Rex A. Heuermann, pleads guilty to murdering seven women and admits he killed an eighth in the Gilgo Beach killings during a hearing Wednesday, April 8, 2026, in Suffolk County Court in Riverhead, N.Y.
In 2010, police searching for a missing woman began finding human remains in the scrub along a barrier island parkway near New York’s Gilgo Beach. Police almost immediately feared some were left by a serial killer.
Over the years, investigators used DNA analysis and other clues to identify the victims. In some cases, they were able to connect them to remains found elsewhere on Long Island years earlier.
Here is a timeline of the investigation that led to the arrest of Rex Heuermann, who pleaded guilty Wednesday to murdering seven women and admitted in court that he killed an eighth.
First remains found
Nov. 20, 1993: Two hunters discover the body of Sandra Costilla, 28, in a wooded area of North Sea, a hamlet in the Hamptons. She lived in New York City.
April 20, 1996: Partial remains are discovered on Fire Island, a barrier beach off the coast. In 2022, new DNA analysis helps identify her as Karen Vergata, 34, who was involved in sex work.
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June 28, 1997: Partial remains are discovered in a plastic tub in a state park in West Hempstead, N.Y. In 2025 police identify her as Tanya Jackson, a U.S. Army veteran who lived in Brooklyn.
September 2000: Partial skeletal remains of Valerie Mack, 24, who worked as an escort in Philadelphia, are found in a wooded area in Manorville, N.Y.
July 26, 2003: Partial skeletal remains of Jessica Taylor, 20, who worked as an escort, are discovered in a wooded area of Manorville.
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Disappearances
July 9, 2007: Maureen Brainard-Barnes, 25, who traveled to New York from her home in Norwich, Conn., for sex work, disappears after telling a friend she was going to meet a client. Records showed her cellphone was last used on Long Island.
July 10, 2009: Melissa Barthelemy, 24, a sex worker, disappears after she tells a friend she was leaving her Bronx apartment to see a man. Mobile phone data puts her last known location on Long Island. Days later, a man uses Barthelemy's phone to make taunting calls to her relatives.
May 1, 2010: Shannan Gilbert, a sex worker, disappears in Oak Beach, N.Y., after fleeing the house of a client and banging on a neighbor's door. In a 911 call, she tells a dispatcher people are after her but refuses offers of help. Her pimp, the client and his neighbor tell police she appeared disoriented and ran off.
June 6, 2010: Megan Waterman, 22, who traveled to Long Island from Maine for sex work, is last seen at a motel in Hauppauge, N.Y.
Sept. 2, 2010: Amber Lynn Costello, 27, is last seen leaving her home in West Babylon to meet with a sex work client. A male friend later told investigators the presumed client drove a Chevrolet Avalanche.
Authorities search the home of suspect Rex Heuermann on July 18, 2023, in Massapequa Park, N.Y.
Police search
Dec. 11, 2010: A police officer and his dog discover human remains during training along Ocean Parkway. Authorities later identify the victim as Barthelemy.
Dec. 13, 2010: Police find the bodies of Costello, Brainard-Barnes and Waterman on the same quarter-mile stretch where Barthelemy's remains were found.
Dec. 14, 2010: Suffolk County Police Commissioner Richard Dormer publicly announces the discovery of the bodies and says a serial killer might be to blame. Police expand the search.
March 29, 2011: Some of Taylor's remains are discovered along Ocean Parkway.
April 4, 2011: Additional remains of Valerie Mack are found along the parkway. Nearby, investigators find the remains of a 2-year-old girl, later identified through DNA as Jackson's daughter, Tatiana Dykes. Elsewhere on the parkway, investigators discover the remains of an Asian male, in his late teens or early 20s, estimated to have died five to 10 years earlier. He has not been identified.
April 11, 2011: Additional remains of Vergata and Jackson are discovered along the parkway.
Dec. 13, 2011: Gilbert's skeletal remains are discovered near Oak Beach. After an autopsy, Suffolk police say she accidentally drowned.
Authorities work July 24, 2023, at the home of suspect Rex Heuermann, bottom right, in Massapequa Park, N.Y.
Arrest
January 2022: The Suffolk County district attorney convenes a task force to investigate the Gilgo Beach killings.
July 13, 2023: Investigators arrest Rex Heuermann and charge him with murdering Costello, Waterman and Barthelemy. The key evidence is mobile phone location data suggesting Heuermann and the women were in the same places at some of the same times, and traces of DNA found on the remains.
Asa Ellerup, wife, of Rex Heuermann waits to give her statement Wednesday, April 8, 2026, outside the Suffolk County courthouse in Riverhead, N.Y.
Jan. 16, 2024: Heuermann is charged in Brainard-Barnes' death. Prosecutors say a hair found with her corpse is genetically similar to a DNA sample from Heuermann's wife.
May 20, 2024: Investigators launch a new search of Heuermann's home.
June 6, 2024: Heuermann is charged with murdering Costilla and Taylor.
Dec. 17, 2024: An indictment is unsealed charging Heuermann in Mack's death.
Dec. 18, 2025: Andrew Dykes of Florida pleads not guilty to killing Tanya Jackson and Tatiana Dykes. Investigators say DNA evidence linked him, Tatiana's father, to the crime. The investigation benefited from resources poured into the serial killer case, authorities say.
April 8, 2026: Heuermann pleads guilty to seven counts of murder in the killings of Barthelemy, Brainard-Barnes, Costello, Costilla, Mack, Taylor and Waterman. He also acknowledges he killed Vergata. Sentencing is set for June 17.
A look at some of the most notorious serial killers in the US since 1970
1970-2005: Samuel Little
Samuel Little claims to have killed more than 90 women across the country between 1970-2005. The FBI said that federal crime analysts believe all of his confessions are credible, and officials have been able to verify 50 confessions so far. He says he strangled his 93 victims, nearly all of them women.
Little has been behind bars since 2012 and is serving multiple life sentences in California.
February-May 1971: Juan Corona
Juan Corona was convicted of murdering 25 farm workers whose bodies were found buried near Yuba City in northern California. Local authorities believe he may be responsible for several other murders.
Corona died in prison in March 2019.
1972-1978: John Wayne Gacy
John Wayne Gacy killed 33 young men and boys in suburban Chicago from 1972-1978. He was known as the "Killer Clown" because he often performed as a clown at fundraisers and children's parties.
Gacy was sentenced to death for 12 of the murders and was executed in 1994.
1974-1991: Dennis Rader
Dennis Rader, who called himself BTK for "bind, torture and kill," killed 10 people in Wichita, Kansas from 1974-1991. He sent letters describing his crimes to police and the media, which eventually led to his arrest in 2005.
Rader is currently serving 10 consecutive life sentences at a Kansas prison.
1975-1998: Robert L. Yates Jr.
Robert L. Yates Jr. was convicted of 13 counts of first-degree murder and one count of attempted first-degree murder in Spokane County, Washington, as well as two additional murders in Pierce County. The 13 women he killed in Spokane, were sex workers on the city's E. Sprague Avenue.
Yates's original death sentence was commuted to life in prison without the possibility of parole in 2018 after Washington abolished the death penalty.
1976-1977: David Berkowitz
David Berkowitz, also known as the "Son of Sam," killed six people and wounded seven others in New York City. He sent several taunting letters to police before he was caught in 1977. Initially, he claimed to be carrying out the orders of a demon that took the form of his neighbor's dog.
Berkowitz is serving six consecutive 25-years-to-life sentences.
1976-1986: Joseph James DeAngelo
Joseph James DeAngelo, a former police officer in Auburn, California, is suspected of being the so-called Golden State Killer. He has been arrested on four murder charges but is suspected of 170 crimes, including a dozen murders and 45 rapes between 1976 and 1986. He cannot be charged for the rape or burglaries due to statute of limitation laws.
1977-1978: Angelo Buono Jr. and Kenneth A. Bianchi
Cousins Angelo Buono Jr. (pictured) and Kenneth A. Bianchi, known as the "Hillside Stranglers" killed 10 young women in California in the late 70s. Bianchi also killed two other women in Washington state. The pair would often pretend to be undercover police officers to lure their victims into their vehicle.
Buono was convicted and sentenced to life in prison without parole. He died in prison in 2002.
Bianchi agreed to testify against Buono in exchange for leniency. He is currently serving life in prison and is also a suspect in three murders in Rochester, New York.
1977-1978: Ted Bundy
Ted Bundy was convicted of three Florida murders that occured after he had escaped from a Colorado jail. He eventually confessed to more than 30 murders in seven states, but the number of actual victims is unknown.
He was executed in 1989.
1978-1992: Jeffrey Dahmer
Jeffrey Dahmer, also called the "Milwaukee Cannibal" or the "Milwaukee Monster," killed 17 men and boys from 1978-1992. Sixteen of the murders took place in Wisconsin, with one occurring in Ohio.
He was sentenced to 16 consecutive life terms. Dahmer was killed in prison in 1994.
1978-1995: Theodore Kaczynski
Theodore Kaczynski, also known as the "Unabomber," carried out a series of mail bombings that killed three people and injured 23. He is serving a life sentence in Colorado.
1979-1981: Wayne B. Williams
Wayne B. Williams was convicted and sentenced to two life terms for killing two men in Atlanta in 1981. Police believed he may have been responsible for the deaths of at least 23 of the 30 children who were murdered in Atlanta between 1979-1981. He was never tried for any of those crimes.
Authorities announced in early 2019 that they would re-test some of the evidence related to the Atlanta Child Murders.
Wayne is currently serving a life sentence at Telfair State Prison.
1983: Henry Lee Lucas
Henry Lee Lucas was arrested on murder charges and confessed to police that he killed hundreds of people. He later recanted. Lucas was convicted of 11 murders. He was sentenced to at 10 life terms and one death sentence. Then-Gov. George W. Bush commuted that to life in prison, his only commutation as governor.
Lucas died in prison in 2001.
1984-1985: Richard Ramirez
Richard Ramirez, also known as the "Night Stalker" was convicted of killing 13 people during break-ins in the Los Angeles area. He was also convicted of five attempted murders, 11 sexual assaults, and 14 burglaries. A fourteenth victim who was also killed in 1984 was connected to Ramirez in 2009.
Ramirez died in prison in 2013.
1984-1985: Charles Ng and Leonard Lake
Charles Ng and Leonard Lake are suspected of raping, torturing and murdering between 11 and 25 victims at a cabin in the Sierra Nevada foothills. Ng was convicted of 11 of the murders and is on death row in California. Shortly after his arrest, Lake killed himself with cyanide pills that were sewn into his clothing.
1985-2007: Lonnie David Franklin Jr.
Lonnie David Franklin Jr., known as the "Grim Sleeper," was convicted in the deaths of nine women and a teenage girl in Los Angeles. Franklin was linked at trial to 14 slayings, including four women he wasn't charged with killing. Police have said he may have had as many as 25 victims.
He is on death row in California.
1989-1990: Aileen Wuornos
Aileen Wuornos, a rare female serial killer, was convicted of murdering six men while working as a sex worker along highways in central Florida. She claimed the murders were committed in self-defense and that the men either raped or attempted to rape her.
She was executed in 2002.
1989-1993: Joel Rifkin
Joel Rifkin is believed to have killed up to 17 women in New York City and Long Island. He was sentenced to 203 years in prison for the murders of nine women between 1989 and 1993.
His first victim, Heidi "Susie" Balch, was killed in 1989 but went unidentified until 2013. The identities of two of his suspected victims are still unknown.
1990-1993: Heriberto Seda
Heriberto Seda, also known as the "New York Zodiac Killer," killed three people and wounded four in New York City. He also sent cryptic messages to police and claimed to kill people based on their zodiac signs.
Seda was caught in 1996 after an unrelated shootout with police and is currently serving a 232-year sentence.
1997-1999: Ángel Maturino Reséndiz
Ángel Maturino Reséndiz, nicknamed the "Railroad Killer" (also "The Railway Killer"), was convicted of murdering Claudia Benton, but was linked by confessions and evidence to at least 15 other killings nationwide. He also confessed to killing seven people in Mexico. Reséndiz was executed in 2006.
2002: Lee Boyd Malvo and John Allen Muhammad
Lee Boyd Malvo and John Allen Muhammad randomly killed 10 people in Washington, D.C., Virginia and Maryland as they pumped gas and went about their business during a three-week period in 2002. Malvo is serving several life sentences at a Virginia prison; Muhammad was executed in Virginia in 2009.
2005-2006: Mark Goudeau
Mark Goudeau, a former construction worker who was also known as the "Baseline Killer," was convicted of killing eight women and a man in Phoenix, Arizona. He was sentenced to death in 2011 and remains on death row.
2007-2009: Anthony Sowell
Anthony Sowell, known as the "Cleveland Strangler," was convicted of killing 11 women and hiding the remains in and around his home in Cleveland, Ohio. He is on death row in Ohio.
2014: Darren Deon Vann
Also known as the "Gary Strangler," Darren Deon Vann was arrested in the killing of a 19-year-old woman at a motel in Indiana and later confessed to the murders of six other women. He was sentenced to seven concurrent life sentences in May 2018.
