RIVERHEAD, N.Y. (AP) — After decades waiting for justice, relatives of women murdered by New York’s Gilgo Beach serial killer laid into him Wednesday before he was sentenced to life in prison. He told them: “I am responsible” for the crimes.
“The words I would say would have no meaning,” added Rex Heuermann, the Long Island architect who lived a secret life of violence for years before admitting he killed eight women.
The sentencing capped an extraordinary investigation that solved one of New York’s most perplexing mysteries. The seemingly unconnected and largely overlooked disappearances of young women became the focus of true-crime documentaries, books and podcasts after police began discovering the victims’ skeletal remains in the sandy scrub along a coastal parkway.
Heuermann, 62, will have no possibility of parole.
“A million years isn’t enough,” Jasmine Robinson, a cousin of victim Jessica Taylor, said. “Nothing will ever make this right.”
“You fill me with so much repugnance, I can’t stand it,” she added.
Judge calls Heuermann ‘despicable’
As a series of victims' kin spoke, Heuermann sat with his hands on the defense table, looking straight ahead and lightly tapping his fingers.
Then Amanda Funderburg, victim Melissa Barthelemy's sister, commanded Heuermann to look at her. He glanced in her direction, but his eyes were slightly downcast.
“I hope you suffer,” Funderburg said as she recounted a taunting phone call she received from him days after Barthelemy disappeared. Funderburg was 15 years old.
JoAnn Mack, the mother of victim Valerie Mack, told the killer that her daughter “had dreams, and you took them all away from her.”
“Justice has been done, but it can’t replace what has been taken,” Mack said.
Heuermann pleaded guilty in April to charges that he murdered seven women: Barthelemy, Mack, Taylor, Megan Waterman, Amber Lynn Costello, Maureen Brainard-Barnes, and Sandra Costilla.
Heuermann also admitted in court to killing an eighth victim, Karen Vergata, though he was never charged in her death. He said he strangled his victims, many of them sex workers, and dismembered some of their bodies.
“Are you at least a little sorry?” Judge Timothy Mazzei asked Wednesday in an indignant voice.
Heuermann nodded and appeared to mouth “yes.”
“You are disgusting — a despicable man, if you are a man at all,” the judge said, his voice rising. “And you are a coward.”
As Heuermann was led away in handcuffs, spectators in the packed courtroom jeered.
Victims' families recount a confounding loss
Liliana Waterman, who was 3 when her mom vanished, said she has been waiting her entire life to confront her mother’s killer.
“She can finally rest in peace,” Waterman said outside the courthouse. “He can’t hurt anybody else.”
Most of the women disappeared between 2000 and 2010 and their remains were all found on Long Island. Most were along Ocean Parkway near Gilgo Beach. Costilla’s remains were found in 1993 in the Hamptons, while Vergata’s remains were found in 1996 on Fire Island.
Brainard-Barnes’ two children, who were 7 and 1 when she disappeared in 2007, underscored Wednesday how her absence shaped their lives and how she never got to know the adults they became.
Her sister, Melissa Cann, sobbed deeply as she described wondering for decades if she could have done more to protect Brainard-Barnes. But, she said, that guilt is “not mine to carry. It is for Rex and Rex alone.”
Heuermann’s ex-wife and two adult children said they did not attend the sentencing out of respect for the victim’s families.
How the Gilgo Beach serial killer was caught
The case spilled into view in 2010, when investigators started to find remains along Ocean Parkway while looking into the disappearance of another sex worker, Shannan Gilbert, whose death was ultimately ruled an accidental drowning.
The case went cold until 2022, when detectives linked Heuermann to a pickup truck that a witness reported seeing when one of the victims disappeared in 2010.
Eventually, they matched DNA from a pizza crust Heuermann discarded in a Manhattan trash can to genetic material extracted from highly degraded hair fragments found on the women’s remains.
Investigators amassed other evidence, including cellphone and tracking data showing Heuermann arranged meetings with some victims shortly before their disappearances.
After Heuermann's 2023 arrest, prosecutors recovered what they described as a “blueprint” for the killings from his computer files. Among the documents was a series of checklists with reminders to limit noise, clean the bodies and destroy evidence.
Life behind bars
Heuermann will soon be transferred to a state prison after having spent the past three years alone in a segregated cell at the Suffolk County jail, reading crime novels and striking up a brief correspondence with the infamous “Happy Face Killer.”
Calling him “a monster,” Suffolk County District Attorney Ray Tierney declared there was nothing Heuermann could say to mitigate his deeds.
“There is no doubt this defendant is sorry,” Tierney said. “He is sorry he got caught.”
Defense lawyer Michael Brown said Heuermann has shed tears, and there may be “some sincerity in his expressions of remorse.” His client appeared “as normal as they come” during their interactions, Brown said, in stark contrast with his crimes.
“He’s somewhat of a charismatic figure when you talk to him,” Brown said.
As part of his guilty plea, Heuermann has agreed to cooperate with the FBI’s behavioral analysis unit to help catch other serial killers.
Peltz reported from New York.
