Gilgo Beach killer Rex Heuermann pleads guilty to eight murders on Long Island
Gilgo Beach killer Rex Heuermann pleads guilty to eight murders on Long Island
Rex Heuermann admits to eight Gilgo Beach killings, detailing how victims were lured, disposed of, and linked to the Long Island case.
Rex Heuermann, a Long Island architect, pleaded guilty on Wednesday and added an eighth murder to his tally in the infamous Gilgo Beach killings. He had been in custody since his arrest in July 2023 and appeared in court in Riverhead, where he accepted the charges tied to the eight victims identified in the case. The plea marks a dramatic end to years of investigation into a string of slayings that shocked Long Island and stoked a nationwide true-crime conversation.
Authorities pursued a breakthrough in the case through a combination of evidence, including a discarded pizza crust, an SUV, cell phone records and mitochondrial DNA matches that connected Heuermann to the victims. After his arrest, he initially pleaded not guilty, but his latest plea confirms his involvement across multiple murders, most of them dating back to the 1990s and weeks before they vanished.
Heuermann admitted to the killings of Melissa Barthelemy in 2009, Amber Costello, Megan Waterman, Maureen Brainard-Barnes, Valerie Mack, Jessica Taylor and Sandra Costilla, and he also acknowledged an eighth murder. He described employing burner phones, luring victims with offers of money, and wrapping bodies in burlap sacks before disposing of them near Gilgo Beach. He indicated the intent to kill over a two-year period, and he admitted to dismembering Jessica Taylor and Valerie Mack, with remains found in Manorville and near Gilgo Beach.
In court, Judge Timothy Mazzei asked Heuermann if the plea was voluntary and of his own free will; Heuermann answered affirmatively. The plea concludes a chapter that had haunted families of the victims and a public fascinated by the mystery, offering a measure of closure after decades of unresolved questions.
