Serial killer who murdered eight women in US imprisoned for life

'Look at me when I'm talking to you': Victims' families speak at Gilgo killer's sentencing

11 minutes ago

Sakshi VenkatramanLong Island

Rex Heuermann appears in court in February 2025

The New York architect who admitted to brutally murdering eight women arrived in court for sentencing and to hear statements from the victims' families.

Rex Heuermann, now more commonly known as the Gilgo Beach serial killer, appeared on Wednesday in a Riverhead, Long Island courtroom wearing a dark suit, blue shirt and grey tie.

He kept his hands folded and looked at the table where he was seated as family members of the victims spoke.

In April, Heuermann confirmed in court that he had strangled and bound them each in the same manner before scattering their remains along Long Island's remote beaches.

Amanda, sister of Melissa Barthelemy, described to the court on Wednesday the phone calls Heuermann made to her family after killing her sister, detailing how he was letting her sister's body "rot" and how he raped her. "I was 15," she said.

She addressed him directly: "You can look at me when I'm talking to you. It's been 17 years since we last spoke."

For the first time at that comment, Heuermann, who had been staring straight ahead blankly, turned his head towards the podium, then immediately back.

"The things I'd do to you are worse than what you've ever done to anyone," she said as gasps were heard in the court. "Save me a spot in hell because I'll see you there."

The murders took place between 1993 and 2010, but the case took over a decade to solve.

After initially pleading not guilty, Heuermann ultimately admitted to the murders of: Melissa Barthelemy, 24; Megan Waterman, 22; and Amber Costello, 27; Maureen Brainard-Barnes, 25; Jessica Taylor, 20; Valerie Mack, 24; Sandra Costilla, 28; and Karen Vergata, 34.

"Mr Heuermann, you have done horrendous things to Valerie's earthly body, but you have not touched the real Valerie," said father of victim, Valerie Mack, 24, on Wednesday in court.

"I can only imagine when my day comes and I stand before Jesus, Valerie will be at his side."

Taylor's cousin told the court on Wednesday that she will never forget getting calls that parts of her cousin's body had been found on Gilgo Beach.

"I couldn't wrap my head around the word 'torso'," she said, repeating "headless and handless".

She called Heuermann "sick, twisted, heartless". "23 years we waited. For a while it felt like this day would never come," she said.

Police arrested Heuermann, a married father of two living in the suburb of Massapequa Park, in 2023. The 62-year-old architect was taken into custody by Suffolk County police who swarmed his Midtown Manhattan office after tying him to the murders with DNA from a pizza box.

Heuermann was first charged in the murders of seven women, but in April, he pleaded guilty to an additional killing in 1996. Though many of his victims were missing for years, the case came to light in 2010 when investigators found four sets of remains within a quarter mile of each other on Gilgo Beach.

Heuermann's victims are all believed to be sex workers at the time of their death, some of them contacted by him through their advertisements on Craigslist.

Nicolette Brainard-Barnes, daughter of Maureen, acknowledged during her statement that her mother was a sex worker, which she said led her name to be "slandered" in the media.

"Like every sex worker, my mother was an entire human being," she said.

She said she was only 7 when her mother disappeared. "I had to wonder where she was," she said. "I was a little girl and I needed my mom."

Her whole life has been shaped by her mother's absence, she said.

"She was young at heart, but she was also just young," she said. "Now I'm nearly two years older than she will never be."

The sister of Maureen Brainard-Barnes broke down into sobs as she talked about how much she missed her.

"Nothing could have prepared me for the day Maureen didn't come home," she told the court Wednesday. "This was not only a destruction of life, this has become a lifelong devastation of a family."

Police investigated the deaths for over a decade, and had been sitting on a tip that - once acted upon - led to the killer within weeks.

The Suffolk County Police Department did not involve federal investigators in the probe at first, and leaders of the investigation faced separate scandals. Former Police Chief James Burke, who oversaw the case, was arrested in 2015 and later convicted on charges including obstruction of justice. That case also brought down Thomas Spota, Suffolk district attorney from 2002 to 2017, who also led the Gilgo Beach investigation.

In 2022, with new leadership, Suffolk County Police created a task force to investigate the murders - bringing together federal and local law enforcement - which led them to Heuermann in six weeks.

The police acted on a suspect description given to police in 2010 by the roommate of one victim, Amber Costello, after she had a run-in with a client. He described a large man who he said looked like "an ogre" and drove a first-generation Chevrolet Avalanche, an unusual vehicle.

Family members of the victims have alleged police investigations were not aggressive enough because the viictims were sex workers. Some Long Island residents agreed, saying they were horrified by how long it took to get justice.