What we're covering:
• Rex Heuermann, the Long Island serial killer who fatally strangled eight women, is due to be sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole today.
• Victims’ families are giving emotional statements in Suffolk County Court in New York, tearfully offering tributes to their loved ones and describing the brutal impact of their loss. It is possible Heuermann himself will address the court, marking the end of a case that dates as far back as 1993 and has haunted Long Islanders for years.
• In 2010, the remains of four women were found on an isolated stretch off Ocean Parkway in Gilgo Beach, earning them the nickname the “Gilgo Four.” In April, Heuermann confessed he killed those women and four others, discarding their remains.
Heuermann is reactionless as victims' families speak
As the family members of his victims speak in court one by one, Rex Heuermann sits at the defense table without reaction, remaining still, one hand over the other.
He has been looking straight ahead or facing down, away from the speakers, throughout.
“You hunted her and I hunted you,” Jessica Taylor’s cousin tells Heuermann
Noting that Jessica Taylor would have celebrated her 43rd birthday Wednesday, her cousins vowed to stand strong for the woman they said “was pure sunshine” and a “spunky, smart, beautiful friend.”
“We were weekend warriors. 80s and 90s kids. Nintendo, movie nights, learning the tootsie roll, drinking soda milk, watching Tales from the Crypt,” Taylor’s cousin Jasmine Robinson recalled.
Robinson and Violet Swager then turned their attention to Heuermann, expressing disgust for their loved one’s killer.
“Heuermann, you fill me with so much repugnance it’s suffocating, but I can’t let you overtake me and I will stand strong for my cousin,” Robinson said.
“I’m so grateful for this day of justice and I know she is too. … Happy birthday, Jess,” Swager said.
Victim’s sister says she suffered “unbearable pain” and survivor’s guilt for over a decade
Maureen Brainard-Barnes “was not just murdered,” her sister Melissa “Missy” Cann said. She was the victim of “calculated, unimaginable evil.”
“That pain is unbearable,” Cann said, sobbing, in court ahead of Rex Heuermann’s sentencing. “I have lived with survivor’s guilt for over a decade … asking myself: ‘What if I had done something differently? Where would she be today?’”
But Cann said she now understands who’s at fault for her anguish.
“It has taken me years to know the truth. My actions did not cause my sister’s death. The guilt is not mine to carry, and it never was,” she said. “The burden belongs to Rex, and Rex alone.”
“You took away every chance she ever had,” victim’s mother says
The adoptive mother of one of Heuermann’s victims, Valerie Mack, had sharp words for Heuermann in court Wednesday – but also told him he failed to “touch her soul.”
“You can never give back what you took from her and her son. You took away a lifetime for him of his mother’s love,” JoAnn Mack said during victim impact statements ahead of Heuermann’s sentencing.
“What you have done to our family is beyond what words can express,” she added.
But “no matter what sense of power or control you felt over Valerie’s body, you were never able to touch her soul,” the mother said. “Unless you get yourself right before God, Valerie is the one who is free today, and you are not.”
Valerie Mack's sister says Heuermann doesn't "have the humanity to feel remorse"
Danielle Mack said the spirit of her sister lives on with her family as she directly addressed Valerie Mack’s killer, Rex Heuermann, in court Wednesday.
“Despite her struggles, Valerie Mack had a fire inside of her that lit up the world around her,” she said. “The fires they lit roar inside each and every one of us.”
The sister took aim at Heuermann, saying he does not “have the humanity to feel remorse.”
Heuermann remained seated, looking down with his hands crossed in his lap and rarely making eye contact with the speaker.
The district attorney then read a statement on behalf of Valerie Mack’s son, Benjamin “Aaron” Torres, that said: “Such a degree of evil and selfishness you have acted out has no possible excuse.”
“You will reap what you have sown. No one is exempt from that universal truth,” the statement said.
Seven victims' families set to address court at Heuermann sentencing
People who had assembled outside the courthouse ahead of the sentencing for Long Island serial killer Rex Heuermann were allowed to enter the building, with the main courtroom quickly filling up and other attendees filing into an overflow room.
The Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office has released a list of those who will address the court during the hearing. The speakers include the families of seven of Heuermann’s victims: Valerie Mack, Jessica Taylor, Maureen Brainard-Barnes, Melissa Barthelemy, Megan Waterman, Amber Costello and Sandra Costilla.
The family of the eighth woman Heuermann confessed to killing, Karen Vergata, is not listed.
Some of the victim impact statements will be read by the district attorney’s office.
Rex Heuermann enters courtroom
Rex Heuermann was escorted into a New York courtroom Wednesday for his sentencing hearing.
He wore a black suit with a blue shirt and a light-colored tie, with his hands cuffed behind his back. The handcuffs were removed before he sat down.
Court is now in session
Suffolk County Judge Timothy Mazzei is reading the rules for media coverage, including guidelines for videography and photography.
Other bodies have not been connected to Rex Heuermann's killing spree
In law enforcement’s search for Shannan Gilbert, they ultimately uncovered the remains of nearly a dozen people, mostly young female sex workers, along a stretch of Ocean Parkway on Long Island.
Rex Heuermann is due to be sentenced today after pleading guilty to murdering seven women. He also admitted to killing an eighth.
At least four other people — including Gilbert — whose remains were found along the parkway have not been connected to Heuermann’s killing spree.
Here’s what we know about them:
- Shannan Gilbert: In the early morning hours of May 1, 2010, Gilbert, a sex worker who advertised on Craisglist, was driven to a home in Oak Beach to meet a client, according to Suffolk County police. In the house, Gilbert called 911 and repeatedly said, “There is somebody after me,” according to audio released in 2022. Her skeletonized remains were found in December 2011 in a nearby marsh, partially entangled in overgrown shrubbery, the Suffolk County Office of the Medical Examiner wrote.
- Tanya Jackson and Tatiana Dykes: The killings of a woman, Jackson, and her 2-year-old child, Dykes, whose remains were found along Ocean Parkway, have been connected to a suspect living in Florida. The two remained unidentified for more than a decade, and they were not included in the charges against Heuermann. In April 2025, with the help of genetic genealogy, Nassau County officials and the FBI announced their identities.
- “Asian Doe”: The skeletal remains of a person referred to as “Asian Doe” were found off Ocean Parkway in April 2011 and remain unidentified. The victim was an Asian biological male who was found wearing women’s clothing, Suffolk County District Attorney Ray Tierney said in 2024. Investigators believe the victim died in 2006 or earlier from blunt force trauma, Tierney said
Correction: An earlier version of this post misstated the number of killings to which Heuermann pleaded guilty.
Demonstrators outside Heuermann sentencing: “Sex workers are not a social ill”
A group of women, all community members who are sex workers, gathered outside the Arthur M. Cromarty Court Complex on Long Island ahead of the sentencing of Rex Heuermann, the Long Island serial killer.
Heuermann secretly kidnapped, tortured and killed sex workers for years, according to prosecutors.
The women, dressed in red and holding red umbrellas and protest signs, are seeking to raise awareness about how the media portrays sex workers, Natalie Gilda, one of the demonstrators, told CNN.
“STOP mythologizing men who kill sex workers,” one sign read. Another stated, “Sex workers are not a social ill, violent men are.”
How a mother became an unintended hero in getting justice for the Gilgo Beach murders
The path to identifying Rex Heuermann as the Gilgo Beach serial killer began with Shannan Gilbert.
Gilbert, a 23-year-old sex worker, had gone missing in May 2010 after a visit to a client in Oak Beach, a Long Island, New York, community near Gilgo Beach. Spurred by her mother, police began to search for her – and ultimately uncovered the remains of nearly a dozen people, mostly young female sex workers, along a stretch of Ocean Parkway.
Yet when Heuermann pleaded guilty to murdering seven women and confessed to an eighth killing earlier this month, Gilbert was not among the victims. Authorities believe the death of Gilbert may have been accidental and not related to the other killings.
Still, Shannan Gilbert’s mother, Mari Gilbert, became an unintended hero in the case. In the final years of her life, Mari Gilbert pressured police to take her daughter’s disappearance seriously. She fought tirelessly to ensure that Shannan and the other victims would not be forgotten.
“Mari understood that one way of finding at least a shred of meaning in the loss of her daughter was that her disappearance led to the discovery of those four women several months later, and that without Shannan there would be no case, there would be no search for the killer,” said Robert Kolker, the author of the 2013 book “Lost Girls: An Unsolved American Mystery,” which closely examined the case.
“She understood that very well, and I believe she found some redemption in that idea: that Shannan’s loss helped others learn the truth.”
How investigators cracked the Gilgo Beach killer case after it went cold
It took investigators nearly 15 years to close in on Rex Heuermann for the murder of several women on Long Island, with a crucial break in the case coming from a pizza crust.
In February 2022, then-Suffolk County Police Commissioner Rodney Harrison formed a multiagency task force to investigate what became known as the Gilgo Beach killings. Heuermann was first mentioned as a possible suspect the next month, according to Suffolk County District Attorney Ray Tierney.
Investigators began looking at cell tower records, a physical description of the suspect, a green pickup truck, credit card billing records and computer records, according to prosecutors, which pointed to Heuermann.
Heuermann used burner phones to contact sex workers or massage parlors, the bail application said. And he created false names for an email account used to search for “sex workers, sadistic, torture-related pornography and child pornography,” the bail application said.
They recovered a male hair from the burlap wrapped around the victim’s remains. Investigators got a sample of Heuermann’s DNA from leftover pizza crust and connected it to the DNA found on the victim, according to prosecutors.
Additionally, hair believed to be from Heuermann’s wife was found on or near three of the murder victims, according to the bail application. The DNA was collected from bottles inside a garbage can outside the Heuermann home.
Investigators further found disturbing content on Heuermann’s devices, including a planning document outlining a strategy for future killings, prosecutors said in a 2024 court hearing.
Who is Rex Heuermann?
The son of an aerospace engineer, Rex Heuermann lived with his spouse and children in the village of Massapequa Park on Long Island. He commuted to Manhattan where he worked as an architect at his company RH Consultants & Associates.
But, he was living a double life and is now due to be sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole in connection to eight killings that go back to 1993.
Prosecutors say he secretly kidnapped, tortured and killed sex workers for years. He allegedly called the victims’ families using burner phones to taunt them, and he created fake email accounts to search for sadistic pornography and to search for news about the Gilgo Beach investigation, according to a bail application.
In a video interview posted online by Bonjour Realty in 2022, as police in Suffolk County, New York, formed a multiagency task force to investigate the long-dormant cases, Heuermann said he was born and raised on Long Island.
Asked what his job taught him about himself, Heuermann said: “I think it’s taught me more about how to understand people. Dealing with the technical aspects is something a person can learn … But it’s the people, how they’re all so different and how you deal with the people, I think, is one of the more interesting aspects that has come out of this.”
His wife, Asa Ellerup, filed for divorce, her attorney Robert Macedonio told CNN in 2023.
A timeline of key events that led up to Rex Heuermann's confession to 8 murders
Today’s sentencing of Rex Heuermann marks an end to a case that spans decades and confounded investigators.
Here’s a timeline of key moments:
- 2010-2011: The investigation began in earnest with the disappearance of 23-year-old Shannan Gilbert. The search for her whereabouts led to the discovery of at least 10 sets of human remains along Ocean Parkway and launched the hunt for a suspected serial killer. But the investigation went cold for over a decade.
- 2022: Then-Suffolk County Police Commissioner Rodney Harrison formed a multiagency task force to investigate the Gilgo Beach killings. Heuermann was first mentioned as a possible suspect after a New York state investigator identified him in a database, according to Suffolk County District Attorney Ray Tierney.
- 2023: Investigators got a complete sample of Heuermann’s DNA from leftover crust in a pizza box he threw in the trash, a law enforcement source close to the investigation told CNN. Analysis of the DNA found on one of the victims and the pizza crust showed the samples matched. In July 2023, Heuermann was charged with the murders of three of the four Gilgo Four victims and initially pled not guilty.
- 2024: Heuermann was charged with second-degree murder in the death of the fourth of the Gilgo Four, according to an indictment. He was also indicted on three additional murder charges for different victims.
- April 2026: Heuermann stood in court for a hearing decades in the making. In a calm tone, he pleaded guilty to seven murders and admitted he killed an eighth woman.
What we know about the victims as Rex Heuermann faces sentencing
In April, Rex Heuermann pleaded guilty to seven murders and admitted to killing an eighth woman, bringing long-awaited closure to several families.
Authorities announced a major breakthrough in the case in July 2023 when they charged Heuermann with murder in the killings of three of the four women who became known as the “Gilgo Four” – women whose remains were found in December 2010 at Long Island’s Gilgo Beach. Heuermann was later charged with four more murders – including the death of the fourth Gilgo Four victim – in incidents dating as far back as 1993.
- Maureen Brainard-Barnes, one of the Gilgo Four, was 25 years old when she was last seen on July 9, 2007. Her family called the indictment of Heuermann in her murder “an important chapter in the long pursuit of justice.”
- Melissa Barthelemy, one of the Gilgo Four, was 24 years old when she was last seen on July 12, 2009, in the basement apartment where she lived in the Bronx, according to the Suffolk County police website on the Gilgo killings. “I still don’t sleep through the night thinking about all of it,” Lynn Barthelemy, the victim’s mother, told CNN in 2011.
- Megan Waterman, another Gilgo Four victim, was 22 years old when she was last seen on June 6, 2010. Her family at one time used funding from a nonprofit human rights organization to hire a team of private investigators to help search for her.
- Amber Costello, one of the Gilgo Four, was 27 years old and living on Long Island when she was last seen leaving her home in 2010. “What happened to Amber eats at me every day,” her sister, Kim Overstreet, told CNN in 2011.
- Jessica Taylor’s remains were discovered in part in Manorville in 2003, with more found along Ocean Parkway in Gilgo Beach in 2011, according to police.
- Sandra Costilla’s remains were found in the hamlet of North Sea in 1993 by two hunters in the woods, according to court documents.
- Valerie Mack’s partial remains were found in a wooded area of Manorville in November 2000, with further remains discovered in 2011, according to police. She was a 24-year-old Philadelphia mother who worked as an escort.
- Karen Vergata Vergata, a 34-year-old escort from Manhattan, went missing in February 1996. Her partial remains were found on Fire Island in April 1996, with further remains found along Ocean Parkway during the Gilgo Beach investigation in 2011.
How Rex Heuermann went from a teary denial to a guilty plea
In July 2023, Heuermann, a New York-based architect with no criminal record, was in tears after he was arrested in the notorious Gilgo Beach serial killings on Long Island.
Exactly 1,000 days after his arrest, Heuermann showed no signs of emotional distress as he addressed a Suffolk County, New York, courtroom and calmly and coolly pleaded guilty to seven murder charges and admitted he killed an eighth woman.
The path from denial to a guilty plea was paved by the ongoing investigative efforts of police, four added murder charges from prosecutors, the judge’s “monumental” ruling on DNA evidence and the desires of the victims’ families. Ultimately, though, it was up to Heuermann himself.
How the plea deal came together: Heuermann faced 10 murder charges for killing seven women; three of the killings were charged as both first-degree and second-degree murder. All seven murder allegations would be handled in one trial, the judge ruled.
He pleaded guilty to seven counts of murder and admitted to killing an eighth woman. In exchange, prosecutors dismissed the three doubled-up murder charges and asked the judge to sentence him to multiple life sentences without the possibility of parole. Heuermann must also cooperate with the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit, his defense attorney Michael J. Brown said.
His attorney said the judge’s ruling that evidence derived from whole genome sequencing would be admissible also hurt the defense’s chances for success at a trial.
But, at a certain point, Heuermann admitted responsibility and said he wanted to plead guilty, Brown said.
Suffolk County district attorney explains how Rex Heuermann’s sentencing will go
About 10 to 15 people are expected to speak to the court about their murdered loved ones at Long Island serial killer Rex Heuermann’s sentencing today, Suffolk County District Attorney Ray Tierney said.
“This is the first time they’ve been given the opportunity to speak about this case,” Tierney told CNN in a phone call Tuesday. “This is a long time coming for them, so there’s no question that their statements will be impactful.”
This is how the hearing will proceed, according to Tierney:
First, the attorneys will have a chance to comment on a pre-sentence investigation report, followed by victim impact statements and comments from the prosecution.
Next, the defense attorney and Heuermann can choose to speak.
Finally, Judge Timothy Mazzei will offer comment and pronounce the sentence.
After such an extensive investigation, Tierney said, he’s pleased to be at this point.
He said he was grateful to bring some justice to the victims’ families, whose loved ones died between 1993 and 2010.
“We want them to know law enforcement and the people of Suffolk County are very sorry about what their families had to endure and we’re glad that we can provide this small bit of comfort to them,” he said.
Victims' families expected to speak at Long Island serial killer’s sentencing
Rex Heuermann, the Long Island serial killer who fatally strangled eight women and discarded their remains over multiple decades, is due to be sentenced today to life in prison without the possibility of parole in what is likely to be an emotional hearing.
The hearing in Suffolk County Court in New York is expected to feature statements from the victims’ families, who have long waited to directly confront their tormentor. Heuermann, 62, also may speak, his defense attorney previously said.
The sentencing represents the end of a case that dates as far back as 1993 and has haunted Long Islanders for years.
In 2010, the remains of four women were found on an isolated stretch off Ocean Parkway in Gilgo Beach, earning them the nickname the “Gilgo Four.” That gruesome discovery set off a wider search, and investigators ultimately found at least 10 sets of human remains, primarily of young female sex workers.
Finally, in July 2023, Heuermann, an architect and married father, was arrested and charged with the killings of three of the Gilgo Four. Prosecutors later charged him with four more murders.
Heuermann initially pleaded not guilty. In April, though, he pleaded guilty to seven murders and admitted to killing an eighth woman in a spree dating from 1993 to 2010. He stood up in the packed courtroom and said that he strangled each victim, dismembered several of them, and discarded their remains across Long Island.
Heuermann confessed to killing the Gilgo Four — Maureen Brainard-Barnes, Melissa Barthelemy, Megan Waterman and Amber Costello — as well as Jessica Taylor, Valerie Mack, Sandra Costilla and Karen Vergata.
