EGN NEWS DESK
(RIVERHEAD, N.Y.) — The New York architect going through homicide prices in a string of deaths often known as the Gilgo Beach killings was charged on Tuesday within the dying of a seventh lady.
Rex Heuermann pleaded not responsible to killing Valerie Mack, whose stays had been first discovered on Long Island in 2000. Mack, 24, had been working as an escort in Philadelphia and was final seen by her household that yr in New Jersey.
Some of Mack’s skeletal stays had been initially found in Manorville, New York; authorities discovered extra of her stays about 50 miles (80 kilometers) west, in Gilgo Beach, greater than 10 years later. They had been unidentified till genetic testing revealed her id in 2020.
Human hair discovered with Mack’s stays was despatched for testing earlier this yr and located to be a probable match with the genetic profile of Heuermann’s daughter, prosecutors stated in courtroom papers. His daughter shouldn’t be accused of any wrongdoing and would have been 3 or 4 years outdated when Mack died.
Heuermann, 61, is charged with killing six different girls whose stays had been discovered on Long Island. He has pleaded not responsible to all the fees.
“The lives of those girls matter. We, as investigators, perceive that. No one understands that greater than the households,” Suffolk County District Attorney Ray Tierney stated at a information convention with Mack’s mother and father and different victims’ family.
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Mack’s mother and father did not converse. But 4 different victims’ family gave the Macks roses and hugs and, by way of an lawyer, expressed their disappointment and solidarity.
“They had been, and they’re, liked. And they’re missed day-after-day by those that knew them and who had a powerful bond with them,” stated Gloria Allred, who represents the households of Melissa Barthelemy, Maureen Brainard-Barnes, Jessica Taylor and Megan Waterman.
The investigation into the Gilgo Beach killings dates again to 2010, when police looking for a lacking lady discovered 10 units of human stays within the scrub alongside a barrier island parkway, prompting fears of a serial killer.
Over the years, investigators used DNA evaluation and different clues to determine the victims, a lot of whom had been intercourse staff. In some instances, authorities linked them to stays discovered elsewhere on Long Island years earlier. Police additionally started reexamining different unsolved killings of ladies discovered dead on Long Island.
The case has dragged on by way of 5 police commissioners, greater than 1,000 suggestions, and doubts about whether or not there was a serial killer in any respect.
Heuermann, who lived along with his spouse and two kids in Massapequa Park on Long Island and commuted to a Manhattan structure workplace, was arrested on July 13, 2023. At that time, he was charged with murdering Barthelemy, Waterman and Amber Lynn Costello.
Earlier this yr, he was charged within the deaths of three different girls — Brainard-Barnes, Taylor and Sandra Costilla.
In a June courtroom submitting, prosecutors stated they’d recovered a file on a tough drive in Heuermann’s basement that he used to “methodically blueprint” his killings — together with checklists with duties to tick off earlier than, throughout and afterward, in addition to classes for “subsequent time.”
In courtroom papers on Tuesday, prosecutors stated the doc, which was created the identical yr as Mack’s homicide, consists of particulars that align together with her case.
For instance, it names “Mill Road” — a street close to the place Mack’s first stays had been discovered — underneath the heading “DS,” which investigators consider stands for “dump website.”
The doc additionally lists “foam drain cleaner” underneath “Supplies.” Prosecutors say that on Oct. 3, 2000, Heuermann’s cellphone data seem to point out him making two calls to a Long Island plumbing firm, and he paid one other firm the next month to verify his mainline drain.
In current searches of Heuermann’s house and workplace, authorities say they discovered outdated magazines and newspapers with articles in regards to the Gilgo Beach killings and investigation that prosecutors consider he saved as “souvenirs” or “mementos.” Among them was a July 29, 2003, copy of the New York Post that included an article in regards to the investigation into Mack and Taylor’s stays.
Investigators say proof factors to Heuermann’s house because the scene of the killings — typically, when his household was out of city. Tierney stated authorities don’t know the place his family had been when Mack was killed.
Prosecutors are additionally trying into the dying of Karen Vergata, whose stays had been first found in 1996 and eventually recognized in 2022 after a brand new DNA evaluation.
In September, authorities launched new renderings of an unidentified sufferer who was present in 2011. Officials stated the sufferer, whom for years they’d recognized as male, might have introduced outwardly as feminine and died in 2006.
___ Associated Press author Jennifer Peltz contributed from New York.
