BUFFALO, N.Y. — A Long Island man is charged with the murder of three women, including one from Western New York, on Gilgo Beach.
Rex Heuermann, 59, is charged with killing Melissa Barthelemy, Megan Waterman and Amber Costello. Police say he is considered a suspect in another homicide.
Detectives believe a serial killer is behind the 10 sets of human remains found along that beach in Suffolk County.
Western New York native Melissa Barthelemy's body was found on that beach.
Police in Suffolk County say Barthelemy was last seen in her basement apartment in the Unionport section of the Bronx on July 12, 2009.
Her body was first discovered on December 11, 2010. Two days later, three more bodies were discovered on Ocean Parkway, adjacent to Gilgo Beach.
According to a website dedicated to the investigation, Barthelemy was a sex worker who advertised on sites under aliases Chloe and VerySexyChloe. The website says she was known to meet clients at bars, restaurants and hotels on the West Side of Manhattan.
On the night Barthelemy went missing, she had told her friend she was going to see a man and would be back in the morning.
According to Suffolk County District Attorney Raymond Tierney, the circumstances surrounding Barthelemy's death fits a pattern.
"They all did the same thing for a living, they will advertise the same way, and there was similarities with regard to the crime scenes."
Each of the women found on Gilgo Beach had been restrained in multiple places on their body and covered with a camouflaged burlap sack.
"Obviously it was used to hide, purposely hide the bodies," Tierney said.
When Tierney took office in 2022, he established a dedicate task force that included multiple law enforcement agencies including the FBI, New York State Police, Suffolk County Sheriff's Office and others.
On March 14, 2022, investigators on the task force believed they had identified Heuermann as the key suspect in the killings.
Tierney says the task force was able to tie Heuermann to a pickup truck that a witness reported seeing when one of the victims disappeared in 2010.
The task force had Heuermann under surveillance for over a year before arresting him on July 13.
Multiple search warrants were issued throughout the investigation, including Heuermann's Google search history.
"In a 14 month period he had over 200 searchers pertaining to the Gilgo investigation," Tierney said.
Investigators believe that Heuermann regularly used burner phones to connect with those providing escort services.
According to the bail application for Heuermann, investigators were able to extract DNA from a male hair found in one of the burlap sack that contained the remains of victim Megan Waterman.
Investigators connected Heuermann to the air after he threw out a pizza box in January 2023, and lab technicians matched DNA from the crust to the DNA in the hair.
He pled not guilty in court on Friday. He is currently being held without bail.
Defense attorney Michael Brown said Heuermann tearfully muttered his innocence in court Friday.
“This is a day that is a long time in coming, and hopefully a day that will bring peace to this community and to the families — peace that has been long overdue,” New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said during a press conference on Long Island on an unrelated topic.
Barthelemy's mother Lynn, who still lives in Buffalo, did not want to go on camera but did tell 2 On Your Side's Michael Wooten, "I’m just relieved."
(The Associated Press contributed to this story)