The accused serial killer in the murders of seven women around Gilgo Beach, New York, pleaded guilty on April 8, bringing to a close a decades-long string of unsolved crimes.
Rex Heuermann, 62, entered guilty pleas in a New York court in the murders of seven women and admitted guilt to killing an eighth woman, according to the Suffolk County District Attorney’s office. He will be sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole at a later date.
He admitted guilt to three counts of first-degree murder and four counts of intentional murder, the office said. Previously, he had pleaded not guilty to the charges.
“Do you feel it’s in your best interest to plead guilty rather than go to trial?” Judge Timothy Mazzei asked him in the courtroom on Wednesday. “Yes, your honor,” Heuermann replied, according to ABC News.
“You killed each victim in the same manner, namely strangulation?” the judge also asked him. “Yes,” Heuermann said.
The remains of Melissa Barthelemy, Maureen Brainard-Barnes, Amber Lynn Costello, Valerie Mack, Jessica Taylor, and Megan Waterman were found in an area near Gilgo Beach on Long Island. Another victim, Sandra Costilla, was discovered around 60 miles away to the east in the Hamptons, New York.
Officials also said that partial remains of Karen Vergata were found on Fire Island, more than 20 miles away, in 1996, and also near Gilgo Beach in 2011.
Heuermann’s ex-wife, Asa Ellerup, attended Wednesday’s court hearing. Ahead of the hearing, her attorney released a public statement in a news conference saying that Heuermann “acted alone” in the homicides and that Ellerup had cooperated with authorities.
The case had drawn immense public attention, attracting national headlines for many years. The mystery of the unsolved killings was dramatized in the 2020 Netflix film “Lost Girls.”
Determining the suspect who killed the women, and why, has perplexed a slew of seasoned homicide detectives through several changes in police leadership since the early 1990s. In 2022, an interagency task force was formed with investigators from the FBI, as well as state and local police departments, aimed at solving the case.
Before his arrest in 2023, Heuermann had owned the architecture and consulting firm RH Consultants & Associates since around 1994. He also had lived for decades in Long Island’s Massapequa Park, about a 25-minute drive across a causeway spanning South Oyster Bay to the sandy stretch where the women’s remains were found.
Some of the victims were believed to have disappeared from that community, and their cellphones were found to have pinged towers in the area, authorities have said.
“Rex Heuermann is a demon that walks amongst us, a predator that ruined families,” then-Suffolk County Police Commissioner Rodney Harrison told local media outlets in 2023 during the time of the arrest. “If not for the members of this task force, he would still be on the streets today.”
Heuermann’s sentencing was set for June 17.
The Epoch Times contacted attorney Gloria Allred, who is representing many of the families of the victims, for comment on Wednesday.
