A rare multiple shooting in the center of Auckland just hours before the opening of the Women’s World Cup has put security officials on edge as tens of thousands gather in the city to watch New Zealand play Norway in the first game of the tournament.
New Zealand Prime Minister Chris Hipkins outlined details of the attack in a hastily called news conference, confirming that three people had died – including the gunman – and several others were injured.
Emergency services rushed to the city’s central business district just after 7 a.m. local time Thursday, after reports that a man armed with a pump action shotgun had opened fire on a construction site, he said.
“He moved through the building site discharging the firearm as he went,” Hipkins said. “Upon reaching the upper levels of the building, the man contained himself in an elevator. Shots were fired, and he was located a short time later.”
Hipkins said the actions of the police officers who “ran into the gunfire, straight into harm’s way in order to save the lives of others” were “nothing short of heroic.”
New Zealand Police Commissioner Andrew Coster said one officer was shot as he attempted to engage the gunman, and four civilians had “moderate to critical injuries.”
Coster said the suspect was under home detention orders but had an exemption to work at the construction site where the shooting took place, and the incident was believed to be related to his work there.
The man had a “family violence history” but there was “nothing to suggest that he has presented a high level risk,” Coster said. He did not have a firearms license, Coster added.
New Zealand Police said the shooting did not pose a national security risk, as officials confirmed the Women’s World Cup opening ceremony and first game would go ahead as planned.
The central business district in Auckland is the commercial heart of the city, a base for blue chip international firms and the gateway to the famous harborside, which is lined with restaurants and bars and home to the main ferry terminal.
Shootings are relatively rare in New Zealand, especially following the introduction of strict gun laws in 2019 after a mass shooting in Christchurch left 50 people dead.
Auckland Mayor Wayne Brown told New Zealand public radio RNZ the shooting was a “dreadful thing to happen in our city at a time when the rest of the world’s watching us over the football.”
New Zealand will face Norway at Eden Park in the opening match on Thursday in one of the world’s biggest sporting events, co-hosted by New Zealand and neighbor Australia.
Tourism New Zealand has canceled a welcome event because the location is within the area cordoned off by police as they investigate the shooting.
Looking over the cordon, Nisha, an American tourist who had traveled to Auckland to watch the World Cup, described the shooting to CNN as “incredibly tragic… especially at the start of the World Cup, there’s so many people coming in, there’s so much excitement.”
Nisha, who declined having her surname published, said news of the shooting surprised her.
“In places like New Zealand, you just assume a level of sort of safety, right?” she said.
Standing at the edge of the cordon on Quay Street a block away from the ferry pier, 21 year-old Seth Kruger, who is originally from South Africa, expressed shock at the shooting.
“I reckon it’s a pretty rare occurrence for New Zealand, he said. “Moving here, you move here for safety reasons. So pretty weird for this to be happening just down the road from home as well.”
Kruger and his friend David Aguillon were scheduled to work at The Cloud, a multipurpose event space at the Queen’s Wharf along the Auckland waterfront, which is hosting the FIFA Fan Festival throughout the World Cup.
However, with the police continuing to cordon off several key streets, Aguillon said they hadn’t been able to get on site, and it was unclear whether the Fan Festival would be open in time for Monday’s first game.
In a statement, US Soccer said that it “extends its deepest condolences to the families of the victims who were killed in downtown Auckland today.”
In a statement, New Zealand Football said it was “shocked” by the incident. “We can confirm that all of the Football Ferns team and staff are safe but we will not be able to comment further while details are still emerging,” a statement said. “Preparations for the game tonight at Eden Park will continue as planned.”
Police say they found more than 200 guns in a walled-off vault in the home of accused serial killer Rex Heurmann. He is charged with the murders of three women and is suspected of killing a fourth. Elaine Quijano has the latest.
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PONTOTOC COUNTY, Okla. (KFOR) – An Oklahoma man has been sentenced after pleading guilty to second-degree murder for his role in a deadly confrontation at a marijuana grow facility in 2019.
According to the Pontotoc County Sheriff’s Office, deputies were called to the Chickasaw Nation Medical Center for a patient with a gunshot wound to his back on July 18, 2019.
Northcutt told investigators he got into an argument with Doherty at a marijuana grow operation after Doherty allegedly caught Northcutt flying a drone over the area.
At one point during the argument, Northcutt said shots were fired.
When officers went to the scene, they found Doherty shot three times.
“We did find one male subject there at the marijuana grow,” Sheriff John Christian told News 4. “He was deceased. At that point, we called in OSBI crime scene.”
Now, Northcutt has been sentenced to 18 1/2 years in federal prison. Federal prosecutors say his sentence is non-parolable.
Rex Heuermann was detained and charged with murder in New York City in connection with the deaths of three of the four women who became known as the “Gilgo Four.” Heuermann entered a not guilty plea. According to the prosecution, he is now the prime suspect in a fourth homicide. Meg Oliver reports.
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For more than a decade, a string of unsolved killings known as the Gilgo Beach murders terrorized residents and confounded authorities on Long Island’s South Shore after a woman’s 2010 disappearance led investigators to find at least 10 sets of human remains and launched the hunt for a possible serial killer.
Authorities announced a major breakthrough in the case on Friday, charging New York architect Rex Heuermann, 59, with murder in connection to the killings of three of the four women who became known as the “Gilgo Four.”
The suspect was taken into custody Thursday night, authorities said. He has been indicted on one count of first-degree murder and one count of second-degree murder in each of the three killings – Melissa Barthelemy in 2009, and Megan Waterman and Amber Costello in 2010, according to the Suffolk County District Attorney.
Heuermann, who told his attorney he is not the killer, is also the prime suspect in the 2007 disappearance and death of a fourth woman, Maureen Brainard-Barnes, according to a bail application from prosecutors. He has not been charged in that homicide but the investigation “is expected to be resolved soon,” the document says.
Authorities said once Heuermann was identified in early 2022 as a suspect, they watched him and his family, getting DNA samples from items in their trash as they built a case.
He was remanded without bail Friday. He entered a not guilty plea through his attorney. His next court date is scheduled for August 1.
Here is a timeline of the Gilgo Beach murders, how the investigation unfolded and what ultimately led to Heuermann’s arrest.
Police discovered the first set of female remains in bushes along an isolated strip of waterfront property on Gilgo Beach while searching for another missing woman: Shannan Gilbert, a 23-year-old from Jersey City, New Jersey who hadn’t been seen since May 2010.
The remains of Melissa Barthelemy, 24, were the first to be discovered in the case during the search on December 11, 2010, according to Suffolk County officials. Two days later, investigators discovered the remains of three additional victims – Maureen Brainard-Barnes, Amber Costello and Megan Waterman – strewn across a half-mile stretch on Gilgo Beach.
The four women, who were wrapped in camouflaged burlap, worked as escorts who advertised on Craigslist and were last seen between July 2007 and September 2010, officials said.
On March 29, 2011, the partial skeletal remains of another woman were found several miles east of where the bodies of the “Gilgo Four” were discovered.
The following month, on April 4, 2011, three more sets of remains were found on a stretch of Ocean Parkway in Suffolk County near the beach. They included a female toddler, an unidentified Asian male and a woman initially referred to as Jane Doe #6, investigators said.
One week later, two additional sets of human remains were found in Nassau County, about 40 miles east of New York City, one of which was identified as the mother of the toddler through DNA analysis. The mother’s partial remains were first discovered in 1997, officials said.
The other set of remains “genetically matched” with remains found in 1996 on Fire Island, “significantly expanding the timeline and geographic reach” of the investigation, officials said.
In December 2011, Gilbert’s body was found in the wooded marshes of Suffolk County’s Oak Beach. That beach is about 9 miles from where the 10 other sets of human remains were found.
Authorities later said they believed Gilbert’s death may have been accidental and not related to the Gilgo Beach slayings.
In January 2020, Suffolk County police released photos of what it said could be a significant piece of evidence: a black leather belt embossed with the letters “WH” or “HM.” The department also launched a website to collect new tips in the investigation.
“We believe the belt was handled by the suspect and did not belong to any of the victims,” former Suffolk County Police Commissioner Geraldine Hart told reporters at the time.
On May 28, 2020, New York’s Suffolk County Police Department identified “Jane Doe #6” as Valerie Mack, a 24-year-old Philadelphia mother who went missing two decades earlier.
The FBI helped identify Mack’s remains using advanced forensic DNA technology, officials said.
Using samples from her remains, Suffolk County investigators were able to find Mack’s biological relatives through genetic genealogy, which ultimately led to her adoptive family and son, Hart said to reporters at the time.
In February 2022, Suffolk County Police Commissioner Rodney Harrison formed a multi-agency task force to investigate the Gilgo Beach killings.
The task force included the Suffolk County Police Department, the Suffolk County Sheriff’s Office, the New York State Police and the FBI.
On March 14, 2022, Heuermann was first mentioned as a possible suspect in the Gilgo Beach murder case after a New York state investigator identified him in a database, according to Suffolk County District Attorney Ray Tierney.
On July 13, 2023, a suspect connected to some of the Gilgo Beach murders was taken into custody in New York City, marking the first arrest in the case, according to Harrison. He was transported back to Suffolk County Police headquarters in the hamlet of Yaphank on Long Island, the police commissioner said.
A day later, authorities identified the suspect as Heuermann, a registered architect who has owned the New York City-based architecture and consulting firm, RH Consultants & Associates, since 1994, according to his company’s website.
The case against Heuermann came together over two years with the restart of the investigation, in which investigators used “the power of the grand jury,” including more than 300 subpoenas and search warrants, to collect evidence and tie Heuermann conclusively to the murders, Tierney said during a news conference.
And authorities have hinted more charges could be coming, noting in court documents Heuermann has been tied to at least one other disappearance – that of Brainard-Barnes – of a woman who was later found dead.
After the remains of four women were found near a beach in Long Island, New York, more than a decade ago, investigators say DNA evidence and cellphone data now point to a murder suspect – a local architect whose internet history showed him often searching the status of the case and details about the victims.
Rex Heuermann was arrested in New York City on Thursday, more than a year after a police task force explored his possible connection to the cold case known as the “Gilgo Four,” named for the beach where the remains were found.
Heuermann, 59, was indicted on one count of first-degree murder and one count of second-degree murder in each of three of the killings – Melissa Barthelemy in 2009, and Megan Waterman and Amber Costello in 2010, according to the indictment. He pleaded not guilty Friday during his first court appearance on Long Island and was remanded without bail.
The defendant, who told his attorney he did not carry out the killings, is also the prime suspect in the 2007 disappearance and death of a fourth woman, Maureen Brainard-Barnes, according to a bail application from Suffolk County prosecutors. Heuermann has not been charged in the case, but the investigation “is expected to be resolved soon,” the document states.
“Rex Heuermann is a demon that walks among us. A predator that ruined families. If not for the members of this task force, he would still be on the streets today,” Suffolk County Police Commissioner Rodney Harrison said during a news conference Friday, and offered his condolences to the victims’ families.
“To the family members of Amber Costello, Melissa Barthelemy and Megan Waterman. I can only imagine what you’ve had to endure over the last decade regarding knowing that your killer was still loose. God bless you,” Harrison said before hugging a few people standing behind him.
Authorities had been left with little information after a search for a missing woman in 2010 led to the discovery of multiple sets of human remains at Gilgo Beach. By the time the remains of the missing woman, Shannan Gilbert, were found the following year, at least 10 sets of human remains had been recovered across two Long Island counties.
As they searched for a suspect in the “Gilgo Four” case, investigators combed through phone records from both midtown Manhattan and the Massapequa Park area in Long Island – places where the suspect is believed to have used a burner phone, court documents show.
“For each of the murders, he got an individual burner phone, and he used that to communicate with the victims. Then shortly after the death of the victims, he then would get rid of the burner phone,” Suffolk County District Attorney Ray Tierney said during a news conference Friday.
In February 2022, Harrison created a task force to focus on solving the cold case. By mid-March, Heuermann’s name showed up on authorities’ radar after a New York state investigator identified him in a database, according to Tierney.
Investigators say they narrowed cell tower records from thousands of possible individuals down to hundreds and then to a handful of people. Next, authorities focused on residents who also matched a physical description provided by a witness who had seen the suspected killer.
As the search pool narrowed, they zeroed in on anyone with a connection to a green pick-up truck a witness had seen the suspect driving, according to two law enforcement sources with knowledge of the case. Later, authorities learned Heuermann drives a green pickup truck registered to his brother.
Eventually, investigators found Heuermann matched a witness’s physical description, lived close to the Long Island cell site and worked near the New York City cell sites where other calls were captured.
Cell phone and credit card billing records show numerous instances where Heuermann was in the general locations as the burner phones used to call the three victims “as well as the use of Brainard-Barnes and Barthelemy’s cellphones when they were used to check voicemail and make taunting phone calls after the women disappeared,” Suffolk County prosecutors allege.
The defendant’s next court appearance is scheduled on August 1.
A major factor in the case that helped point investigators to Heuermann as a suspect is DNA evidence, which was made possible due to the latest scientific innovations in the field.
After Heuermann was identified as a suspect in March 2022, authorities placed him and his family under surveillance and would obtain DNA samples from discarded items. A team later gathered a swab of Heuermann’s DNA from leftover crust in a pizza box he threw in the trash, according to Tierney.
During the initial examination of one of the victims’ skeletal remains and materials discovered in the grave, the Suffolk County Crime Laboratory recovered a male hair from the “bottom of the burlap” the killer used to wrap her body, according to prosecutors. Analysis of the DNA found on the victim and the pizza showed the samples matched.
Additionally, hair believed to be from Heuermann’s wife was found on or near three of the murder victims, prosecutors allege in the bail application, citing DNA testing. The DNA came from 11 bottles inside a garbage can outside the Heuermann home, the court document says.
The hairs, found in 2010, were degraded and DNA testing at the time couldn’t yield results. But as technology progressed, mitochondrial DNA testing allowed investigators to make the connection, Tierney explained.
The victims’ remains “were out in a tough environment for a prolonged period of time. So, there was not a lot of forensic evidence,” Tierney told CNN’s Anderson Cooper on Friday, and credited the FBI and one of its agents for a “phenomenal job” with extracting the evidence.
Evidence shows Heuermann’s wife and children were out of the state when the three women are believed to have been killed, Tierney said during Friday’s news conference.
A search of Heuermann’s computer revealed he had scoured the internet at least 200 times, hunting for details about the status of the investigation, Tierney added. Heuermann’s internet history also turned up searches for torture porn and “depictions of women being abused, being raped and being killed,” Tierney said.
Heuermann was also compulsively searching for photos of the victims and their relatives, and he was trying to track down relatives, the district attorney said.
While the 10 sets of human remains found are all being investigated as victims of suspected homicide, four of the women found have garnered specific attention due to the similarities found in their deaths.
The victims known as the “Gilgo Four” were all last seen alive between 2007 and 2010, and their remains were found along a quarter-mile stretch of road in a span of three days in December 2010.
The women, who all worked in the sex industry, were also buried in a similar fashion, Tierney noted.
“All the women were petite. They all did the same thing for a living. They all advertised the same way. Immediately there were similarities with regard to the crime scenes,” he said. The killer concealed their bodies by wrapping them in camouflaged burlap, the type used by hunters.
Authorities have said they believe the death of Gilbert, whose disappearance sparked the searches that found the other victims, may have been accidental and not related to the other killings.
A New York architect was charged with murder in connection to the killings of three of the women who became known as the “Gilgo Four,” according to the Suffolk County District Attorney, in a case that baffled authorities for more than a decade in suburban Long Island.
Rex Heuermann – who told his attorney he is not the killer – was taken into custody for some of the Gilgo Beach murders, an unsolved case tied to at least 10 sets of human remains discovered since 2010, authorities said.
The case was broken open thanks to cell phone data, credit card bills and DNA testing, which ultimately led them to arrest Heuermann, 59, authorities said.
Heuermann was charged with one count of first-degree murder and one count of second-degree murder in each of the three killings – Melissa Barthelemy in 2009, and Megan Waterman and Amber Costello in 2010 – according to the indictment. A grand jury made the six charges, according to the Suffolk County District Attorney Ray Tierney.
He is also the prime suspect in the 2007 disappearance and death of a fourth woman, Maureen Brainard-Barnes, according to a bail application from prosecutors. Heuermann has not been charged with that homicide but the investigation “is expected to be resolved soon,” the document says.
This is the first arrest in the long-dormant case, which terrorized residents and sparked conflicting theories about whether a serial killer was responsible.
Tierney said authorities, fearing the suspect might be tipped off they were closing in, moved to arrest him Thursday night.
“We were playing before a party of one,” he told reporters. “We knew the person responsible for these murders would be looking at us.”
Authorities said once Heuermann was identified in early 2022 as a suspect, they watched him and his family and got DNA samples from items that were thrown away.
During the initial examination of one of the victims’ skeletal remains and materials discovered in the grave, the Suffolk County Crime Laboratory recovered a male hair from the “bottom of the burlap” the killer used to wrap her body, according to the bail application.
A surveillance team later gathered a swab of Heuermann’s DNA from leftover crust in a pizza box he threw in the trash, the district attorney said.
Hair believed to be from Rex Heuermann’s wife was found on or near three of the murder victims, prosecutors allege in the bail application, citing DNA testing. The DNA came from 11 bottles inside a garbage can outside the Heuermann home, the court document says.
Evidence shows Heuermann’s wife and children were outside of the state at the times when the three women were killed, Tierney said.
The hairs found in 2010 were degraded and DNA testing at the time couldn’t yield results but improvements in technology eventually gave investigators the DNA answers they needed.
Heuermann was in tears after his arrest, his court appointed attorney, Michael Brown, said Friday.
“I did not do this,” Brown said Heuermann told him during their conversation after his arrest.
Heuermann was remanded without bail. He entered a not guilty plea through his attorney. His next court date is scheduled for August 1.
Police were still searching his home Friday night, according to a CNN team outside the house.
Heuermann, who a source familiar with the case said is a father of two, is a registered architect who has owned the New York City-based architecture and consulting firm, RH Consultants & Associates, since 1994, according to his company’s website.
In 2022, Heuermann was interviewed for the YouTube channel “Bonjour Realty.” He spoke about his career in architecture, and said he was born and raised in Long Island. He began working in Manhattan in 1987.
CNN has reached out to Heuermann’s company for comment.
The remains of the Gilgo Four were found in bushes along a quarter-mile stretch of Ocean Parkway in Oak Beach over a two-day period in 2010.
The skeletal remains of Barthelemy were discovered near Gilgo Beach on December 11. Barthelemy, who was a sex worker, was last seen July 12, 2009, at her apartment when she told a friend she was going to see a man, according to a Suffolk County website about the killings.
The remains of three other women were found on December 13, 2010:Brainard-Barnes, who advertised escort services on Craigslist and was last seen in early June 2007 in New York City; Amber Lynn Costello, who also advertised escort services and was last seen leaving her North Babylon home in early September 2010; and Waterman, who also advertised as an escort and was last seen in early June 2010 at a Holiday Inn Express in Hauppauge.
Tierney said of the women, “They were buried in a similar fashion, in a similar location, in a similar way. All the women were petite. They all did the same thing for a living. They all advertised the same way. Immediately there were similarities with regard to the crime scenes.”
Tierney said the killer tried to conceal the bodies, wrapping them in camouflaged burlap, the type used by hunters.
The suspect made taunting phone calls to Barthelemy’s sister, “some of which resulted in a conversation between the caller, who was a male, and a relative of Melissa Barthelemy, in which the male caller admitted killing and sexually assaulting Ms. Barthelemy,” according to the bail application.
The court document alleges cell phone and credit card billing records show numerous instances where Heuermann was in the general locations as the burner phones used to call the three victim,s “as well as the use of Brainard-Barnes and (Barthelemy’s) cellphones when they use used to check voicemail and make taunting phone calls after the women disappeared.”
The district attorney said the killer got a new burner phone before each killing.
The case against Heuermann came together in the two years since the restart of the investigation by Suffolk County Police Commissioner Rodney Harrison, authorities said.
Harrison put together a task force including county police detectives, investigators from the sheriff’s office, state police and the FBI.
Tierney said the task force held its first meeting in February 2022.
“Six weeks later, on March 14, 2022, the name Rex Heuermann was first mentioned as a suspect in the Gilgo case,” Tierney said. “A New York state investigator was able to identify him in a database.”
Investigators had gone backward through phone records collected from both midtown Manhattan and the Massapequa Park area – two areas where a “burner phone” used by the alleged killer were detected, according to court documents.
Authorities then narrowed records collected by cell towers to thousands, then down to hundreds, and finally down to a handful of people who could match a suspect.
From there, authorities worked to focus on people who lived in the area of the cell tower who also matched a physical description given by a witness who had seen the suspected killer.
In the narrowed pool, they searched for a connection to a green pickup a witness had seen the suspect driving, the sources said.
Investigators found Heuermann, who matched a witness’s physical description, lived close to the Long Island cell site and worked near the New York City cell sites where other calls were captured.
They also learned he had often driven a green pickup, registered to his brother. But they needed more than circumstantial evidence.
When investigators searched Heuermann’s computer, they found a disturbing internet search history, including 200 searches aimed at learning about the status of the investigation, Tierney said Friday.
His searches also included queries for torture porn and “depictions of women being abused, being raped and being killed,” Tierney said.
The DA said the suspect was still compulsively searching for photos of the victims and their relatives.
Heuermann was trying to find the relatives, he added.
The murder mystery had confounded county officials for years. In 2020, they found a belt with initials that may have been handled by the suspect and launched a website to collect new tips in the investigation.
Police said some victims identified had advertised prostitution services on websites such as Craigslist.
The mystery began in 2010 when police discovered the first set of female remains among the bushes along an isolated strip of waterfront property on Gilgo Beach while searching for Shannan Gilbert, a missing 23-year-old woman from Jersey City, New Jersey.
By the time Gilbert’s body was found one year later on neighboring Oak Beach, investigators had unearthed 10 sets of human remains strewn across two Long Island counties.
The grim discoveries generated widespread attention in the region and sent waves of fear across some communities on Long Island’s South Shore.
Authorities later said they believe Gilbert’s death may have been accidental and not related to the Gilgo Beach slayings.
Still, Gilbert’s disappearance led to the discovery of others.
Additional remains were uncovered in neighboring Gilgo Beach and in Nassau County, about 40 miles east of New York City. They included a female toddler, an Asian male and a woman initially referred to as “Jane Doe #6,” investigators said.
In 2020, police identified “Jane Doe #6” was as Valerie Mack, a 24-year-old Philadelphia mother who went missing two decades earlier.
Mack’s partial remains were first discovered near Gilgo Beach in 2000, with additional dismembered remains found in 2011, according to the Suffolk County police.
John Ray, a lawyer who represents the family of Shannon Gilbert – whose disappearance and search led to the discovery of “Gilgo Four” and other remains – said Friday he does not know if Heuermann is also responsible for her death.
“We breathe a great sigh of relief,” Ray said. “We’re happy the police are finally taking a positive step in this respect, but this is just the beginning … This is just the edge of a bigger body of water, shall we say, of murder that has taken place.”
Ray also represents the family Gilgo Beach victim Jessica Taylor.
“We don’t know if he is connected to Jessica Taylor’s murder,” he said.
Jasmine Robinson, a family representative for Taylor, said she’s “hopeful for the future and hopeful that a connection is made” to resolve the other cases.
Thanks to DNA evidence from a discarded pizza box, a Manhattan architect has been charged in connection with a series of murders that occurred over a decade ago on Long Island’s Gilgo Beach. Beginning in 2010, 11 people were found slain in the Gilgo Beach area. Suspect Rex Heuermann has so far been charged in connection with three of the murders. Meg Oliver has the latest.
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New details are being released about the suspect arrested in connection to the Gilgo Beach serial killings — a cold case that plagued Long Island for more than a decade. Former FBI profiler and program director of the George Mason University forensic science department Mary Ellen O’Toole joins CBS News to discuss the latest updates in the case.
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Police in New York have taken a person into custody in connection with the unsolved murders of at least 10 women whose bodies were found on Long Island’s Gilgo Beach more than a decade ago, officials announced Friday morning. The suspect was identified as Rex Heuermann, of Massapequa, Long Island, two law enforcement officials confirmed to CBS News.
Heuermann was taken into custody by Suffolk County Police and state police at his home late Thursday night and is to be arraigned today in Suffolk County court in Riverhead. The charges are unknown at this time.
Rex Heuermann
Image obtained by CBS2
“Members assigned to the Gilgo Beach Task Force, which consisted of numerous detectives and investigators from the Suffolk County Police Department, as well as our partners in the FBI, did place one individual under arrest,” Suffolk County Police Commissioner Rodney Harrison said Friday.
The major development comes more than a decade after more than 10 bodies were found on Gilgo Beach. The long-unsolved killings were the subject of numerous CBS “48 Hours” reports and the 2020 Netflix film “Lost Girls.”
Since 2010, more than 10 victims have been discovered, their remains strewn across a stretch of Ocean Parkway on Long Island, several of them identified as sex workers. The case has long baffled investigators and no arrests had ever been made.
Residents of Massapequa Park told CBS New York they were stunned by the news on Friday.
“We’ve been here for about 30 years, and the guy’s been quiet, never really bothers anybody,” next-door neighbor Etienne DeVilliers told the station. “We were kind of shocked, to tell you the truth.”
DeVilliers said Heuermann is married, with two children. He added that his neighbor told him he was an architect.
“Like I said, we’re shocked. Because this is a very, very quiet neighborhood. Everybody knows each other, all of our neighbors, we’re all friendly. It’s never been a problem at all,” DeVilliers said.
On Friday, officers converged on a small red house that had been raided earlier in the morning in Massapequa , the Associated Press reported. Investigators were seen outside the home, which appeared to be in disrepair.
“This house sticks out like a sore thumb. There were overgrown shrubs, there was always wood in front of the house,” neighbor Gabriella Libardi told the AP. “It was very creepy. I wouldn’t send my child there.”
Crime laboratory officers arrive at the house where a suspect was taken into custody on New York’s Long Island in connection with a long-unsolved string of serial killings, known as the Gilgo Beach murders, July 14, 2023, in Massapequa Park, New York.
Eduardo Munoz Alvarez / AP
Barry Auslander, another neighbor, told the AP the man who lived in the house commuted by train to New York City each morning, wearing a suit and tie.
“It was weird. He looked like a businessman,” said Auslander. “But his house is a dump.”
Investigators were searching for Gilbert when they found other remains on Gilgo Beach in December that year — women in their 20s whose remains had been wrapped in burlap sacks. Known as the Gilgo Four, they were later identified as Maureen Brainard-Barnes, abducted in 2007; Melissa Barthelemy in 2009; and Megan Waterman and Amber Costello, who went missing in 2010. Six more sets of remains were found along Ocean Parkway the following spring.
A large police presence outside a home in Massapequa Park, on Long Island, on July 14, 2021, after an arrest was made in the Gilgo Beach murders case.
CBS New York
The Suffolk County Police Department released the full audio of Gilbert’s 911 call last year, as well as maps and other images showing what authorities believe happened on May 1, 2010, the night she disappeared.
The police said in 2022, however, that “based on the evidence, the facts, and the totality of the circumstances, the prevailing opinion of Shannan’s death, while tragic, was not murder and most likely not criminal.”
Investigators voiced hope then that releasing the 911 audio would lead to answers in the larger search for the Gilgo Beach killer, and officials announced a doubling of the reward for information on the murders to $50,000.
“We are making real progress,” Suffolk County Police Commissioner Rodney Harrison said in May 2022. He said he hoped new information released to the public would bring new leads on the notorious crime spree that had stumped police for a dozen years.
This is a developing story and will be updated. CBS News senior investigative producer Pat Milton contributed to this report.
This article was previously posted on July 9, 2022.
In 2016 Jessica Devnani was dating Gregory Bender, a successful hedge fund manager, who lived near Orlando, Florida. What Devnani didn’t know at the time was that Bender had been keeping a secret from her. The secret would be exposed while he was recovering from a medical procedure at a local hospital. What happened in that room would lead to events that would forever change lives.
Devnani had met Bender online in 2009. He was 42 years old and Devnani was nearly 20 years his junior. “He had a very charismatic personality. He was very intelligent,” Devnani said. “It felt like we’d known each other all our lives … he became my best friend.”
As their romance developed, Devnani says she noticed Bender had a streak of jealousy in him and sometimes it would escalate to verbal threats. “I never feared what he could do to me, but I feared what he could do to other men,” she said. Despite his flaws, she remained with him and eventually they got engaged. Devnani tells her story exclusively to “48 Hours,” in “The Ring: The Murder of Patrick De La Cerda,” reported by correspondent Peter Van Sant.
Before dating Patrick De La Cerda, Jessica Devnani was in an tumultuous eight-year relationship with Gregory Bender, a successful hedge fund manager.
Jessica Devnani
A few years after their engagement, Devnani was confronted with a shocking twist in their relationship. Bender had undergone a procedure and, while he was recuperating in the ICU, Devnani decided to drop by for a surprise visit. When she entered his room, another woman was there. That woman was Daymara Sanchez, his wife at the time. “I was like, ‘what is she doing here?’ and she’s like, ‘What are you doing here? And I told her I’m like his fiancée and I showed her the ring. And then she showed me her ring. She’s like, ‘I’m his wife!’” Devnani recalled.
Devnani says she was devastated by the news. “My heart just dropped. I couldn’t believe it. I was in shock,” she said.
Several days passed before Bender finally contacted Devnani to explain the situation. He told her it was strictly a marriage of convenience so he could help the woman’s son attend a better school district. Devnani says she took him back, but she issued an ultimatum – he had to divorce his wife.
However, for months, Bender stalled and Devnani says she eventually dumped him. A month later, in June 2017, she met 25-year-old Patrick De La Cerda on a dating app. “I was afraid that he would find out about our relationship.” Devnani said.
Devnani says Bender learned about her new relationship with De La Cerda from Facebook. She said that’s when Bender started messaging De La Cerda and threatening him. Within months, Devnani says Bender would leave alarming messages to them both. In one voicemail for Devnani, Bender said, “I’m giving instructions. And I’m going to have my plan put into action.”
Jessica Devnani says when Gregory Bender learned about her new relationship with Patrick De La Cerda, Bender started messaging De La Cerda and threatening him. Within months, Devnani says Bender would leave alarming messages to them both.
Jessica Devnani
Eventually both Devnani and De La Cerda had enough, and Devnani asked a judge for a restraining order against Bender. The order, issued in December 2017, stated Bender could not contact Devnani, and he had to hand over his firearms.
The couple were now excited about their future without the looming threat of Bender, says Devnani. By the end of 2017, De La Cerda proposed to Devnani. De La Cerda presented Devnani with a temporary engagement ring, while he waited for the delivery of a ring he had designed.
But the day De La Cerda would give Devnani that ring never came. On February 27, 2018, Jessica received two unexpected calls from Bender. Fearing for De La Cerda’s safety, she tried to reach him, but he didn’t answer his phone. That’s when she rushed over to De La Cerda’s home, and found him dead in a pool of blood.
Soon after sheriff’s deputies arrived, Devnani told them about Bender. Another break in the case came when a detective got a tip from another woman in Bender’s life: Bender’s now ex-wife, Daymara Sanchez, the woman Devnani says she met visiting Bender at the hospital years earlier.
Daymara, who had watched news reports about De La Cerda’s murder, told investigators about a “murder plan” she had found which she says Bender wrote laying out a plot to kill De La Cerda. “Once she told us about the murder plan, that gave us what we needed to get into the house to see, you know, what else was in there,” lead detective Chad Weaver of the Volusia County Sheriff’s Office said.
The detailed murder plan was complete with Patrick De La Cerdas’s address, sketches of his property, and notes on how to enter and exit the premises without being detected.
Volusia County State Attorney’s Office
Once there, investigators were stunned to find a murder plan, similar to the one Sanchez described, crumpled up in the trash can in Bender’s home office. They also found ammunition and a shell casing similar to the rounds found at the crime scene. Weaver said those discoveries gave them enough probable cause to get an arrest warrant for Bender for De La Cerda’s murder.
When Bender’s trial began in May 2021, Devnani and Sanchez, the two women who at one time were at the center of his life, would once again come face to face, but this time to testify against him.
[This show previously aired on July 9, 2022. It was updated on July 8, 2023.]
For Patrick De La Cerda and Jessica Devnani, 2018 was shaping up to be a year to remember.
“I was looking forward to getting married,” Devnani told “48 Hours” correspondent Peter Van Sant. “We’re going to have, like, the fairy-tale life.”
De La Cerda proposed just six months after they began dating – and ordered a custom-made engagement ring for Devnani. “He never got to give it to me,” she said.
On Feb. 27, 2018, De La Cerda was gunned down, ambush-style at the front door of his home Deltona, Florida, home.
Who would want to harm him? Detective Chad Weaver of the Volusia County Sheriff’s Office learned from Devnani that the couple had been harassed by her jealous former boyfriend, Greg Bender, who left the couple threatening messages.
“It’s almost like he never left. Like he was shadowing my life, like he was not accepting of it at all,” said Devnani.
Weaver knew he had a prime suspect in Bender, but little evidence linking him to the crime – until he got a tip from Bender’s former wife, who told the detective Bender had written a murder plan. But what were the chances Weaver would find it?
A DEADLY AMBUSH
What started as a slow Tuesday morning in 2018 for Volusia County Sheriff’s Detective Chad Weaver changed dramatically when a fragmented 911 call from a neighbor reporting Patrick De La Cerda’s death came in.
OPERATOR: 911, where is your emergency?
CALLER: … has been shot and killed!
OPERATOR: When did that happen?
CALLER: I don’t know.
OPERATOR: You don’t want to try CPR, correct?
CALLER: No, No. He’s dead. He’s cold.
Within minutes, sheriff’s deputies wearing body cameras entered the lush, 9-acre compound on the outskirts of Deltona, worried that the killer may still be here.
DEPUTY [body cam video, shouting into the building]: Sheriff’s Office! If you’re inside, you need to announce yourself now!”
Detective Chad Weaver: When the deputies showed up, they had their guns out and … preparing for the worst but hoping for the best.
With the gunman still at large, Detective Weaver took charge of the crime scene as TV news choppers hovered above.
Det. Chad Weaver: As we walked up to that area, you could see a male, looked like he was in his early 20s … appeared that he was suffering from multiple gunshot wounds.
WKMG NEWS REPORT: Deputies say someone shot right through his front door.
Patrick De La Cerda was newly engaged and planning for his wedding when he was tragically gunned down at his home.
Jessica Devnani
Patrick De La Cerda, 25, had been shot four times by a high-powered rifle, right in the doorway of the house he shared with his father, Max, who was out of town that day.
Max De La Cerda: I never got to say goodbye to my son, I never got to talk to him…nothing
Detective Chad Weaver: You could see the front door was open, there was glass all over the place, there’s a lot of blood. … You know, right off the bat you’re going, “OK, this is probably going to be a whodunit.”
At the scene, Detective Weaver and several deputies approached a traumatized Jessica Devnani, Patrick’s 29-year-old fiancée,
OFFICER: Whose house is this?
JESSICA DEVNANI: My boyfriend’s house and his dad’s house.
Jessica Devnani: I was just walking in circles around, like, the front yard, just pacing up and down.
OFFICER [to Jessica]: Ma’am, come over here. Stay here behind the tree.
Just two months earlier — at this very location — De La Cerda had popped the question to Devnani and presented her with a temporary engagement ring.
Jessica Devnani: It just came out of nowhere. … He just asked, “Like, you know, will you marry me?”
Peter Van Sant: And what did you say?
Jessica Devnani: Of course I said yes, I was so excited.
Patrick De La Cerda and his fiancée Jessica Devnani were looking forward to their future together.
Jessica Devnani
The marriage proposal couldn’t have come at a better time for Devnani, who worked as a bank teller. Months earlier, she had ended a tumultuous eight-year relationship and then met De La Cerda on a dating app.
Jessica Devnani: We just fell in love, like right away. … It was a connection from the beginning. So, it was kind of like love at first sight.
Devnani and De La Cerda, who worked a construction job with his father, partied and played together as their romance blossomed.
De La Cerda ordered a custom-made work of art to be delivered to his home for Devnani’s permanent engagement ring. He was a romantic, says his mother Patricia Ronze.
Patricia Ronze: Patrick was a wonderful son. … And he loved kids. He loved babies. … And I really was looking forward to have grandchildren from him.
Devnani and De La Cerda lived in different cities. She was in Orlando, while Patrick lived with his father in Deltona, 30 miles away.
On the night of Feb. 26, 2018, De La Cerda left her this sweet voicemail:
PATRICK DE LA CERDA VOICEMAIL: “I love you, good night, sweet dreams. In the morning I’ll call you, I’ll send you a text when I wake up a little later, all right? Love you. … Good night, bye.”
It would be the last voicemail she would ever receive from her love. The next day, a series of what seemed like random events would change everything. The first came when De La Cerda’s father Max, who was 70 miles away working on a construction job, received a phone call.
Det. Chad Weaver: Max gets a phone call from an unknown person stating that they have a package to deliver to his son, Patrick. Max hangs up the phone, he tries to call Patrick. Patrick doesn’t answer. … So, he sends him a text message: “Hey, there’s someone with a delivery.” Max never hears from Patrick again after that. He never answers, never responds.
Meanwhile Max and Devnani kept calling Patrick with no luck. Devnani feared the worst because of those disturbing threats the couple had received.
Peter Van Sant: You’re thinking he’s been harmed?
Jessica Devnani: Yes. Yes. For sure.
Max and Devnani rushed to the house. She got there first.
Jessica Devnani: I’m approaching the front door and that’s where his body laid. … Patrick just laying there in this big pool of blood and just — he was just lifeless.
Soon after Devnani discovered her fiancé’s body, Patrick’s dad arrived. He took “48 Hours” back to the crime scene with Devnani.
Max De La Cerda: My son was lying down there [pointing to the floor inside the doorway]. His head was right there. His foot were still on top of this [tapping the second step of the staircase], so that means that he fell back.
Peter Van Sant: And that tells you the gunman was right here [standing outside the front door]. … Because no bullet can take a right-hand turn.
Max De La Cerda: That tells me — exactly, exactly. That guy was right there. My son saw this guy, he turned around and the guy shot him because my son was just like this.
“My son was like this.” Max De La Cerda demonstrates how his son’s body was found at the base of the stairs by his front door.
CBS News
Max De La Cerda [laying on the floor the way Patrick was found]: My son was like this.
Peter Van Sant: Wow.
Detective Weaver’s team combed through the house. They soon discovered that the killer had taken Patrick De La Cerda’s computer and the hard drive from the home’s security camera system. Investigators also recovered unique shell casings from 300 Blackout ammunition, bullets often used in semi-automatic weapons like an AR-15.
Det. Chad Weaver: When we saw the shell casings … with how close they were to the body … Immediately realized that this was a calculated murder. This was — this was planned.
But why would anyone want to kill Patrick De La Cerda? Weaver learned about a bizarre incident in 2017.
WKMG NEWS REPORT: In a strange twist, News6 has discovered the young man has been shot at before …
When De La Cerda called police, saying his neighbor had fired some bullets after arguments back and forth about trespassing. Patrick wasn’t harmed.
Det. Chad Weaver: There had been some complaints. … And Patrick felt that the neighbor was shooting towards their house.
There’s night footage of the man being tackled and arrested by police for that incident. It was an intriguing lead until Weaver learned the man was in custody on the day De La Cerda was murdered.
Det. Chad Weaver: We were able to check him off the list.
Detective Weaver then focused on some ominous voicemails that had been discovered:
GREGORY BENDER VOICEMAIL: “Call me back, talk to me.”
…. which led them to a man that Patrick and Jessica knew quite well.
GREGORY BENDER VOICEMAIL: “I’ll talk to you soon, I hope.”
Jessica Devnani: I was really scared because. … Like, he was always shadowing my life.
OMINOUS THREATS
A couple in love with everything in front of them, dreams of marriage and family about to come true.
Then came Feb. 27, 2018. When Jessica Devnani came upon her fiancé, Patrick De La Cerda in a pool of blood at his home shot four times at close range by an assassin.
Jessica Devnani: I think my mind just doesn’t want to accept it … My whole future was taken away. My whole world was taken away.
The ambush style-assault of De La Cerda made it seem like the killer was lying in wait. Detective Chad Weaver was hoping Devnani might have a lead that would jump start his investigation.
Det. Chad Weaver: And we were speaking to her about any enemies or any problems with anyone, you know, that Patrick had had.
The detective learned that there was someone who wasn’t happy with Devnani and De La Cerda’s whirlwind romance.
Peter Van Sant: Who was that person?
Jessica Devnani: My ex, Gregory Bender.
Devnani told Detective Weaver that right before she met De La Cerda, she broke up with Bender, her ex-boyfriend of eight years. It was a breakup that he was not happy with.
Jessica Devnani: He was not accepting of it—it’s almost like he never left. Like he was shadowing my life, like he was not accepting of it at all.
Det. Chad Weaver: He was very controlling.
And as Weaver was about to learn, Devnani and Bender had a very complicated, love-hate kind of relationship over the eight years they were together.
Jessica Devnani: He could be very charming and manipulative.
Before dating Patrick De La Cerda, Jessica Devnani was in an tumultuous eight-year relationship with Gregory Bender, a successful hedge fund manager.
Jessica Devnani
At 42 years old, Bender was almost twice Devnani’s age when they first met online in 2009. He was a successful hedge fund manager who lived in this house in Windemere, a wealthy suburb outside of Orlando.
Jessica Devnani: He had a very charismatic personality. He was very intelligent. … It felt like we’d known each other all our lives. He became my best friend.
Peter Van Sant: Was he a down-to-earth kind of guy?
Jessica Devnani: Not so much in the sense that he did like to show off. … He loved fast cars and he loved guns as well.
But what, if anything, did Gregory Bender have to do with De La Cerda’s death? Detective Weaver wanted to know more.
Det. Chad Weaver: Patrick was middle class, blue collar, hard-working young man. Gregory, on the other hand, who’s white collar, well educated, lived in a three quarter of a million dollar house … Totally different people from totally different walks of life.
Devnani told the detective that Bender simply couldn’t tolerate the idea of any other man in her life. She told a story about what happened when she briefly dated someone else after first meeting Bender.
Jessica Devnani: He did stalk the person that I was dating. And he described exactly where he lived. And he said that he would tie him up and harm him.
Peter Van Sant: So, a relationship that had love in it now had a little bit of terror in it.
Jessica Devnani: I never feared what he could do to me, but I feared what he could do to other men.
Despite his jealousness and verbal threats, Devnani accepted Bender’s proposal to marry a few years into their relationship.
Jessica Devnani: I was in love with him at the time. And maybe I was a little bit naive at the time. I didn’t want to find someone else.
“I never feared what he could do to me, but I feared what he could do to other men,” Jessica Devnani says of her ex, Gregory Bender.
CBS News
And there is another twist in Devnani’s twisted relationship with Bender. In early 2016, he was having a procedure done at a local hospital. Devnani decided to drop by for a surprise visit. When she entered his room, another woman was there.
Jessica Devnani: I was like, “what is she doing here?” And she’s like, “What are you doing here?” … And I told her, I’m like his fiancée and I showed her the ring. And then she showed me her ring. She’s like, “I’m his wife!”
She was Daymara Sanchez.
Peter Van Sant: He’s secretly married to this woman?
Jessica Devnani: Yes. … My heart just dropped. I couldn’t believe it. I was in shock.
Several days passed when Bender finally called Devnani, and tried to explain that he had only married Sanchez so her son could go to school in the district where his house was located.
Jessica Devnani: And he said, “I’m so sorry.” … And he told me that he had only married her, as like, a business marriage. He was just trying to help her out and they had an arrangement together.
At that point, Devnani had sort of had enough.
Peter Van Sant: So, you end up giving Greg Bender an ultimatum. What was that?
Jessica Devnani: Yes, I told him that he had until the end of the year to leave her.
Peter Van Sant: He had to divorce her, not only leave but divorce.
Jessica Devnani: Yes.
But that “business marriage” line was just another of Bender’s lies and he stayed married to Sanchez. With that, Devnani finally ended the relationship in 2017. One month later, Devnani met Patrick De La Cerda and began dating him. But Bender was often on her mind.
Jessica Devnani: I was afraid that he would find out about our relationship.
But just five months after dumping him …
Jessica Devnani: Gregory Bender … came across our Facebook page.
Jessica Devnani: He immediately started messaging Patrick on his Facebook, threatening him … And he said, “I know where you live. I’m going to harm you guys.”
Bender left ominous voicemails like this one:
GREGORY BENDER: “I’m giving instructions. And I’m going to have my plan put into action.”
Peter Van Sant: What’s he talking about?
Jessica Devnani: At that point in time, he had mentioned to me that he was going to hire a hit man…or he was going to do the job himself.
Peter Van Sant: And what job was that?
Jessica Devnani: To kill Patrick.
Enough was enough. Devnani and De La Cerda had these tapes and text messages presented to a judge who issued a restraining order. Bender was ordered to stay away from Jessica and turn in his large collection of firearms to authorities.
Peter Van Sant: Did Greg Bender go away?
Jessica Devnani: We thought he did go away. We didn’t hear anything. And we felt confident.
Until she told Detective Weaver that on the morning of Patrick’s murder, Gregory Bender called for the first time in two months.
Jessica Devnani: He called my job that very morning.
But Devnani said she didn’t answer.
Det. Chad Weaver: So, when she got the phone call and saw on the caller ID that it was Gregory Bender, flags started going up and that’s what made her so worried.
Flags were also going up for Detective Weaver. He believed he now had a prime suspect in De La Cerda’s death. And, Weaver had an idea; now was the time for Devnani to return Bender’s calls and investigators would listen in.
Det. Chad Weaver: She really wanted to solve Patrick’s murder, so she did that without hesitation.
DET. WEAVER: OK, call him and put him on speakerphone.
GREGORY BENDER: Hello.
JESSICA DEVNANI:Hello.
Detective Weaver was hopeful Bender might say something to implicate himself:
JESSICA DEVNANI: You ruined my life. … You got your revenge, and you ruined my life.
GREGORY BENDER: What are you talking about?
THE MURDER PLAN
It was a tense, awkward moment. Just a few hours after she’d seen her fiancé’s body, investigators’ asked Jessica Devnani to call the man they thought may have murdered him. Gregory Bender quickly spoke up.
GREGORY BENDER: I saw what happened on the news, I want to tell you, I feel sorry for you.
Jessica Devnani: I just wanted to try to do everything I could to help the investigation.
She reminded Bender about his previous threats.
JESSICA DEVNANI: You said, “Enough is enough. I can’t do this. I’m going to hire a hitman. I’m gonna kill him.”
GREGORY BENDER: No. That’s not. No, no, no, I didn’t say that.
Peter Van Sant: Did you ask him outright, “did you shoot Patrick?”
Jessica Devnani: I did.
JESSICA DEVNANI: But that’s why I want to find out if it is you, like …
GREGORY BENDER: No, it’s not. I’m your friend. I did not do this.
Peter Van Sant: Could you tell he was lying to you?
Jessica Devnani: Yes, I could tell he was lying.
While Bender denied any involvement in De La Cerda’s death, Det. Chad Weaver says there was enough evidence to arrest him: not for murder, but for violating that restraining order.
Det. Chad Weaver: We had seen that he …. attempted to contact her twice at work, which we found was a violation of that injunction.
Even with Bender behind bars for the night, Weaver didn’t have much to link him to De La Cerda’s murder. Then he received a phone call from the attorney of Bender’s now ex-wife Daymara Sanchez — the woman Devnani had first met in the hospital.
Det. Chad Weaver: And he said … “She has some information that will be valuable to your case.”
Sanchez asked to meet Weaver in a parking lot.
Det. Chad Weaver: She’s very, very nervous. … She didn’t want us coming to her house.
It turns out Sanchez had a pretty good reason to be nervous. She was about to provide a crucial piece of evidence.
Det. Chad Weaver: So, we spoke with her, she had told us that … her and Gregory had gotten a divorce and she had moved out in December of 2017. Around that same time, she had discovered what she believed to be a murder plan in a spiral notebook that she had seen Gregory writing in in the past.
A murder plan, handwritten in a notebook detailing an elaborate plot to kill. Sanchez said when she confronted Bender about it, he told her it was all a fantasy. And she forgot about it until she saw the report that the man Bender was supposedly fantasizing about killing had just been murdered.
Det. Chad Weaver: Once she told us about the murder plan, that gave us what we needed to get into the house to see, you know, what else was in there.
Volusia County Prosecutor Ashley Terwilleger says learning about the murder plan was a potential game changer — if investigators could find it.
Ashley Terwilleger: So, the next day, February 28 of 2018, they execute the search warrant at Gregory Bender’s home in Orange County, Florida, in Windemere.
Weaver had some doubts. But almost as soon as he entered Bender’s house, the detective hit pay dirt. He spotted several balls of crumpled-up note paper.
“I was in shock. There’s no way that we just found this murder plan,” Weaver says of the key piece of evidence found in a trash can at Bender’s home.
Volusia County State Attorney’s Office
Det. Chad Weaver: I looked in the trash can and … I was in shock, there’s no way that we just found this murder plan. The first thing I wanted to do was reach in the trash can, grab it.
Weaver wisely held off while this paper was bagged and tagged for forensics. Later, when he was able to read the plan, it was just as Sanchez said — a detailed road map for murdering Patrick De La Cerda.
Det. Chad Weaver: Some of the first things in it were directions. … It actually had Patrick De La Cerda’s address. Howland Boulevard.
Weaver took “48 Hours” to the crime scene to explain how the plan matched the actual murder.
The detailed murder plan was complete with Patrick De La Cerdas’s address, sketches of his property, and notes on how to enter and exit the premises without being detected.
Volusia County State Attorney’s Office
Det. Chad Weaver: This road leads down the side of the property, it’s off of Howland Boulevard. This is important because of the dirt road that was drawn on the murder plan runs down the side of the property. … It’s pretty heavily wooded down this way, so I think he walked on foot until he got to this opening and this is the area, we believe Gregory Bender accessed to sneak up on our victim. … The sketch of the property was spot on.
The plan was evidence of Bender’s obsession with detail and compulsion to kill, says Weaver.
The plan read: “Put duct tape on the bottom of a second pair of shoes so no tread prints” … “wait for confirm that he is alone. Then turn off cell phones” … “and dispose of clothes, plate, tracker, gloves”
With the murder plan in hand, Weaver had a powerful case against Bender. And with the discovery of this ammunition, there was now a direct link to those unique bullet shells found at the scene.
Ashley Terwilleger: They find that arsenal of 300-blackout ammunition.
Remember, De La Cerda was shot four times with that type of unique ammo, but only two shell casings were recovered at the crime scene. That’s what made another discovery by investigators at Bender’s house so important.
Ashley Terwilleger: They find a shell casing in a desk drawer, essentially a junk drawer.
Det. Chad Weaver: The casing … matched the two recovered shell casings from the crime scene. … Short of actually finding the murder weapon, um in my opinion, I think that was probably the most important piece of evidence that we found.
That’s because the murder weapon has never been recovered, although Devnani remembers seeing a powerful rifle at Bender’s house when they dated.
Peter Van Sant: The AR-15, this semi-automatic rifle. Did he have one of those?
Jessica Devnani: Yes, he did.
Det. Chad Weaver: I think it’s probably at the bottom of a lake somewhere.
The evidence was overwhelming – Weaver now had a clear and concise theory of the crime.
Det. Chad Weaver: Greg Bender was lying in wait in the bushes, just out of view. He made the phone call posing as a delivery man. Patrick receives a text message just thinking that he has a package.
Det. Chad Weaver: And as Patrick answered the door, he shot and killed him.
Less than 48 hours after Patrick De La Cerda’s death, an arrest warrant was issued for Gregory Bender, charging him with the murder.
Volusia County Sheriff’s Office
Less than 48 hours after De La Cerda’s death, an arrest warrant was issued for Gregory Bender, charging him with the murder. Volusia County sheriff’s deputies had an easy time locating their suspect, who had been released from jail after violating that restraining order. Bender was in his own front yard, says prosecutor Andrew Urbanak.
Andy Urbanak: Mr. Bender actually showed up, bonded out from the Orange County jail just a short time after they started executing that warrant.
Det. Chad Weaver: You can’t make this stuff up.
For Patrick De La Cerda’s mother, the arrest is just the first step against a man she despises.
Patricia Ronze: Psychopath, that’s what he is. … You want me to say his name? I’ll never pronounce his name. I don’t want to pronounce his name. That is hurting my mouth to just say his name.
Patrick De La Cerda and Jessica Devnani
Jessica Devnani
Peter Van Sant: Why did Patrick have to die?
Jessica Devnani: Just out of jealousy of a man that was obsessed … and he thought that, by doing this, that I would go back to him.
But with no weapon, no eyewitnesses, and no DNA at the crime scene …
Richard Parker | Defense attorney: Ultimately, this case … is a circumstantial case.
… Bender and his attorneys are planning a vigorous trial defense.
And.using undercover video shot by a private eye, they plan to challenge Devnani on the stand about the real nature of her relationship with Bender.
RICHARD PARKER [to Jessica in court]: You started dating Patrick in June. Why are you dining with Greg and going to Greg’s house in November of 2017 if you’re happily moving on with Patrick?
THE MURDER TRIAL
Two months after Patrick De La Cerda was gunned down as he went to his front door expecting to pick up that engagement ring for Jessica Devnani, she was finally able to put on the ring at her 30th birthday celebration — a surprise finally delivered by Patrick’s family.
Patrick’s family surprised Jessica Devnani with the engagement ring Patrick had custom made — but never got to give her — at her 30th birthday celebration.
Jessica Devnani
Jessica Devnani: … he got me the perfect ring.
Peter Van Sant: Why do you wear that ring today?
Jessica Devnani: I wear it because Patrick will always be the love of my life.
And Devnani will be wearing the ring at the murder trial of Gregory Bender, her former boyfriend, who stands accused of stalking and killing the man she had hoped to marry.
This day could not have come soon enough, says Patrick De La Cerda’s devastated mother, Patricia Ronze.
Patricia Ronze: Jessica and I — we felt victimized every single day for three years-and-a-half because we have no voice, absolutely no voice.
Prosecutor Ashley Terwilliger is now the voice Patrick’s loved ones had longed for as she began her opening statement.
ASHLEY TERWILLIGER: Patrick de la Cerda was the victim of a murder, A detailed and meticulously thought-out murder plan and a tragic ending in which he was shot four times in the head, face, chest and hip.
Defense attorney Richard Parker says the state’s case is no slam dunk.
RICHARD PARKER: We will show that there’s more than just one or two people that have motive and opportunity in this case.
Devnani is the prosecution’s star witness and will be the first to testify.
Jessica Devnani: It was really hard. I was really nervous.
Devnani describes for the jury how Gregory Bender was a man consumed by jealousy, who made many threats.
JESSICA DEVNANI: He would message me saying if I didn’t leave Patrick, he would harm Patrick.
And Devnani read one of those threatening texts for the jury:
JESSICA DEVNANI: “Think about it. If I don’t hear from you or the cops call again, I’ll just do what I said and move on.”
Jurors learned that Bender went to extraordinary lengths to poison Devnani and De La Cerda’s relationship. On secretly recorded video, it appears Bender and Devnani are at lunch, and then a week later at a restaurant enjoying dinner, just a few months after she started dating Patrick.
PROSECUTOR ANDREW URBANAK: Did you actually see these videos?
JESSICA DEVNANI: I did.
Jurors learned that Gregory Bender went to extraordinary lengths to poison Devnani and De La Cerda’s relationship. On secretly recorded video, it appears Bender and Devnani are at lunch, and then a week later at a restaurant enjoying dinner, just a few months after she started dating Patrick.
Seventh Judicial Court – State Attorney’s Office
The encounters were captured by a private investigator hired by Bender. There’s a scene of the two of them entering and leaving Bender’s home. He’s seen rubbing Devnani’s leg for the camera; they hold hands, and he leans in for a kiss.
Jessica Devnani: I felt really odd because I felt like he was trying to put on a show looking back, because he kept, like, trying to get close to me. … like trying to hold my hand, which he never used to do. … I was like, “what are you doing?” I was like, “we’re just friends right now. … what are you trying to do?”
But prosecutors say the video was all a setup.
ANDREW URBANAK: What did he do with it?
JESSICA DEVNANI: He had given it to Patrick.
ANDREW URBANAK: Did that cause some strife between you and Patrick and your relationship?
JESSICA DEVNANI: Yes.
JESSICA DEVNANI: We had a fight and we had broke up for a few days.
ANDREW URBANAK: Did the two of you end up getting back together after that?
JESSICA DEVNANI: Yes.
As the prosecution’s star witness, Jessica Devnani described for the jury how Gregory Bender was a man consumed by jealousy, who made many threats.
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Defense attorneys tried to use their client’s video production to convince jurors that Devnani and Bender actually were more than just friends.
RICHARD PARKER: Why are you dining with Greg and going to Greg’s house in November of 2017 if you’re happily moving on with Patrick?
JESSICA DEVNANI: Because the defendant was threatening, and I was trying to calm him down. And he said that if I went to see him, he would not harm anyone.
The defense tries another tactic. Making what prosecutors say is an unfounded allegation that Patrick’s father Max was attracted to Devnani.
RICHARD PARKER [to Jessica]: Did Max De La Cerda comment in a very positive way regarding your appearance?
ANDREW URBANAK: Same objection judge, still a hearsay statement.
DEFENSE [to Max De La Cerda]: Would you say you had a good relationship with her?
MAX DE LA CERDA: I didn’t have any relationship with her at all!
That led to a combative cross examination when Max De La Cerda took the stand.
MAX DE LA CERDA: What you are asking me makes no sense! … I don’t think that has nothing to do with Patrick’s murder.
“They wanted to blame it on Max and you can tell … he’s angry that his son was killed unnecessarily, violently, horrifically and now he has to be in a room with his son’s killer,” Prosecutor Ashley Terwilleger said of De La Cerda on the stand.
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And the defense implied he may have had the motive…. and the opportunity to kill his own son because of discrepancies of his whereabouts that day.
RICHARD PARKER: Your girlfriend said that you were in fact staying with her//is it her memory that’s wrong or is it yours?
MAX DE LA CERDA: It might be mine, sir. I’m constantly on the go. I work here, I work there, I don’t keep track of phones, I don’t keep track of time. … so, what point are you trying to make? I don’t know!
Ashley Terwilleger: They wanted to blame it on Max and you can tell … he’s angry that his son was killed unnecessarily, violently, horrifically and now he has to be in a room with his son’s killer.
Throughout the trial, Bender remained stoic until his ex-wife Daymara Sanchez took the stand and spoke through an interpreter.
ANDREW URBANAK: Were you married to Mr. Bender?
DAYMARA SANCHEZ: Yes.
During Sanchez’ testimony, Bender broke down, showing emotion for the first time in the trial.
And jurors heard her audio interview with Weaver about the murder plan.
DAYMARA SANCHEZ: It was a plan to kill the guy.
DET. CHAD WEAVER: The guy is Patrick?
DAYMARA SANCHEZ: Yes.
During a break in her testimony, Bender appears to say “I love you” to someone … in the gallery and is admonished by an official.
COURT OFFICIAL: Don’t talk to anybody in the courtroom.
When Detective Weaver took the stand, the defense grilled him about the lack of forensic evidence in the case.
RICHARD PARKER: How about any hair or skin or DNA, anything like that from the scene that was helpful to your investigation?
DET. CHAD WEAVER: Uh, no, sir.
Prosecutors responded by calling cell phone experts who could connect Bender’s personal phone to a burner phone that was tracked to a cell tower near the murder scene.
ASHLEY TERWILLEGER: So, the burner phone … is the cellphone that made the call to Max De La Cerda that morning at 7:18 a.m.?
SGT. AMRHINE: Yes
ANDY URBANAK: The state would rest at this time.
After the prosecution rested, Gregory Bender chose not to testify.
JUDGE: Are you comfortable with the decision you made?
RICHARD PARKER: Yes.
ANDY URBANAK: Thank you, your honor.
JUDGE: Thank you.
For closing arguments, prosecutors said Bender was the only person who had motive to kill Patrick De La Cerda.
ANDY URBANAK: He couldn’t take that Jessica left him and wouldn’t come back to him because of Patrick De La Cerda.
In his closing, defense attorney Richard Parker insisted that Bender’s murder plan did not equate to guilt.
RICHARD PARKER: This case is about the difference between a fantasy and reality.
RICHARD PARKER: People should not be judged on their worst thoughts just because they put them to paper. But that’s what they’re doing in this case.
Finally, after four days of testimony, the case went to the jury. Prosecutor Andy Urbanak was uncertain about what verdict they’d come back with.
Andy Urbanak: Once it goes to a jury, we can’t make any guarantees.
But Devnani was confident a guilty verdict would finally put an end to Bender’s reign of terror.
JUDGE: It’s my understanding you have a verdict…
Jessica Devnani: I just wanted to see the expression on his face
THE VERDICT
Memories. Tender words from a son.
Max De La Cerda: This is from a Christmas card that he gave me. “Dad, with all my love, thank you for always being there for me. To many more years. Love, Patrick. [crying].
Max De La Cerda surrounds himself with reminders of his son, taken violently, and far too soon.
Max De La Cerda: I feel my son’s presence here. I haven’t moved his stuff, I haven’t, you know, everything is pretty much the same because I love this kid so much, man.
Patricia Ronze: The only reason it makes me feel better, is … I lost my child for love.
Patrick’s mother has found some solace in her suffering.
Patricia Ronze: He had love in his heart when he passed, he was going down the stairs to get … the ring.
And Jessica Devnani still wears that very engagement ring, in honor of a marriage that never took place.
Jessica Devnani: It’s been a hard past three years. I’ve been living in respect to Patrick.
Jessica Devnani and Patrick De La Cerda’s family are angry about the restraining order because they believe it failed to save Patrick’s life.
Jessica Devnani
But now, Patrick’s loved ones huddle together, hoping finally, three years after his murder, the jury will give them justice.
During four days of testimony, they relived the horror of his death — listening to excruciating details of Bender’s murder plan.
WITNESS: We can see the entrance wound on the right side of the face.
JUDGE: It’s my understanding you have a verdict. Is that correct?
As the verdict was about to be read, Bender turned his head to Jessica.
Jessica Devnani: He was looking at me. … I don’t know what was going on in his head.
JUDGE: Madame clerk, if you can please read the verdict.
CLERK [reads verdict]: We the jury find the defendant, Gregory Bender, as follows guilty of the charge of first-degree murder as charged in the indictment.
Peter Van Sant: It’s guilty and his face does what?
Jessica Devnani: Nothing. Absolutely nothing.
In Florida, a conviction of first-degree murder carries an automatic life sentence without parole. So just moments after the emotion of victory, Patrick’s loved ones are allowed to address the court as Gregory Bender listens just a few feet away.
PATRICIA RONZE: And I want to thank all of you for having put evil where it belongs.
Devnani then spoke but chose not to look at her tormentor.
JESSICA DEVNANI: You will not win. You have only lost. I hope you feel some peace Patrick. Rest assured the man who took your life is going to pay with his own life now.
Then it was Max De La Cerda’s turn.
MAX DE LA CERDA: I will miss my son. … And I regret that I wasn’t there for him to save him (cries).
Remember that during the trial, the defense shamefully tried to suggest that Max may have been involved in his son’s murder.
MAX DE LA CERDA [addressing Bender]: I hope they keep you in jail until you die there, until you die. Because the moment you step out, I’m going to finish you off. I’m going to peel you like an onion. The same thing you did to my son.
ANDREW URBANAK: Mr. De La Cerda, Max, you have to address the judge, you have to address the judge.
MAX DE LA CERDA: You understand that?
ANDREW URBANAK: … address the judge.
MAX DE LA CERDA: And I will miss my son. … he was a beautiful soul. A beautiful kid.
And with that, Gregory Bender was carted off to prison for the rest of his life.
Jessica Devnani: He lost everything. … He’s not going to win again, ever again.
Devnani and Ronze are angry that this restraining order they felt would offer protection for Patrick turned out to be worthless.
Patricia Ronze: My son would be today alive if the restraining order had been enforced by the law enforcement.
Bender had been ordered to turn over his gun collection to the Orange County Sheriff’s Office. He never did … and without probable cause for a search warrant, law enforcement lacked the authority to seize those weapons
Jessica Devnani: It failed us. It failed Patrick.
Now behind bars, the days of Gregory Bender lurking in the shadows of Devnani’s life are finally over.
Peter Van Sant: Will you go on with life, as Patrick would like you to do?
Jessica Devnani: I will. I will go on for Patrick. I will live in his happy memories close to my heart.
With Gregory Bender now behind bars, Jessica Devnani says she will continue to live on for Patrick De La Cerda. “We will always love him for the rest of our lives and the afterlives,” Devnani told “48 Hours.”
Jessica Devnani
One week after Bender’s conviction, was what would have been Patrick’s 29th birthday.
Jessica Devnani: Patrick’s mom and I, we went out to the cemetery in West Palm Beach and we just celebrated his life. We brought some cake, and we brought some champagne.
Peter Van Sant: And what did you say to Patrick on this birthday when you were at his grave?
Jessica Devnani: I said … “we finally did it. We got the guilty verdict.” … We always tell him we love him. … We will always love him.
Gregory Bender’s appeal has been denied.
Produced by Chris O’Connell. Tamara Weitzman is the development producer. Jordan Kinsey is the field producer. Marlon Disla, Ken Blum and Grayce Arlotta-Berner are the editors. Kayla Laine is the associate producer. Anthony Batson is the senior broadcast producer. Nancy Kramer is the executive story editor. Judy Tygard is the executive producer.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office on Friday announced it will not challenge a May state appellate court’s panel ruling that opened the possibility of parole for Leslie Van Houten, a former Charles Manson follower and convicted murderer.
Van Houten is serving concurrent sentences of seven years to life after she was convicted in 1971 for her role in the killings of supermarket executive Leno LaBianca and his wife, Rosemary, at their home.
“More than 50 years after the Manson cult committed these brutal offenses, the victims’ families still feel the impact, as do all Californians. Governor Newsom reversed Ms. Van Houten’s parole grant three times since taking office and defended against her challenges of those decisions in court,” Erin Mellon, a spokesperson for the governor, said in a statement Friday.
“The Governor is disappointed by the Court of Appeal’s decision to release Ms. Van Houten but will not pursue further action as efforts to further appeal are unlikely to succeed. The California Supreme Court accepts appeals in very few cases, and generally does not select cases based on this type of fact-specific determination,” the statement adds.
Van Houten and her team are “thrilled” with the announcement, Nancy Tetreault, Van Houten’s attorney, told CNN.
“She’s just grateful that her rehabilitation, her hard work toward reforming her thinking, understanding the causative factors that led her to be influenced by Manson … She’s grateful that the court of appeals recognizes that,” Tetreault said.
Van Houten will be released on parole pending a final behavioral hearing, with the exact date to be kept confidential for her safety, according to Tetreault.
CNN has reached out to the California Board of Parole Hearings for comment.
Van Houten, now in her 70s, was 19 when she met Manson and joined the murderous cult that came to be called the “Manson family.”
The brutal killings began on August 9, 1969, at the home of actress Sharon Tate and her husband, famed movie director Roman Polanski. He was out of the country at the time. The first victims were Tate, who was eight months’ pregnant; a celebrity hairstylist named Jay Sebring; coffee fortune heiress Abigail Folger; writer Wojciech Frykowski; and Steven Parent, a friend of the family’s caretaker.
The next evening, the LaBiancas were stabbed to death at their home.
Although Manson ordered the murders, he didn’t kill anyone.
Van Houten, along with Manson and followers Charles “Tex” Watson, Susan Atkins and Patricia Krenwinkel, were indicted in December 1969 for the murders of Tate, her friends and the LaBianca murders.
Following her conviction, Van Houten was sentenced to death, but the death penalty was later abolished in California and her sentence was commuted to life in prison. She first became eligible for parole in 1977.
Krenwinkel was denied parole again in 2022. According to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation hearings schedule, she has a hearing set for November 17.
Watson has been denied parole 18 times and will be eligible again in 2026. Atkins died in prison in 2009. Manson died in 2017 at age 83.
A man has been charged with first-degree murder in a shooting rampage Monday in Philadelphia which left five people dead. Police said the suspect was armed with an AR-15 style assault rifle and a ghost gun. Lilia Luciano has details.
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Highland Park, Illinois, marked one year since a gunman killed seven people and injured dozens during a July Fourth parade with a moment of silence Tuesday, for “contemplation, prayer or reflection” in memory of the victims.
A patriotic celebration in the Chicago suburb last Independence Day ended with the mass shooting deaths of Irina and Kevin McCarthy, ages 35 and 37; Katherine Goldstein, 64; Jacquelyn Sundheim, 63; Stephen Straus, 88; Nicolas Toledo-Zaragoza, 78; and Eduardo Uvaldo, 69.
“Eighty-three rounds, one minute, that’s how long it took for a single individual to permanently alter dozens if not hundreds of lives forever,” Mayor Nancy Rotering said at the remembrance ceremony. “The impact of that one minute is incomprehensible.”
A “community walk” followed the moment of silence, organized to “symbolize the reclaiming of the 2022 parade route as we build resiliency together,” the city said.
President Joe Biden, in a statement Tuesday, also remembered the Highland Park tragedy.
“In mere moments, this day of patriotic pride became a scene of pain and tragedy,” Biden said.
The President praised a statewide ban on assault weapons in Illinois following last year’s shooting, noting the ban “will save lives. But it will not erase their grief.”
Robert “Bobby” E. Crimo III, who was 21 years old at the time of the shooting, faces charges of first-degree murder for allegedly firing with a rifle from a rooftop during the holiday parade. He has pleaded not guilty to 117 criminal charges, including 21 counts of first-degree murder.
Along with the seven people killed, 38 others were injured during the shooting, officials said.
Investigators said the gunman wore women’s clothing during the shooting to conceal his identity and his facial tattoos, and to help him leave with the crowd fleeing in the shooting’s wake.
Sounds of gunshots pierced the sunny parade just after 10 a.m. CT along the town’s Central Avenue, about 25 miles north of Chicago, sending hundreds of attendees scattering in terror – abandoning strollers, chairs and American-flag paraphernalia on the streets. Witnesses described watching in horror as injured people dropped around them.
Crimo, a resident of the city of Highwood, near Highland Park, had legally purchased two weapons he had that day in the Chicagoland area, authorities said.
Philadelphia police are investigating a mass shooting that left five people dead and two children injured across a sprawling scene Monday evening, before authorities arrested a suspect who they said had a bulletproof vest, an AR-15 style rifle and a handgun.
Authorities initially said four people, all adult men, were killed. But early Tuesday, they announced the discovery of a fifth body in a house in the same Kingsessing neighborhood in southwestern Philadelphia, saying they believe based on preliminary evidence that person, also a man, was killed in the same spree.
The shooting spanned several blocks and consisted of at least 50 spent shell casings and damaged vehicles, Philadelphia Police Commissioner Danielle M. Outlaw said in a Monday night news conference.
Authorities have “absolutely no idea” why the shooting happened, Outlaw said, and have yet to find any connection between the victims and the suspect, who has not been identified. Outlaw believes he is 40 years old, she said.
When officers arrested the suspect after a foot pursuit, he was wearing a bulletproof vest stocked with several ammunition magazines and was carrying the two guns and a scanner, according to the commissioner.
“We’re canvassing the area to get as much as we can – to identify witnesses, to identify where cameras are located, and do everything we can to figure out the ‘why’ behind this happening,” she said.
The gunfire in Philadelphia erupted Monday evening as the United States endures a seemingly neverending epidemic of gun violence, including another Monday night shooting in Fort Worth, Texas, that left at least three people dead and eight wounded. Another shooting in Baltimore on Saturday left two people dead and 28 others injured.
The shootings in all three cities were among at least 345 mass shootings in the US so far this year, according to the Gun Violence Archive, which, like CNN, defines a mass shooting as one in which four or more people are shot, not including the shooter.
“This devastating violence must stop,” Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney said in a tweet Monday evening.
“My heart is with the loved ones and families of everyone involved, and I send my prayers to the victims,” Kenney said.
Outlaw described the conditions of the injured children – ages 2 and 13 – as stable.
Of the four slain victims that police initially knew about, three were men ages 20, 22 and 59. The fourth was also a man but investigators didn’t know his age, Outlaw said.
The fifth victim was a 31-year-old man, city police Chief Inspector Scott Small said. He was discovered early Tuesday hours after the other victims were found in a home in Kingsessing, a neighborhood that sits on the west bank of the Schuylkill River in southwest Philadelphia.
A second person also was in custody Monday night – someone who authorities believe may have returned fire, Outlaw said.
President Joe Biden condemned the “wave of tragic and senseless shootings” across the country, saying in a statement he and first lady Jill Biden “grieve for those who have lost their lives and, as our nation celebrates Independence Day, we pray for the day when our communities will be free from gun violence.”
Police officers were flagged down in the area where the shooting began around 8:30 p.m. Monday, Outlaw said, and discovered multiple gunshot victims.
“As they were scooping up victims and preparing them for transport to the hospital, they also heard multiple gunshots up the street,” Outlaw said.
Again, as officers were responding to the second shooting scene, more gunshots could be heard on a nearby street, she said.
Officers found the suspect and pursued him on foot as he continued shooting, Outlaw said. The suspect was finally cornered in an alley and apprehended, she said.
“Thank God our officers were here on scene (and) they responded as quickly as they did,” Outlaw said Monday. “I can’t even describe the level of bravery and courage that was shown.”
The body of the slain 31-year-old man was found around 12:30 a.m. Tuesday by his father in the living room, according to Small, the chief inspector.
The father reported this to an officer who was in the area investigating the shooting from hours earlier. The man had been shot several times, and responding medics declared him dead shortly after, Small said.
Investigators found seven rifle rounds inside the home, Small said. Because of the home’s location and ballistic evidence, investigators believe that person’s death is related to the others, Small said.
“We believe now this is the seventh (person shot) and it’ll be the fifth person that was shot and killed,” Small said.
