s clothes.
• Number 9: A feminine cranium belonging to Karen Vergata, an escort who disappeared in 1996.
• Number 10: Female stays from a sufferer cops nicknamed Peaches due to a tattoo on her torso.  Although her stays have been discovered six miles away, police say DNA confirms Peaches is the mom of that toddler.

None of these victims have been linked to Heuermann.

Erin Moriarty: Is it that you could’t join him but, otherwise you imagine he in all probability is not the one that killed these different people?

Rodney Harrison: I do not know.

Investigations unfold to Las Vegas and South Carolina, the place Heuermann owns property, with detectives there taking a contemporary have a look at circumstances of lacking girls.

And then there may be Nikkie Brass.

Nikkie Brass: I remembered him as a result of one, he is huge. And what number of huge, like 6-foot, 5 architects work in Manhattan and reside in Massapequa?

Now a hairdresser, Brass claims she could also be one which received away. She instructed us she used to work as an escort. And whereas “48 Hours” can not substantiate her story, Brass claims she will be able to’t shake her reminiscence of the night time she says she was solicited for intercourse by Rex Heuermann, and says she fled the restaurant the place they met.

Nikkie Brass: I had by no means gone anyplace and like felt, worry. My intestine was telling me I wanted to get away and I by no means had that earlier than.

Brass says what she discovered most annoying is that Heuermann himself introduced up these our bodies sure in burlap by Gilgo Beach.

Nikkie Brass: He needed to, like, actually get into it. Like, he requested me how I believed they may do away with the our bodies with out being caught in that space. And I mentioned, like, I’ve by no means been over there. … I’ve by no means even seen Gilgo Beach. … And his response was, effectively, it is actually darkish and desolate.

Brass is now represented by John Ray, an legal professional who can be representing Shannan Gilbert’s household. In December 2011, investigators lastly discovered Shannan within the marsh not removed from Gilgo Beach. But they do not imagine she was murdered.

Rodney Harrison: It’s an unlucky incident, however proper now we imagine that she simply bumped into the marsh and sadly drowned.

A former investigator instructed us that he believes Shannan was excessive on medicine that night time and says her loss of life was an accident — one thing John Ray simply cannot imagine. While he would not assume Shannan was a sufferer of Heuermann, he does imagine she was murdered and factors to that 911 name.

John Ray (December 2013): It makes completely no sense that she’s discovered the place she is, besides that another person put her there, or killed her there.

While questions stay about Shannan’s final hours, there is not any query she’s the explanation so many households might lastly be getting solutions they’ve lengthy waited for. “48 Hours” spoke to her sister, Sherre Gilbert, in 2011.

Sherre Gilbert: Yeah, if my sister, you already know, did not make that 911 name … I do not assume that these different girls would have been recovered but

Now investigators hope that with an arrest they may give the sufferer’s households, who stood with them, a sense of justice and of peace.

Ray Tierney: I’ve gotten to know the households and I’m impressed by them, and I’m impressed by their endurance.

A neighborhood legend has it that Gilgo Beach was named for a expert fisherman known as Gil, the silver-gray waters once his secret looking floor.  Today, this seashore space is best recognized for a relentless hunter of human prey — a serial killer, whose chilling presence can nonetheless be felt within the ocean air.

On Jan. 16, 2024, six months after his arrest, Rex Heuermann was charged with the homicide of Maureen Brainard-Barnes. 

On June 6, 2024, Heuermann was charged with the 1993 murder of Sandra Costilla and the 2003 homicide of Jessica Taylor.  

 He has pleaded not responsible to all fees.  

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Produced by Betsy Shuller, Mary Ann Rotondi, Lauren A. White, Sarah Prior, Richard Fetzer and James Stolz. Gregory McLaughlin is the producer-editor. Sara Ely Hulse, Michelle Fanucci, Elena DiFiore, David Dow and Cindy Cesare  are the event producers. Charlotte A. Fuller, Anthony Venditti and Shaheen Tokhi  are the sphere producers. Atticus Brady, Doreen Schechter, Marlon Disla, Grayce Arlotta-Berner, Marcus Balsum  and Michael Vele  are the editors. Morgan Canty and Dylan Gordon are the affiliate producers. Patti Aronofsky and Lourdes Aguiar are the senior producers. Nancy Kramer is the chief story editor. Judy Tygard is the chief producer.