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OAN Staff Abril Elfi
2:19 PM – Tuesday, December 17, 2024
Rex Heuermann, the accused suspect in the cases of the ongoing “Gilgo Beach Murders,” has now been charged with a seventh murder.
Prosecutors filed yet another murder charge against Heuermann on Tuesday, totaling to seven suspected victims of the alleged serial killer. All of whom were female, with the majority being sex workers, who were reportedly killed close to New York City.
According to court documents, a strand of hair belonging to suspect Rex Heuermann’s “wife or daughter” was discovered nearby to the most recently discovered victim tied to him. The hair was found near the deceased 24-year-old victim Valerie Mack’s left wrist.
Heuermann’s estranged wife is not regarded as a suspect in any of these killings, and their daughter would have been just four-years-old when Mack was killed.
Before her skeleton remains were discovered in 2000 and 2011, Mack was working as an escort. It took years for her identity to be determined.
According to authorities, Mack’s killer had sliced off her right leg, which bore a tattoo of her son’s name.
Notes found on Heuermann’s computer called “for the removal of identifying marks on the victim’s body,” such as tattoos, “prior to packaging the body for transportation.”
“Investigators believe the killer cut off Mack’s lower right leg at mid-calf to inhibit and/or delay the identification of Ms. Mack’s tattoo and therefore, Ms. Mack,” prosecutors said in court documents.
The majority of the victims were sex workers who allegedly met Heuermann after advertising their services.
“The lives of these women matter,” Suffolk County District Attorney Ray Tierney told reporters in Riverhead. “We as investigators, we understand that. Obviously no one understands it more than the families. So again, we’re just delighted and honored and privileged to be able to work with these families.”
Heuermann spoke briefly and pleaded not guilty.
“Your honor, I am not guilty of any of these charges,” he reiterated.
Michael Brown, Heuermann’s defense attorney, declared outside the courthouse that he would now be targeting the business that provides DNA testing to investigators.
“I know he’s extremely frustrated, he has said from day one he is not responsible for these murders,” Brown told reporters. “He wants his day in court.”
The defense is also debating whether to request that the seven murder counts be divided into different cases, or if they should have the trial transferred outside of Suffolk County.
Investigators are also still trying to find the assailant responsible for killing a Gilgo Beach victim known as “Asian Doe.” Authorities have identified the individual, whose body was discovered in 2011, announcing that he was a “biological male” of “Asian descent” who was believed to be dressed as a woman at the time.
According to Tierney, an “army” of investigators are currently pursuing a large number of cold cases in the area, but it’s difficult to predict how many potential victims or bodies might still be out there.
The charge connected to Mack comes after Heuermann was accused by Suffolk County prosecutors of murdering Melissa Barthelemy, Megan Waterman, Amber Costello, Maureen Brainard-Barnes, Sandra Costilla, and Jessica Taylor.
The former architect has been in custody since July 13th, 2023.
Court records stated that when investigators began a thorough examination of the case’s evidence in 2022, they were directed to Heuermann as a potential suspect.
The suspect allegedly used several prepaid, anonymous burner phones to communicate with each victim, and the prosecutors said that FBI analysts were able to compare the cellular site data of the victims’ cellphones with each other.
In addition, according to court records, a hair strand that was discovered on burlap had been wrapped around one victim’s body, and it was found to match Heuermann’s DNA based on a sample taken from crusts in a pizza box that he had thrown away.
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