A man who admitted to killing eight women on Long Island over the course of nearly two decades will be sentenced on June 17. Here's what to know.Show Caption
Rex Heuermann, the New York man who admitted to killing eight women on Long Island over nearly two decades, is expected to be sentenced June 17 as new details about the case keep emerging.Heuermann is expected to face three consecutive terms of life in prison without the possibility of parole for killing Melissa Barthelemy, 24; Megan Waterman, 22; and Amber Costello, 27; and a consecutive sentence of 100 years to life imprisonment for killing Maureen Brainard-Barnes, 25; Jessica Taylor, 20; Sandra Costilla, 28; and Valerie Mack, 24. His sentencing comes after he pleaded guilty to the murders on April 8 and admitted to killing another woman, 34-year-old Karen Vergata.Heuermann is not facing the death penalty because capital punishment was declared unconstitutional in New York in 2004, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.Prosecutors say Heuermann killed the women between 1993 and 2010, murders that would spark multiple documentaries and leave a “painful scar” on the community, according to Suffolk County District Attorney Raymond A. Tierney. The investigation ramped up when parts of the women's remains were found near Gilgo Beach in 2010 and 2011, but it wasn't until 2023 that Heuermann was arrested.Since then, Heuermann has been in jail reading violent crime novels and meeting with only a few visitors, including family members, Suffolk County Sheriff Errol Toulon told the Associated Press. He also responded to a letter from another man who confessed to killing eight women, Keith Hunter Jesperson, known as the Happy Face Killer, Toulon told the outlet.Here's what to know about Heuermann:Who is Rex Heuermann?Prosecutors say Heuermann strangled Costilla to death in November 1993 and left her body in North Sea, a hamlet on Long Island, where it was quickly discovered by hunters. In April 1996, he killed and dismembered Vergata, whose partial remains were found on Blue Point Beach in the Town of Brookhaven that same month, according to a release from the district attorney's office that lays out the timeline.In late 2000, he killed Mack, and part of her body was found by hunters in Manorville, about 40 miles east of Gilgo Beach. Parts of Taylor's body were also found in Manorville after she was killed in July 2003.Prosecutors say Heuermann used a "burner phone" to arrange a meeting with Brainard-Barnes and kill her in 2007, then did the same to Barthelemy, Waterman and Costello, in 2009 and 2010.He methodically planned the murders using a document found on his hard drive, committed many of them while his family was out of town, and searched for information about the subsequent investigations, according to court documents. Searches of his home uncovered hundreds of weapons, violent pornography, and newspaper articles about the Gilgo Beach killings investigation.Meanwhile, Heuermann was living a "double life," Toulon previously told USA TODAY. He worked as an architect in Manhattan and lived with his wife and children in Massapequa Park, across a bay from where his victims' remains were found, prosecutors say.Gilgo Beach killer admits to murdersIn December 2010, police found the bodies of Barthelemy, Waterman, Costello and Brainard-Barnes while conducting a training exercise along a Gilgo Beach roadway. As investigators continued to search the area where the women, dubbed the "Gilgo Four," were found, more remains from Heuermann's earlier victims were found.In early 2022, a new task force created to crack the case linked Heuermann to a Chevrolet Avalanche pickup truck spotted by a witness, and began surveilling him. A major break in the case came when investigators obtained his DNA from a discarded pizza crust and matched it to a hair found on the remains.He was arrested outside his Manhattan office in July 2023 and initially charged with the murders of Waterman, Barthelemy, and Costello. In 2024, he was charged with the murders of Brainard-Barnes in January, Taylor and Costilla in June, and Mack in December.Heuermann initially pleaded not guilty and tearfully denied committing the killings, his lawyer said around the time of his arrest.Asa Ellerup, who was married to Heuermann for 27 years and filed for divorce in 2023 after he was arrested, revealed in a Peacock documentary that her husband confessed to the killings to her in August 2025. Ellerup said Heuermann admitted that all but one of his victims were killed in their home.In April, he pleaded guilty and admitted publicly to the eight killings. His lawyer, Michael J. Brown, told reporters Heuermann maintains that he has no other victims."Is he sorry?" a reporter asked."I would hope so," Brown said.Contributing: Jeanine Santucci
