Rex Heuermann, the Gilgo Beach serial killer suspect charged with murdering six women over a 31-year span, is scheduled to appear Wednesday in Suffolk County court for his latest pretrial hearing.
The 60-year-old architect from Massapequa Park has pleaded not guilty to the murders of four women known as the Gilgo Four found dead in 2010, a woman whose remains were scattered near Gilgo and in Manorville, and a woman found in the Hamptons in 1993. His attorney Michael Brown has said he is seeking to have the cases tried separately.
Heuermann has been held without bail at Suffolk County jail in Riverhead since he was arrested near his Manhattan office in July 2023, when he was charged with killing Megan Waterman, Amber Lynn Costello, and Melissa Barthelemy. In January, he was charged with the murder of the fourth Gilgo victim, Maureen Brainard-Barnes.
The Suffolk grand jury that indicted the suspect in those cases additionally indicted him in June on charges of murdering Jessica Taylor and Sandra Castilla. Taylor’s dismembered remains were found in Manorville in July 2003 and her skull and limbs were found near Cedar Beach in 2010 during an expanded search of the Gilgo sparked by the discovery of the Gilgo Four. Castilla was found brutally stabbed in a wooded area in North Sea near Sag Harbor.
Suffolk County District Attorney Raymon Tierney has said the Gilgo Beach Homicide Investigation Task Force is continuing to examine evidence in the murders of five other victims found dead in the Gilgo area. Tierney has said Heuermann is the prime suspect in the murder of Valerie Mack, whose remains were also found in Manorville in 2000 and near Gilgo in 2010.
Last month, investigators released an updated composite sketch of an unidentified Asian male victim found in 2010 in the brush off Ocean Parkway. Last year, prosecutors also revealed that authorities identified Karen Vergata, the victim who had been known as Fire Island Jane Doe. Her remains were found near Davis Park in 1996 and near Tobay Beach in 2010.
And the task force is continuing to investigate whether Heuermann may also be responsible for the murders of the unidentified victim known as Peaches, whose remains were found near Hempstead Lake State Park in 1997, and her daughter, who was found near Cedar Beach in 2010.