A suspect has been arrested by police after a long chain of unsolved murders occurred in Long Island, New York, over a span of years.
The Associated Press reported that a suspect in the Gilgo Beach murders was taken into custody in Massapequa Park on Thursday night and that investigators also visited a home connected to the case on Friday morning. The name of the suspect was not immediately released, however the suspect was later identified as Rex Heuermann by law enforcement.
Newsweek reached out to Suffolk County Police Department by phone and by email for comment.
Heuermann, a 59-year-old who lived at the same address in Massapequa Park since 1988, has owned RH Architecture Design, an architectural firm in New York City, since 1994. The firm's "Meet the Team" page was removed Friday morning from its website.
Newsweek reached out to RH Architecture Design by phone and by email for comment.
The murders were particularly gruesome, with several of the bodies being linked to dismembered body parts that were previously discovered on Long Island since 2010. According to the AP on Friday, the crime scene extended as far as a park near the New York City limits to a Fire Island resort community and to eastern Long Island.
The case has long mystified police, and it captured the public's attention when Netflix released a film in 2020 called Lost Girls that was based on the murders.
The same year, police released previously undisclosed information about the case that was discovered with some of the remains a decade prior. A photograph was released of one of the crime scenes showing evidence that was allegedly handled by the unknown suspect. A black leather belt was pictured in the photograph with the initials HM or WH, depending on the angle, according to the AP at the time. However, officials did not release information regarding where the belt was found or which victim it was linked to, however the belt wasn't owned by any of the victims.
The hunt for a possible serial killer started in 2010 when 11 sets of human remains were found along a property on Gilgo Beach in Suffolk County. Law enforcement first began searching along Ocean Parkway after Shannan Gilbert, a 24-year-old sex worker from New Jersey, vanished in 2010.
A report by data analytics company LexisNexis acquired by Newsweek showed that Heuermann held a hunting license, which was issued in Alaska on May 17, 2010, the same month that Gilbert went missing. The report also revealed that Heuermann has a daughter, Victoria, who is 26 years old.
The search first turned up the remains of Melissa Barthelemy, Megan Waterman, Amber Lynn Costello and Maureen Brainard-Barnes. All the women were in their mid-20s. Heuermann was arrested in connection with these murders as the victims are known as "The Gilgo Four."
Later in the police search, other remains were found, including those that belonged to Jessica Taylor and Valerie Mack, who were also in their 20s when they had gone missing years earlier. Other remains found included those of a female toddler, an Asian male, an unidentified woman who was believed to be the toddler's mother and another unidentified woman. Gilbert was found in late 2011, after the other 10 victims—whom police believed were murdered by a serial killer—were found.
Newsweek reached out to John Ray, an attorney representing the families of Gilbert and Taylor, by email for comment. Newsweek has also reached out to Netflix by email for comment.
Update 07/14/23, 12:40 p.m. ET: This article was updated to include information about "The Gilgo Four."
Update 07/14/23, 11:44 a.m. ET: This article was updated to include more information about LexisNexus.
Update 07/14/23, 11:15 a.m. ET: This article was updated to include information about Rex Heuermann.
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