Gilgo Beach's ‘long Island serial killer’ arrested: All about what happened and how was he arrested

In a significant breakthrough, after 13 years of man hunt in the Gilgo Beach serial killings, authorities have arrested a suspect responsible for the murders. New York Post reports suggests, he has been identified as Rex Heuermann, a 59-year-old architect from Massapequa Park. Heuermann will be produced in court tomorrow.

The case has drawn immense public attention since 11 human remains were found along a New York beach highway more than a decade ago. The mystery attracted national headlines for many years and the unsolved killings were the subject of the 2020 Netflix film “Lost Girls.”

The arrest is specifically connected to the murders of the "Gilgo Four," the four women who were found wrapped in burlap in close proximity to each other in late 2010. By 2011, the number of bodies had climbed to 11 — eight women as well as an unidentified man and toddler.

The bodies were found during a search for missing Jersey City-based sex worker Shannan Gilbert, whose body wasn’t found until December 2011, a year after the Gilgo Four.

But will open the pandora's box for other victims who were killed in the similar fashion.

The suspect has been accused of murdering eleven victims, who were found wrapped in burlap in close proximity to each other in late 2010 and 2011 along a suburban Long Island beach highway. Those who have been identified are Shannan Gilbert, Melissa Barthelemy, Amber Costello, Megan Waterman, Maureen Brainard-Barnes, Jessica Taylor and Valerie Mack.

All About the Long Island Killer

According to the New York Post, the arrested suspect's neighbours claim shortly before 9:30 a.m., at least eight investigators dressed in forensic gear were seen milling around Heuermann’s house. Some identified him as ‘neighbourhood creep’ and admitted they have ‘chills’ thinking he lived nearby for so long.

According to reports, Rex Heuermann is an experienced architect who owns and founded the Midtown architecture firm RH Consultants and Associates. The firm has prestigious clients such as Catholic Charities, NYC-DEP Sewerage Treatment, and American Airlines. Heuermann, who has been working in Manhattan since 1987, was born and raised on Long Island, as he mentioned in an interview posted on YouTube.

How was the Gilgo Beach suspect arrested

According to The Post, Heuermann was nabbed at his home in Massapequa Park and was on the special Gilgo Beach Homicide Investigation Task Force for nearly a year. He was arrested after being linked by DNA.

According to CBS the big breakthrough came last year when after police released an audio of a 911 call made by one of the victims, Shannan Gilbert just before she vanished in 2010.

Gilbert, a sex worker was leaving from a client's house when she called 911. "There's somebody after me," she is heard repeating to the operator. After the 21 minutes call when the police reached the spot she had gone missing.

Investigators back then claimed they didn't think Shannan was murdered. Instead, they felt she might have been high on drugs and ran into the marsh where she may have drowned. '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 stated.

Later in 2022 investigators voiced hope 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.

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.

The Gilgo Beach killings case

The case became national headlines in 2010 when body of Melissa Barthelemy was discovered along Ocean Parkway, followed by the subsequent recovery of three other women's remains in the following days. These victims, known as the "Gilgo Four," include Megan Waterman, Amber Lynn Costello, and Maureen Brainard-Barnes. By spring 2011, the number of bodies discovered in the area had risen to a total of 10, including an unidentified man and toddler.