Lengthy Island serial killings: A timeline of the investigation

What started as a seek for one lacking girl led to a number of our bodies and the seize of a person police say is a serial killer. 

Could 1, 2010: Shannan Gilbert disappears

Shannan Gilbert, 23, was working as an escort. Within the early morning hours of Could 1, 2010, Gilbert made a frantic telephone name to 911. She had been at a shopper’s residence on Lengthy Island, and stated she believed somebody was after her. She took off operating and instructed the 911 operator there have been individuals making an attempt to kill her. Then, Gilbert vanished.

Police would do an exhaustive seek for Gilbert. Months handed with out a signal of the lacking girl after which, in December 2010, close to Gilgo Seaside, a police officer and his Ok-9, Blue, discovered human stays. Nevertheless it wasn’t Gilbert. As an alternative, they discovered the our bodies of 4 girls.

December 2010: The Gilgo 4

Police discovered the our bodies of 4 girls close to Gilgo Seaside on New York’s Lengthy Island.  The ladies grew to become generally known as the Gilgo 4 and have been recognized as Maureen Brainard-Barnes, Amber Costello, Megan Waterman and Melissa Barthelemy. Police say all the girls have been petite and three of them have been wrapped in burlap.  Police started their hunt to discover a serial killer.

The killer had a sort

Dominick Varrone, who was Suffolk County chief of detectives on the time, stated there have been hanging similarities among the many Gilgo 4. “Very petite. 5 foot or under, 100 pounds,” Varrone stated. The ladies have been additionally all of their 20s and have been all working as on-line escorts.

July 6, 2007: Maureen Brainard-Barnes’ ultimate weekend

Maureen Brainard-Barnes is also known as the primary of the Gilgo 4. She went lacking in July 2007.  Brainard-Barnes was a single mom of two dwelling in Norwich, Connecticut. She had begun working as an escort, posting advertisements on Craigslist and different web sites to fulfill purchasers. On July 6, 2007, her cellphone was contacted by a burner cellphone — a pay as you go telephone that anybody should buy and use anonymously. Between July 6 and July 9, there have been 16 interactions between the caller utilizing a burner telephone and Brainard-Barnes’ cellphone. 

July 8, 2007: Missy Cann’s final name along with her sister

Maureen Brainard-Barnes’ sister, Missy Cann, acquired a name from Maureen late at evening from Penn Station in midtown Manhattan. In an interview in 2020, Cann instructed “48 Hours” Maureen stated she was going to take the prepare at midnight. Cann by no means noticed or heard from Maureen once more.

July 2009: The disappearance of Melissa Barthelemy

Melissa Barthelemy, 24, moved from Buffalo, New York, to New York Metropolis to work as a hairdresser. In some unspecified time in the future, she additionally started working as an escort. In July 2009, almost two years to the day that Brainard-Barnes went lacking,  Barthelemy disappeared.

July 17, 2009: Taunting telephone calls start

Within the weeks following Barthelemy’s disappearance, police say her then 15-year-old sister, Amanda, acquired a sequence of telephone calls from a person calling from Melissa’s cellphone. The primary of those calls got here on July 17, 2009 at roughly 12:40 p.m.  A variety of calls adopted within the coming weeks. In a single, the caller instructed Amanda he had killed Melissa.

June 5, 2010: Megan Waterman

Megan Waterman, 22, a mom from Scarborough, Maine, was additionally working as an escort. On June 5, 2010, she was contacted by a burner telephone which had simply been activated that very same day.

June 6, 2010: Megan Waterman vanishes

At 1:31 a.m., Waterman’s telephone was once more contacted by the identical burner telephone because the day earlier than. Safety video confirmed Waterman leaving a Vacation Inn Specific in Hauppauge, Lengthy Island, across the similar time. This was the final time she was seen alive.

“I can’t bring her back”

Liliana Waterman was simply 3 years outdated when her mom disappeared. In her first tv interview in 2020, Liliana (pictured with Megan Waterman) instructed “48 Hours” that if she may speak to her mother, she would inform her how a lot she loves her. “I never got to really say those words,” Liliana instructed correspondent Erin Moriarty. She stated she misses her mother day-after-day.

Sept. 2, 2010: Amber Costello disappears

Amber Costello, a 27-year-old escort dwelling on Lengthy Island, was contacted by somebody utilizing a burner telephone. The following day, she left her home to fulfill a shopper and by no means returned.

After Costello’s disappearance, police say her roommate Dave Schaller instructed them about her purchasers. He described one in every of them as trying like an “ogre” and having “a first-generation Chevrolet Avalanche.” On the evening she went lacking, Schaller says, a shopper supplied Cistello $1,500 for the evening – six occasions her hourly fee.

In 2011, Schaller spoke to Moriarty. “This guy was so relentless,” Schaller stated. “He called several times. He was on the phone with her for quite a while each time.” He says the shopper acquired Costello, an skilled escort, to do one thing she by no means did: go away residence with out her purse or cellphone and meet him in his automobile. At almost midnight, Schaller says Costello left the home, walked down the road, and he by no means noticed her once more.

Dec. 16, 2010: Nonetheless no Shannan

All through the spring of 2011, investigators continued a wide-ranging seek for Shannan Gilbert.

Could 2011: Six extra units of stays found

By Could 2011, police had found six extra units of stays within the space, bringing the whole to 10 — together with the Gilgo 4. Investigators weren’t certain the identical killer was accountable for all of the murders.  

• Sufferer No. 5, Jessica Taylor, is an escort who went lacking in 2003. 
• One other set of stays police referred to as “Jane #6” has now been recognized as Valerie Mack, who additionally labored as an escort and went lacking in 2000.
• Quantity 7, to investigators’ shock they discovered a toddler lady. 
• Quantity 8 was an Asian male wearing girls’s clothes. 
• Quantity 9 was a feminine cranium belonging to Karen Vergata, an escort who disappeared in 1996.
• Quantity 10, feminine stays, from a sufferer cops nicknamed “Peaches” due to a tattoo on her torso.  Though her stays have been discovered 6 miles away, police say DNA has confirmed that “Peaches” is the mom of that toddler. 

Dec. 13, 2011: Shannan Gilbert is discovered

In December 2011, a year-and-a-half after she went lacking, and a yr after the Gilgo 4 have been discovered, investigators discovered  Gilbert’s stays. However they don’t imagine she was murdered.

Years later, the Suffolk County Police Division launched the total audio of Shannan’s 21-minute 911 name on Could 1, 2010, the morning she disappeared. Police Commissioner Rodney Harrison stated in an interview with Erin Moriarty, Gilberts’s demise was doubtless not a homicide. “It’s an unfortunate incident, but right now we believe that she just ran into the marsh and unfortunately drowned,” Harrison stated.

February 2022: A contemporary take a look at the case

For almost a decade after the invention of the Gilgo 4, the investigation stalled. Till, in February 2022, a brand new job drive was shaped by Suffolk County Police Commissioner Rodney Harrison and Suffolk County District Lawyer Ray Tierney. In an interview withMoriarty, DA Tierney stated, “… a mere six weeks later … Rex Heuermann was identified for the first time.”

A tip from the previous

How did investigators get a suspect in six weeks? It seems that within the unique case information have been various important clues that the brand new job drive was lastly capable of join. Costello’s roommate Dave Schaller had beforehand described one in every of Costello’s purchasers and the kind of automobile he drove to investigators. The automobile was a first-generation Chevrolet Avalanche.

With an outline of an”ogre-like” man, and the make and mannequin of his truck, police took a better take a look at Costello’s telephone information from 2010. Schaller had instructed them that earlier than Costello disappeared, there was one shopper that referred to as her incessantly.

The burner telephone clue

Police again then knew the shopper was utilizing a burner telephone. And so they knew that the Brainard-Barnes, Barthelemy, Costello and Waterman  had all been involved with burner numbers proper earlier than they disappeared.

In 2012, with the assistance of the FBI, police decided that the majority of these calls related to cell towers inside a small space of Massapequa Park, Lengthy Island. They referred to as this space “the box.” In response to DA Tierney, “the box” consisted of a few blocks inside Massapequa Park.

A suspect in sight

Armed with their small radius of “the box” and the outline of an “ogre-like” man that drove a Chevrolet Avalanche, the duty drive now had a chief suspect. Police recognized an architect named Rex Heuermann as the person they believed might have been accountable for the murders.

And after they checked out Heuermann’s private cellphone information, they are saying that his telephone was in the identical space as these burner telephones after they have been used to contact victims. In addition they say that when the burner telephones contacted victims, they have been typically in Massapequa Park, the place Heuermann lived, or midtown Manhattan, the place his architectural agency was situated. In 2023, they seen Heuermann going right into a telephone retailer to make a fee on a burner telephone. 

A DNA hit

Police started to tail Heuermann. When he threw out a pizza field right into a trash can in midtown Manhattan, investigators discovered that Heuermann’s DNA on the pizza crust was in keeping with a DNA profile discovered on a male hair found with Megan Waterman’s physique. With DNA proof, together with the cellphone information linking Heuermann to the burner telephones, officers made an arrest.

July 14, 2023: A suspect in custody

Rex Heuermann, of Massapequa Park, Lengthy Island,  was charged with a number of counts of homicide within the deaths of Melissa Barthelemy, Megan Waterman and Amber Costello. Heuermann is at the moment the prime suspect for the homicide of Maureen Brainard-Barnes, however he has not been charged along with her demise.

When requested about Heuermann’s innocence at a press convention, Heuerman’s lawyer Michael Brown stated, “What has my client told me? He told me he didn’t do this.” 

Digging for proof

Police spent 12 days trying via Heuermann’s home, pulling weapons out of the basement, and digging within the yard. One other vital piece of proof taken into possession was a first-generation Chevrolet Avalanche registered to Heuermann on the time of the murders. It was sitting on property he owns in South Carolina after they recovered it.

A chance to kill? 

A married man, Heuermann has a daughter and stepson along with his second spouse, Asa Ellerup. Ellerup, who was born in Iceland, would take the kids to see her household there within the summers. It was throughout these journeys and others, police imagine, that Heuermann killed the ladies.

Heuermann pleaded not responsible

Heuermann was arraigned in Suffolk County Court docket in Riverhead, New York. He pleaded not responsible to the murders of Melissa Barthelemy, Megan Waterman and Amber Costello. The choose ordered that he be held with out bail in a Suffolk County jail the place he’s at the moment awaiting trial.

Remembering Amber, Melissa and Megan

Investigators hope that the arrest can provide victims’ households a way of peace. Police Commissioner Harrison instructed Erin Moriarty, “He took away somebody’s mother, somebody’s daughter, somebody’s sister, not just one person, multiple individuals.” 

Different investigations?

Investigations unfold to South Carolina and Las Vegas the place Heuermann owns property, with detectives there taking a contemporary take a look at instances of lacking girls. Heuermann has not been charged in any further investigations.

As for the opposite our bodies discovered close to Gilgo Seaside – Jessica Taylor, Valerie Mack, Karen Vergata, “Peaches”, the toddler lady, and the Asian male – none of them have been linked to Heuermann. 

Prosecutors: Suspect’s cheek swab matches pizza field DNA

DNA from Heuermann’s cheek swab matches the DNA that authorities had beforehand collected from a pizza crust and used to hyperlink Heuermann to one of many victims, in accordance with prosecutors throughout a Sept. 27, 2023 court docket look. Heuermann’s lawyer disputed the importance of the DNA pattern.

Jan. 16, 2024: Heuermann charged with fourth killing

Six months after his arrest, Rex Heuermann was indicted within the demise of a fourth alleged sufferer, Maureen Brainard-Barnes. Investigators stated they linked Brainard-Barnes’ homicide to Heuermann by way of DNA from a feminine hair discovered within the buckle of a belt used to bind her ankles, ft and legs – eight trillion to 1 that it matched Heuermann’s spouse Asa Ellerup or daughter Victoria, who was tailed on a commuter prepare and threw out an power drink, in accordance with court docket paperwork. Prosecutors made it clear they believed all hair switch have been constituted of Heuermann to his alleged victims. The household was out of city for the murders of the Gilgo Seaside 4. Heuermann has pleaded not responsible to the murders.

June 6, 2024: Two extra instances linked to Heuermann 

Heuermann was charged with killing two extra girls 10 years aside on Lengthy Island — the 1993 homicide of Sandra Costilla and the 2003 homicide of Jessica Taylor. Costilla’s demise was not beforehand tied to the Gilgo case. The Suffolk County district lawyer’s workplace says DNA from hair discovered close to Costilla and Taylor’s stays and pick-up truck proof join Heuermann to their killings. Heuermann has pleaded not responsible to all costs.

Dec. 17, 2024: Heuermann charged with seventh killing

Heuermann was charged with killing Valerie Mack, a 24-year-old from New Jersey who had been working as an escort within the Philadelphia space, in 2000. For years, she was recognized solely as “Jane Doe #6.” Her partial stays have been present in Manorville, Lengthy Island, in 2000, and extra of her stays have been discovered on Gilgo Seaside greater than 10 years later.