MASSAPEQUA PARK, Nassau County (WABC) — A man was charged Friday with first-degree murder in the deaths of three female victims of the so-called Gilgo Beach murders after a major break in a case that has shocked Long Islanders for more than 12 years.
Rex Heuermann is charged in the deaths of Melissa Barthelemy, Megan Waterman and Amber Costello, according to an indictment unsealed in Suffolk County Criminal Court.
Although he is not charged in Maureen Brainard-Barnes’ death, the indictment says Heuermann is the “prime suspect in her death.”
The four women he is linked to were found covered in burlap along a half-mile stretch of Ocean Parkway on Long Island’s South Shore in late 2010.
The group became known as the “Gilgo Four” after investigators determined their murders were linked.
The 59-year-old Massapequa Park man was arrested around 8:30 p.m. Thursday in Midtown Manhattan, in front of the office building where he works as an architect.
“This is a day that will be a long time coming, and hopefully a day that will bring peace to this community and families, peace that has been long overdue,” said New York Governor Kathy Hochul, during an unrelated appearance in Long. island
On Friday morning, crime lab officers were seen entering Heuermann’s home as a large police presence, led by Suffolk County Police, New York State Police and other enforcement partners of the law they maintained a perimeter.
The house belonged to a family that had kept it for a long time, said neighbors, who noted that the dilapidated property looked out of place among the rows of single-family homes and manicured lawns in the small community.
Their murders, along with the deaths of eight others, have long gone unsolved.
Shannan Gilbert’s disappearance in 2010 sparked the manhunt that exposed the biggest mystery. A 24-year-old sex worker disappeared after walking out of a client’s home in the waterfront community of Oak Beach and disappeared into the marsh.
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