What to KnowRex Heuermann and the stunning headline-grabbing Gilgo Seaside murders take heart stage in Netflix’s new docuseries “Gone Girls: The Long Island Serial Killer,” which debuted Monday. The docuseries directed by Academy Award-nominated and Emmy-winning director Liz Garbus examines the horrific murders that haunted the small Lengthy Island seaside city of Gilgo Seaside, and the unsuspecting man who is believed to have dedicated the heinous crimes.
Rex Heuermann and the stunning headline-grabbing Gilgo Seaside murders take heart stage in Netflix’s new docuseries “Gone Girls: The Long Island Serial Killer,” which debuted Monday.
The docuseries directed by Academy Award-nominated and Emmy-winning director Liz Garbus examines the horrific murders that haunted the small Lengthy Island seaside city of Gilgo Seaside, and the unsuspecting man who is believed to have dedicated the heinous crimes.
The unsolved killings gained nationwide curiosity — finally turning into the topic of the 2020 Netflix movie “Misplaced Women,” which centered on the mom of one of many victims and her seek for justice.
Now, the three-part collection provides the viewers a take a look at the younger girls who labored within the intercourse business in New York Metropolis and Lengthy Island after they went lacking, and their households determined seek for solutions regarding their family members. It options interviews with journalists, legislation enforcement and the family members of victims in addition to Heuermann, the accused killer.
“These family members were never going to give up. These women knew that there was a need to shake [up] the establishment to get attention for this case,” says director Liz Garbus. “Of course, they shouldn’t have [had] to work so hard. The system should work to protect them and should’ve protected their family members. But at the end of the day, their voices really mattered.”
WHO IS REX HEUERMANN?
Not a lot has come to mild about Heuermann, however one neighbor who earlier spoke to NBC New York mentioned he was born and raised on Lengthy Island and has lived within the Massapequa space his complete life.
Actor Billy Baldwin mentioned he went to highschool similtaneously Heuermann who graduated within the class of 1981. “Mind-boggling… Massapequa is in shock. 23andMe strikes again???,” the Massapequa native wrote in a tweet.
Heuermann was married to Asa Ellerup, who reached a divorce settlement with Heuermann following his arrest, and has two grownup youngsters. Though now divorced, Ellerup has been current at many Heuermann trial dates.
Heuermann labored as an architect in Manhattan. In an interview with “Bonjour Realty,” a YouTube channel that highlights life in New York Metropolis, Heuermann mentioned he has been working within the metropolis since 1987 and he has labored extensively with the Division of Buildings.
Prosecutors with the Suffolk County District Lawyer’s Workplace revealed that Rex Heuermann spent about 4 summers within the Nineteen Eighties working at Jones Seaside, which allowed him to grow to be very conversant in the world the place the stays of six his seven alleged victims had been discovered.
DNA testing was the main target once more within the case in opposition to accused Gilgo Seaside serial killer Rex Heuermann. An professional took the stand to reply questions on the accuracy and reliability of the outcomes the protection workforce is difficult, and a choose will determine if it may be used as proof. NBC New York’s Pei-Sze Cheng studies.
THE CASE AGAINST HEUERMANN
Heuermann is accused of murdering a complete of seven folks.
Since late 2010, police on Lengthy Island have been investigating the deaths of not less than 10 folks — principally feminine intercourse employees — whose stays had been found alongside an remoted freeway not removed from Gilgo Seaside.
Heuermann, who lives in close by Massapequa Park, was arrested in 2023 and charged within the deaths of three of the victims between 2009 and 2010: Melissa Barthelemy, Amber Lynn Costello and Megan Waterman.
Whereas in custody, he was subsequently charged within the deaths of 4 different girls: Valerie Mack in 2000, Jessica Taylor in 2003, Maureen Brainard-Barnes in 2007 and Sandra Costilla in 1993.
Heuermann has maintained his innocence and pleaded not responsible to all counts.
Within the newest homicide expenses he faces, Heuermann is accused of murdering Valerie Mack, an escort who vanished in 2000 and in whose loss of life he had been thought of a suspect, the district legal professional mentioned. Prosecutors say DNA proof secured the forensic hyperlink, that evaluation of a hair discovered with Mack’s stays, has been linked to Heuermann’s spouse and daughter.
Heuermann pleaded not responsible telling the choose “I am not guilty of any of these crimes.”
Michael Brown, the lawyer for Heuermann, described his shopper as pissed off by allegations that he’s the Gilgo Seaside serial killer. The legal professional additionally vowed to problem the validity of the DNA findings.
“What they also don’t tell you is that there’s numerous other hairs that are found on each of these victims and they don’t tell you whose DNA that goes back to,” mentioned Brown after the courtroom look Tuesday. “There’s something a little weird about these allegations in the sense that every time they have a body they claim there’s one hair.”
Mack, 24, had been working as an escort in Philadelphia and was final seen by her household in New Jersey the yr she disappeared. Mack’s mother and father had been within the courthouse Tuesday, however didn’t want to remark.
In accordance with prosecutors, Heuermann’s so-called “planning document,” recovered from a private laptop throughout a search over the summer season, references the dumping website the place elements of Mack’s physique had been first discovered, on Mill Street in Manorville.
New particulars had been revealed within the Gilgo Seaside killings, together with a extra detailed sketch of a possible sufferer whose stays had been discovered greater than a decade in the past. Investigators launched new sketches of a possible sufferer, which could possibly be the first-known male sufferer of alleged serial killer Rex Heuermann, who to date has been charged with murdering six girls. NBC New York’s Greg Cergol studies.
That doc was created in 2000, the yr Mack went lacking and was killed, in line with prosecutors’ bail software. Additionally they allege Heuermann mutilated Mack’s proper leg, the identical leg that bore a tattoo together with her son’s identify, to thwart efforts to determine her.
Authorities have additionally been wanting into the loss of life of Karen Vergata, whose stays had been first found in 1996 and at last recognized in 2022 after a brand new DNA evaluation. There was no fast replace Tuesday on her case.
Heuermann, 61, was first arrested in July 2023 in the deaths of three of the so-called “Gilgo Four,” whose stays had been present in burlap sacks alongside a distant stretch of Ocean Parkway in 2010. He was later charged with the fourth.
The our bodies of Maureen Brainard-Barnes Amber Lynn Costello, Melissa Barthelemy and Megan Waterman had been found throughout a seek for a lacking escort, Shannan Gilbert, who later was discovered useless in a marsh. Her case was dominated an unintended drowning, although attorneys for her household maintained the post-mortem was inconclusive.
Investigators say Gilbert’s case just isn’t tied to the others. Further units of stays turned up in that seek for Gilbert, too. Authorities are nonetheless attempting to determine a few of them, together with stays belonging to an “Asian Doe.”
In June, authorities charged Heuermann with two further murders, these of Jessica Taylor, whose fingers and forearm had been discovered alongside Ocean Parkway years after her torso turned up within the Manorville woods; and Sandra Costilla, who allegedly died a violent loss of life by his fingers in November 1993.
Heuermann has pleaded not responsible to the costs.
Heuermann has been held with out bail since his preliminary arrest. If convicted, he faces a number of sentences of life with out parole.
