What started as a seek for one lacking girl led to a number of our bodies and the seize of a person police say is a serial killer.
Could 1, 2010: Shannan Gilbert disappears
Shannan Gilbert, 23, was working as an escort. Within the early morning hours of Could 1, 2010, Gilbert made a frantic telephone name to 911. She had been at a consumer’s house on Lengthy Island, and mentioned she believed somebody was after her. She took off working and instructed the 911 operator there have been individuals attempting to kill her. Then, Gilbert vanished.
Police would do an exhaustive seek for Gilbert. Months handed with no signal of the lacking girl after which, in December 2010, close to Gilgo Seashore, a police officer and his Ok-9, Blue, discovered human stays. Nevertheless it wasn’t Gilbert. As an alternative, they discovered the our bodies of 4 ladies.
December 2010: The Gilgo 4
Police discovered the our bodies of 4 ladies close to Gilgo Seashore on New York’s Lengthy Island. The ladies turned often called the Gilgo 4 and had been recognized as Maureen Brainard-Barnes, Amber Costello, Megan Waterman and Melissa Barthelemy. Police say all the ladies had been petite and three of them had been wrapped in burlap. Police started their hunt to discover a serial killer.
The killer had a sort
Dominick Varrone, who was Suffolk County chief of detectives on the time, mentioned there have been placing similarities among the many Gilgo 4. “Very petite. 5 foot or below, 100 kilos,” Varrone mentioned. The ladies had been additionally all of their 20s and had been all working as on-line escorts.
July 6, 2007: Maureen Brainard-Barnes’ remaining weekend
Maureen Brainard-Barnes is also known as the primary of the Gilgo 4. She went lacking in July 2007. Brainard-Barnes was a single mom of two dwelling in Norwich, Connecticut. She had begun working as an escort, posting advertisements on Craigslist and different web sites to fulfill shoppers. On July 6, 2007, her cellphone was contacted by a burner cellphone — a pay as you go telephone that anybody should purchase and use anonymously. Between July 6 and July 9, there have been 16 interactions between the caller utilizing a burner telephone and Brainard-Barnes’ cellphone.
July 8, 2007: Missy Cann’s final name together with her sister
Maureen Brainard-Barnes’ sister, Missy Cann, obtained a name from Maureen late at evening from Penn Station in midtown Manhattan. In an interview in 2020, Cann instructed “48 Hours” Maureen mentioned she was going to take the prepare at midnight. Cann by no means noticed or heard from Maureen once more.
July 2009: The disappearance of Melissa Barthelemy
Melissa Barthelemy, 24, moved from Buffalo, New York, to New York Metropolis to work as a hairdresser. In some unspecified time in the future, she additionally started working as an escort. In July 2009, practically two years to the day that Brainard-Barnes went lacking, Barthelemy disappeared.
July 17, 2009: Taunting telephone calls start
Within the weeks following Barthelemy’s disappearance, police say her then 15-year-old sister, Amanda, obtained a sequence of telephone calls from a person calling from Melissa’s cellphone. The primary of those calls got here on July 17, 2009 at roughly 12:40 p.m. Numerous calls adopted within the coming weeks. In a single, the caller instructed Amanda he had killed Melissa.
June 5, 2010: Megan Waterman
Megan Waterman, 22, a mom from Scarborough, Maine, was additionally working as an escort. On June 5, 2010, she was contacted by a burner telephone which had simply been activated that very same day.
June 6, 2010: Megan Waterman vanishes
At 1:31 a.m., Waterman’s telephone was once more contacted by the identical burner telephone because the day earlier than. Safety video confirmed Waterman leaving a Vacation Inn Specific in Hauppauge, Lengthy Island, across the identical time. This was the final time she was seen alive.
“I am unable to convey her again”
Liliana Waterman was simply 3 years previous when her mom disappeared. In her first tv interview in 2020, Liliana (pictured with Megan Waterman) instructed “48 Hours” that if she might discuss to her mother, she would inform her how a lot she loves her. “I by no means received to actually say these phrases,” Liliana instructed correspondent Erin Moriarty. She mentioned she misses her mother on daily basis.
Sept. 2, 2010: Amber Costello disappears
Amber Costello, a 27-year-old escort dwelling on Lengthy Island, was contacted by somebody utilizing a burner telephone. The subsequent day, she left her home to fulfill a consumer and by no means returned.
After Costello’s disappearance, police say her roommate Dave Schaller instructed them about her shoppers. He described one among them as wanting like an “ogre” and having “a first-generation Chevrolet Avalanche.” On the evening she went lacking, Schaller says, a consumer supplied Cistello $1,500 for the evening – six occasions her hourly charge.
In 2011, Schaller spoke to Moriarty. “This man was so relentless,” Schaller mentioned. “He referred to as a number of occasions. He was on the telephone together with her for fairly some time every time.” He says the consumer received Costello, an skilled escort, to do one thing she by no means did: depart house with out her purse or cellphone and meet him in his automobile. At practically midnight, Schaller says Costello left the home, walked down the road, and he by no means noticed her once more.
Dec. 16, 2010: Nonetheless no Shannan
All through the spring of 2011, investigators continued a wide-ranging seek for Shannan Gilbert.
Could 2011: Six extra units of stays found
By Could 2011, police had found six extra units of stays within the space, bringing the whole to 10 — together with the Gilgo 4. Investigators weren’t certain the identical killer was accountable for all of the murders.
- Sufferer No. 5, Jessica Taylor, is an escort who went lacking in 2003.
- One other set of stays police referred to as “Jane #6” has now been recognized as Valerie Mack, who additionally labored as an escort and went lacking in 2000.
- Quantity 7, to investigators’ shock they discovered a toddler lady.
- Quantity 8 was an Asian male wearing ladies’s clothes.
- Quantity 9 was a feminine cranium belonging to Karen Vergata, an escort who disappeared in 1996.
- Quantity 10, feminine stays, from a sufferer cops nicknamed “Peaches” due to a tattoo on her torso. Though her stays had been discovered 6 miles away, police say DNA has confirmed that “Peaches” is the mom of that toddler.
Dec. 13, 2011: Shannan Gilbert is discovered
In December 2011, a year-and-a-half after she went lacking, and a yr after the Gilgo 4 had been discovered, investigators discovered Gilbert’s stays. However they do not imagine she was murdered.
Years later, the Suffolk County Police Division launched the complete audio of Shannan’s 21-minute 911 name on Could 1, 2010, the morning she disappeared. Police Commissioner Rodney Harrison mentioned in an interview with Erin Moriarty, Gilberts’s demise was possible not a homicide. “It is an unlucky incident, however proper now we imagine that she simply bumped into the marsh and sadly drowned,” Harrison mentioned.
February 2022: A contemporary take a look at the case
For practically a decade after the invention of the Gilgo 4, the investigation stalled. Till, in February 2022, a brand new activity power was shaped by Suffolk County Police Commissioner Rodney Harrison and Suffolk County District Legal professional Ray Tierney. In an interview withMoriarty, DA Tierney mentioned, “… a mere six weeks later … Rex Heuermann was recognized for the primary time.”
A tip from the previous
How did investigators get a suspect in six weeks? It seems that within the unique case recordsdata had been quite a lot of vital clues that the brand new activity power was lastly in a position to join. Costello’s roommate Dave Schaller had beforehand described one among Costello’s shoppers and the kind of car he drove to investigators. The car was a first-generation Chevrolet Avalanche.
With an outline of an”ogre-like” man, and the make and mannequin of his truck, police took a better take a look at Costello’s telephone information from 2010. Schaller had instructed them that earlier than Costello disappeared, there was one consumer that referred to as her incessantly.
The burner telephone clue
Police again then knew the consumer was utilizing a burner telephone. They usually knew that the Brainard-Barnes, Barthelemy, Costello and Waterman had all been involved with burner numbers proper earlier than they disappeared.
In 2012, with the assistance of the FBI, police decided that almost all of these calls related to cell towers inside a small space of Massapequa Park, Lengthy Island. They referred to as this space “the field.” In line with DA Tierney, “the field” consisted of a few blocks inside Massapequa Park.
A suspect in sight
Armed with their small radius of “the field” and the outline of an “ogre-like” man that drove a Chevrolet Avalanche, the duty power now had a major suspect. Police recognized an architect named Rex Heuermann as the person they believed could have been accountable for the murders.
And after they checked out Heuermann’s private cellphone information, they are saying that his telephone was in the identical space as these burner telephones after they had been used to contact victims. In addition they say that when the burner telephones contacted victims, they had been typically in Massapequa Park, the place Heuermann lived, or midtown Manhattan, the place his architectural agency was positioned. In 2023, they seen Heuermann going right into a telephone retailer to make a fee on a burner telephone.
A DNA hit
Police started to tail Heuermann. When he threw out a pizza field right into a trash can in midtown Manhattan, investigators discovered that Heuermann’s DNA on the pizza crust was in keeping with a DNA profile discovered on a male hair found with Megan Waterman’s physique. With DNA proof, together with the cellphone information linking Heuermann to the burner telephones, officers made an arrest.
July 14, 2023: A suspect in custody
Rex Heuermann, of Massapequa Park, Lengthy Island, was charged with a number of counts of homicide within the deaths of Melissa Barthelemy, Megan Waterman and Amber Costello. Heuermann is presently the prime suspect for the homicide of Maureen Brainard-Barnes, however he has not been charged together with her demise.
When requested about Heuermann’s innocence at a press convention, Heuerman’s legal professional Michael Brown mentioned, “What has my consumer instructed me? He instructed me he did not do that.”
Digging for proof
Police spent 12 days wanting by way of Heuermann’s home, pulling weapons out of the basement, and digging within the yard. One other necessary piece of proof taken into possession was a first-generation Chevrolet Avalanche registered to Heuermann on the time of the murders. It was sitting on property he owns in South Carolina after they recovered it.
A possibility to kill?
A married man, Heuermann has a daughter and stepson together with his second spouse, Asa Ellerup. Ellerup, who was born in Iceland, would take the kids to see her household there within the summers. It was throughout these journeys and others, police imagine, that Heuermann killed the ladies.
Heuermann pleaded not responsible
Heuermann was arraigned in Suffolk County Courtroom in Riverhead, New York. He pleaded not responsible to the murders of Melissa Barthelemy, Megan Waterman and Amber Costello. The decide ordered that he be held with out bail in a Suffolk County jail the place he’s presently awaiting trial.
Remembering Amber, Melissa and Megan
Investigators hope that the arrest may give victims’ households a way of peace. Police Commissioner Harrison instructed Erin Moriarty, “He took away someone’s mom, someone’s daughter, someone’s sister, not only one individual, a number of people.”
Different investigations?
Investigations unfold to South Carolina and Las Vegas the place Heuermann owns property, with detectives there taking a contemporary take a look at circumstances of lacking ladies. Heuermann has not been charged in any further investigations.
As for the opposite our bodies discovered close to Gilgo Seashore – Jessica Taylor, Valerie Mack, Karen Vergata, “Peaches”, the toddler lady, and the Asian male – none of them have been linked to Heuermann.