Rex Heuermann: Gilgo Beach serial killer receives life sentences

RIVERHEAD, N.Y. — Rex Heuermann, who pleaded guilty to murdering seven women and admitted killing an eighth woman in April, on Wednesday was sentenced to multiple terms of life in prison without the possibility of parole, The New York Times reported.

Suffolk County Judge Timothy Mazzei announced the sentence on Wednesday at the Arthur M. Cromarty Court Complex in Riverhead, New York.

“You’re a disgusting and small man, if you’re a man at all. You’re a coward,” Mazzei said before sentencing Heuermann. “All right, get him out of here.”

Prosecutors had sought three consecutive life sentences without parole on the first three counts against him, with four consecutive sentences of 25 years to life.

The judge obliged.

The sentence had been agreed to under the terms of a plea deal reached in April, the Times reported.

“I am responsible for all that was said in this room,” Heuermann, 62, told the court, according to News12 Long Island. “The words I say have no meaning.”

Heuermann, 62, was accused of being the Gilgo Beach serial killer who murdered the women -- mostly sex workers -- over a 17-year-period, The Associated Press reported.

He admitted to hiring the women as escorts, strangling them and leaving most of their bodies along Ocean Parkway, near Gilgo Beach on the South Shore of Long Island, the Times reported.

He initially pleaded not guilty and a trial had been scheduled for September, but in April he decided to plead guilty.

The investigation into the murders began in 2010 after police found human remains scattered on the South Shore beach highway at or near Gilgo Beach.

DNA and other evidence were used to identify the victims: Melissa Barthelemy, Maureen Brainard-Barnes, Amber Lynn Costello, Valerie Mack, Jessica Taylor and Megan Waterman, who were found along Ocean Parkway. The seventh woman, Sandra Costilla, was found in the Hamptons, about 60 miles away, the AP reported.

An eighth woman, Karen Vergata, was also identified, but Heuermann was not initially charged in her case. Vergata’s remains were found in 1996 on Fire Island and in 2011 near Gilgo Beach, according to the AP.

He admitted to killing Vergata during his guilty plea hearing, CBS News reported.

Asa Ellerup, who had filed for divorce days after her husband’s arrest but refused to denounce him, the Times reported. She recalled Heuermann’s confession during a docuseries that aired last year, “The Gilgo Beach Killer: House of Secrets.” She said in the series that her husband admitted to the murders, seven of which were carried out in the basement of their home in Massapequa Park, according to the newspaper.

Ellerup had been away on vacation at the time of the killings.

Family members of seven of the victims gave impact statements during Wednesday’s hearing, speaking for approximately 75 minutes in total, CNN reported. All of witnesses had pointed words for the defendant.

“(Heuermann) is a selfish, entitled man who felt like my sister and the others were his to destroy,” Danielle Mack, the sister of Valerie Mack, told the court.

The sister of Brainard-Barnes said she was the victim of “calculated, unimaginable evil.”

“That pain is unbearable,” Cann said. “I have lived with survivor’s guilt for over a decade … asking myself: ‘What if I had done something differently? Where would she be today?’

“It has taken me years to know the truth. My actions did not cause my sister’s death. The guilt is not mine to carry, and it never was. The burden belongs to Rex, and Rex alone.”

Taylor would have turned 43 on Wednesday. Her cousins called her “pure sunshine” and laced into Heuermann.

“You thought you took her voice, but you didn’t know that she had people who loved her,” Violet Swager said. “You hunted her, and I hunted you.”

Waterman’s daughter, Liliana Waterman, was 9 when her mother was killed, WABC reported. She recalled finding out about how her mother died while scrolling on her phone.

“In an instant my world shattered,” Liliana Waterman told the court. “I have spent 16 Mother’s Days without her.”

Heuermann was arrested in July 2023.

A new police commissioner created the Gilgo Beach task force in 2022. Within six weeks, Heuermann was named as a suspect. Police used a vehicle registration database that linked Heuermann to a pickup truck that a witness saw when one of the women disappeared in 2010.

A grand jury authorized more than 300 subpoenas and search warrants against Heuermann.

The investigation determined that Heuermann had contacted some of the women before their disappearances. Police also got his DNA from discarded pizza crusts, matching the DNA to a man’s hair found on burlap used to restrain one of the women.

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