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.
The remains of a Georgia woman killed 46 years ago were identified and confirmed as a victim of Samuel Little, known as the most prolific serial killer in U.S. history, authorities said Thursday.
Yvonne Pless was about 20 when Little killed her in 1977, according to a news release from the Bibb County Sheriff’s Office and the Criminal Justice Coordinating Council. She had been dubbed “Macon Jane Doe” by The Telegraph newspaper in the city.
Little, who died in December 2020, confessed in 2018 to killing two Macon women, prompting Georgia investigators to travel to Texas in 2019 to interview him. They were able to confirm that his confessions matched the unsolved Macon cold case. They were able to notify a remaining family member of the other woman, Fredonia Smith, who was killed in 1982.
But Pless’ remains hadn’t been identified, so her family was not known. Last year, investigators used forensic genetic genealogy to identify Pless’ remains and then identified a relative who connected them with her remaining family in Macon.
By the time of his death at nearly 80 years old, Little had confessed to killing 93 people between 1970 and 2005. Most of the slayings took place in Florida and Southern California. Georgia authorities say eight of his victims were Georgia residents, and the remains of a Tennessee woman were also found in Georgia.
Little, who was in and out of jail for decades for stealing, assault, drugs or other crimes, for years denied killing anyone.
It wasn’t until he was questioned by Texas Ranger James Holland in 2018 about a killing it turned out he didn’t commit that the details began to come out. Over about 700 hours of interviews, he gave details from scores of killings that only a murderer would know.
He said he started killing in 1970, on New Year’s Eve in Miami.
“It was like drugs,” he told Holland. “I came to like it.”
His last was in 2005, he said, in Tupelo, Mississippi. He also killed people in Tennessee, Texas, Ohio, Kentucky, Nevada, Arkansas and other states.
Little strangled most of his victims, usually soon after meeting them during chance encounters.
Almost all of his victims were women, and he targeted people living on the edges of society, such as prostitutes or drug addicts. They were people he believed wouldn’t be looked for and wouldn’t leave much evidence for police.
He wasn’t wrong – police around the country initially classified many of the deaths as accidents, drug overdoses or the result of unknown causes.
Kentucky authorities finally caught up with him in 2012 after he was arrested on drug charges and his DNA linked him to three California killings.
When he began recounting the other slayings, authorities were astounded at how much he remembered. His paintings, they said, indicated he had a photographic memory.
Samuel Little, 79, confessed to strangling 93 victims between 1970 and 2005 — triple the number of victims that Ted Bundy confessed to killing.
Before he died in 2020, Little answered questions from “60 Minutes” on the phone for nearly an hour. He said there were probably innocent people in jail for some of his crimes.
“Probably be numerous people who are– been convicted and sent to penitentiary on my behalf,” he said. “I say, ‘If I can help get somebody out of jail, you know, God might smile a little bit more on me.’”
Little spoke mostly about his victims.
“They was broke and homeless and they walked right into my spider web,” he said.
In this handout photo provided by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, serial killer Samuel Little is seen in a composite image depicting multiple mug shots/booking photos from 1966-1995.
It took more than two decades to bring William Reece to justice for the murders of Laura Smither, Kelli Cox, Tiffany Johnston and Jessica Cain.
October 18, 1996: William Reece is released from prison
William Reece
14th Court of Appeals
After serving nearly 10 years in prison for sexually assaulting two women in his native Oklahoma, William Reece was released from prison in the fall of 1996. After his release, Reece briefly stayed with his mother in Anadarko, Okla., before moving to Harris County, Texas where he found work as a farrier (putting shoes on horses) and construction worker. Reece made frequent trips between his new home in Texas and his mother’s home in Oklahoma in 1997.
April 3, 1997: Laura Smither disappears in Friendswood, Texas
Laura Smither
Gay Smither
Laura Smither, a 12-year-old aspiring ballerina, went for a morning jog near her home in Friendswood, Texas, but never returned. As days passed, Gay and Bob Smither searched for their daughter with the help of their community, thousands of volunteers and even the US Marines, but no one was able to find a trace of the missing girl.
April 20, 1997: Laura Smither is found
A memorial cross was put up near where Laura Smither’s body was found.
CBS News
After 17 days of searching, Laura Smither’s decomposed body was found 12 miles from her home in a Pasadena, Texas, retention pond by a father and son out walking their dogs. After weeks in the water, her cause of death was unclear. Despite this devastating news, a suspect quickly emerged. It was William Reece, who worked at a construction site just down the road from the Smither’s Friendswood home. While Reece was on their radar and his truck was search in connection to Laura’s case, police did not have enough evidence to make an arrest at the time, so he remained a free man.
May 16, 1997: Sandra Sapaugh is kidnapped in Webster, Texas
Surveillance video shows Sandra Sapaugh inside the convenience store right before her attack.
Harris County District Clerk’s Office
Sandra Sapaugh, 19, stopped at a convenience store near I-45. Sapaugh says she noticed a man staring at her in the parking lot and when she saw him again at the waffle house across the street, he offered to help her with a newly discovered flat tire. Sapaugh was confused by this and says before she knew what was happening, the stranger forced her into his white pickup truck and sexually assaulted her. He sped away with her in his truck and got on the interstate. Fearing what might happen to her if she stayed, Sandra jumped from the fast-moving truck into the middle of the highway. Sapaugh was badly hurt from the jump, but survived.
July 15, 1997: Kelli Cox goes missing in Denton, Texas
The last known image of Kelli Cox, captured a the surveillance camera at the Denton Police Department, the day she went missing.
KTVT
Kelli Cox, a 20-year-old mother and student at the University of Northern Texas, was taking a tour of the Denton police department as a part of her criminal justice class but left early to take an exam. Shortly after leaving, Cox discovered that she was locked out of her car and used a pay phone at a nearby gas station to call her boyfriend for help. But when he showed up, Cox was nowhere to be found. Later that day, when Kelli failed to pick her toddler up from daycare, Cox’s mother Jan Bynum, says she knew something was terribly wrong.
Jan Bynum’s Fight to Find Kelli
Kelli Cox with her then toddler, Alexis.
Jan Bynum
Kelli Cox was a dedicated student, taking summer classes and hoped to graduate early with a degree in social work. Although Kelli was a young mother to her daughter Alexis, she embraced it fully. Alexis was Cox’s whole world and Kelli’s mother Jan Bynum knew that Kelli would never leave Alexis behind.
Still, the days of searching turned into weeks and despite her best efforts, Bynum couldn’t figure out exactly what happened to her daughter. With no body and no strong leads, the case began to grow cold.
July 26, 1997: Tiffany Johnston vanished in Bethany, Oklahoma
Tiffany Johnson’s abandoned car at Sunshine Carwash on the night of her disappearance. Her car mats still hanging up.
KTVT
Tiffany Johnston was 19 years old and newly married when she vanished in broad daylight, from a carwash in Bethany, Oklahoma. Her floor mats were still hanging on the drying racks and keys were still in the ignition, but there was no sign of Tiffany and no one at the carwash reported seeing anything out of the ordinary that day. Tiffany’s mother Kathy Dobry was left mystified and wondered what happened to her youngest daughter.
July 27, 1997: Tiffany Johnston’s body is discovered
Tiffany Johnston’s partially clothed body is discovered on July 27, 1997, a day after her disappearance in tall grass next to an unpaved rural road close to the interstate.
Oklahoma County District Attorney’s Office
Just a day after her disappearance, Tiffany Johnson’s partially clothed body was found in tall grass, next to an unpaved rural road close to the interstate. It was just 15 miles fromthe car wash where Johnson was last seen alive. She had been strangled and sexually assaulted.Investigators were able to recover the killer’s DNA from Johnson’s body, but they could not develop a suspect profile from it at the time.
August 17, 1997: Jessica Cain’s truck is found in La Marque, Texas
Jessica Cain
Just three weeks after Tiffany Johnston’s murder, 17-year-old Jessica Cain was last seen leaving a restaurant in Clear Lake, Texas, where she was out with friends. When Jessica missed curfew, her father C.H. Cain went out looking for her. After searching for hours, C.H. Cain found his daughter’s truck abandoned on the shoulder of I-45 just a couple of miles from their home. There was no trace of Jessica and no clues as to where she was.
Searching for Jessica Cain
A memorial for Jessica Cain
The Galveston County Daily News
Search parties and friends looked for any sign of Jessica, but they had no luck. Gay and Bob Smither, who were still processing the loss of their own daughter Laura, just four months earlier, joined the search immediately, saying they felt called by God to help. After weeks of searching for answers, once again, investigators were left without leads and Jessica’s case grew cold.
October 1997: A survivor comes forward
William Reece
Harris County District Clerk’s Office
Five months after Sandra Sapaugh’s abduction, during a meeting with Friendswood police, Webster investigators realized that Sapaugh’s description of her kidnapper’s vehicle sounded similar to the truck Friendswood police had searched in Laura Smither’s case — belonging to Wiliam Reece. On Oct.16, 1997, Reece was pulled in for a lineup and Sapaugh identified him as her attacker.
Reece was arrested and charged with kidnapping. He pleaded not guilty.
April 29, 1998: The trial for Sandra Sapaugh’s kidnapping begins
Sandra Sapaugh
KHOU
When William Reece was put on trial for the kidnapping of Sandra Sapaugh, his past came back to haunt him. The jury heard Sandra Sapaugh’s powerful testimony and his victims from the eighties also took the stand and shared how they were both brutally attacked by Reece in Oklahoma. The jury deliberated for less than three hours before they found Reece guilty. He was sentenced to 60 years in prison.
A second look at Tiffany Johnston’s case
Major Lynn Williams, left, and Supervising Criminologist Wendy Duke at OSBI headquarters in Oklahoma City.
CBS News
In 2012, retired police chief, Lynn Williams had started working for the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigations (OSBI) and was assigned to Tiffany Johnston’s case. Williams went through the case file methodically, and came to think the crime scene DNA was their best bet at identifying Johnston’s killer.
The DNA from Johnston’s body had already been tested twice, with no results, but with advancements in DNA testing, OSBI supervising criminologist Wendy Duke and her team were able to develop a partial male profile. The team compared this partial profile to the profiles from known suspects, and eliminated all other suspects, until they got to William Reece.
A DNA breakthrough
In December of 2013, a buccal swab was collected from William Reece and sent to the OSBI for comparison. With his DNA in hand, Wendy Duke was finally able to connect Reece to the DNA recovered from Tiffany’s body, and Reece could not be eliminated as the contributor. On Sept. 22, 2015, an arrest warrant was issued for William Reece by the state of Oklahoma for the murder and kidnapping of Tiffany Johnston.
Here is a look at the DNA comparison that was run by the OSBI.
February 2016: William Reece agrees to talk
William Reece agrees to talk with investigators.
Oklahoma County District Attorney’s Office
Oklahoma law enforcement shared their new DNA discovery with Texas investigators who wondered if they could get Reece to talk about a potential connection to the cases of Laura Smither, Kelli Cox and Jessica Cain.
Investigators from Texas went to visit Reece in prison, but before he agreed to speak further, he wanted the death penalty taken off the table. The Smithers agreed and Jan Bynum agreed; they all hoped to learn what happened to their daughters.
Cold cases heat up
William Reese confesses to the murders.
Oklahoma County District Attorney’s Office
Despite only having an agreement to waive the death penalty for Kelli Cox and Laura Smither’s cases, William Reece ended up confessing to all four murders.
March 18, 2016: Jessica Cain’s remains are discovered
Jessica Cain’s remains were discovered in a field near Hobby Airport on March 18, 2016.
Oklahoma County District Attorney’s Office
With the help of some information from William Reece, after 25 days of digging, Jessica Cain’s remains were discovered in a field on East Orem Drive, near Hobby Airport. Jessica Cain’s parents asked for privacy while they buried their daughter.
April 1, 2016: Kelli Cox’s remains are discovered
Kelli Cox’s remains and her bracelet were found on April 1, 2016, in Brazoria County. Her mother had bracelet made into a locket
CBS News
Two weeks after Jessica’s remains were unearthed, Kelli Cox’s were found in nearby Brazoria County. After so many years of wondering what happened to her daughter and Alexis’ mother, Jan Bynum now had answers. Kelli’s bracelet was found with her remains, and Jan had it made into a locket.
May 18, 2021: Tiffany Johnston’s murder trial begins
Tiffany Johnson
Kathy Dobry
After William Reece led investigators to Kelli Cox and Jessica Cain’s remains, Oklahoma prosecutors wanted Reece transported to Oklahoma, so he could face charges for the murder and kidnapping of Tiffany Johnston. Even though prosecutors had DNA linking him to TJohnson and his confession, Reece entered a plea of not guilty.
After nine days, the jury deliberated and took less than two hours to find Reece guilty of murdering Tiffany Johnston. He was sentenced to death.
March 8, 2022: William Reece returns to Texas
After being found guilty of the murder of Tiffany Johnston, Reece returned to Texas to face justice in the murders of Laura Smither, Kelli Cox and Jessica Cain.
Texas Department of Criminal Justice/AP
After being found guilty of the murder of Tiffany Johnston, Reece returned to Texas to face justice in the murders of Laura Smither, Kelli Cox and Jessica Cain.
June 29, 2022: Justice for Laura, Kelli, and Jessica
Jan and Alexis Bynum, embrace friends and family in court. William Reece pleaded guilty in Galveston and Brazoria Counties and was given three life sentences: one for each murder.
KTVT
Twenty-five years after the murders of Laura Smither, Kelli Cox and Jessica Cain, their families finally got their day in court. William Reece pleaded guilty in Galveston and Brazoria Counties and was given three life sentences: one for each murder.
Kathmandu, Nepal — Confessed French serial killer Charles Sobhraj was freed from prison in Nepal on Friday after serving most of his sentence for the murders of American and Canadian backpackers.
His nickname, “The Serpent,” stems from his reputation as a disguise and escape artist.
The court document said he had already served more than 75% of his sentence, making him eligible for release, and he has heart disease.
Charles Sobhraj in an undated photo.
AP
The order also said he had to leave the country within 15 days.
Agence France-Presse reports that Sobhraj was taken to immigration detention and then to Kathmandu airport to be deported to France.
On the plane before it took off, he told AFP, “I feel great. … I have a lot to do. I have to sue a lot of people. Including the state of Nepal.”
The AFP reporter then saw his flight take off.
The Frenchman has in the past admitted killing several Western tourists and he is believed to have killed at least 20 people in Afghanistan, India, Thailand, Turkey, Nepal, Iran and Hong Kong during the 1970s. However, his 2004 conviction in Nepal was the first time he was found guilty in court.
Sobhraj was held for two decades in New Delhi’s maximum-security Tihar prison on suspicion of theft but was deported without charge to France in 1997. He resurfaced in September 2003 in Kathmandu.
Sobhraj is the subject of the 2021 Netflix series “The Serpent,” inspired by his 1970’s killing spree, starring Tahar Rahim and Jenna Coleman.
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“The Good Nurse,” a new true-crime thriller film, follows the real story of a nurse who killed dozens of hospital patients, and the woman who helped stop him. Actress Jessica Chastain plays real-life nurse Amy Loughren, who worked with police to get the actual serial killer to confess. The two join “CBS Mornings” to discuss working together on the film.
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A suspect was taken into custody in Stockton, California, early Saturday morning in connection with a serial killing investigation, authorities said. The man was apprehended during a traffic stop.
Stockton Police Chief Stanley McFadden said Wesley Brownlee, a Stockton resident, was taken into custody at about 2 a.m. local time. He had been under surveillance.
Officers “determined early this morning, he was on a mission to kill,” McFadden said in a Saturday afternoon news briefing. “He was out hunting.”
He was armed with a gun, wearing dark clothing and had a “mask around his neck” when he was arrested, the police chief said.
“We are sure we stopped another killing,” McFadden added.
Brownlee was booked for homicide. A SWAT team later raided his apartment.
Wesley Brownlee was taken into custody in Stockton, California, on Oct. 15, 2022, in connection with a serial killing investigation.
Stockton Police Department
Investigators had been searching for a suspect, who, according to police, was believed responsible in the fatal shootings of five men in Stockton, and a sixth man in Oakland, dating back to April 2021. The latest killing occurred in September. A woman was also believed to have been shot and wounded by the suspect.
McFadden said that Brownlee was identified as a suspect thanks to a tips from community members.
San Joaquin County District Attorney Tori Verber Salazar told reporters Brownlee will be arraigned Tuesday. The exact charges he faces have yet to be determined.
This is a developing story. Refresh this page for updates.
Never-before-seen video from January 6 shows lawmakers in hiding, seeking help to stop the riot; California serial killer may also be connected to Chicago murders.
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