Suspect in custody in Long Island’s Gilgo Beach serial killings, sources say

MASSAPEQUA PARK, N.Y. (WPIX) — A suspect in the decade-old Gilgo Beach serial killer case on Long Island, New York, has been taken into custody, police said Friday.

Sources identified the suspect as Rex Heuermann, an architect who lives in Massapequa Park. He was arrested Thursday night in Manhattan, police said. He was taken to police headquarters in Yaphank and was expected to be indicted by a grand jury Friday afternoon, authorities said.

Massapequa and Manhattan have been two key locations in the Gilgo Beach murders investigation for years, a senior law enforcement source told PIX11 News on Friday.

Sources told PIX11 that the first victim who was found, Melissa Barthelemy, had set up dates at two hotels close to the suspect’s home in Massapequa Park. One of those hotels is within walking distance from the suspect’s house, according to the sources.

Sources told PIX11 that Barthelemy’s phone was used by the suspected killer to call and taunt her little sister.

Sources said Barthelemy’s phone pinged near Penn Station, where the Long Island Rail Road is located. The phone also pinged in Massapequa.

How the Gilgo Beach serial killer case began

The remains of at least 10 bodies were discovered in the underbrush along a 3-mile stretch of Ocean Parkway near Gilgo Beach between December 2010 and April 2011, sparking a long-standing investigation into the serial killer case. The earliest victims could date back to at least 1996.

On Dec. 11, 2010, Suffolk County police officer John Malia and his cadaver dog made a startling discovery in the brush off Ocean Parkway in Gilgo Beach, Long Island.

They found the skeletal remains of Melissa Barthelemy, an escort who had disappeared from the Bronx the year before. Her body was wrapped in burlap.

Two days later, the bodies of three more sex workers were found and the Long Island Serial Killer (LISK) investigation was born.

By April 2011, six more sets of remains were found along Ocean Parkway, in the Gilgo/Oak/Jones beaches area, roughly 35 miles east of Manhattan. Some of the remains were tied to female torsos discovered in Manorville — 40 miles to the east — in 2000 and 2003.

Shannan Gilbert

The Gilgo Beach investigation might never have happened if a search hadn’t been launched for Shannan Gilbert, a CraigsList escort who disappeared on May 1, 2010. Police were looking for Gilbert on that December night when they found Barthelemy instead.

Dominick Varrone, who was chief of detectives when the discoveries were made, and other investigators think a frantic Gilbert ran screaming from a client’s house on May 1, 2010, and ended up trapped in an Oak Beach marsh, where she succumbed to the elements. Her body wasn’t discovered until a year after the first Gilgo victims were found.

Gilbert’s late mother and family attorney, John Ray, believed that Gilbert was being targeted by the serial killer when she started banging on doors in Oak Beach in the early hours of May 1, 2010.

“They’re trying to kill me,” she’s heard screaming in a 911 call that was never released publicly.

But retired Chief Varrone and other investigators have said the circumstances surrounding Shannan Gilbert’s hire by a client in Oak Beach don’t match what happened with the other victims.

Determining who killed the women, and why, has vexed a slew of seasoned homicide detectives through several changes in leadership in the police department. Last year, an interagency task force was formed with investigators from the FBI, as well as state and local police departments, aimed at solving the case.

News of a suspect being taken into custody comes a day after state police found skeletal remains in a wooded area off the Southern State Parkway in Islip. It wasn’t immediately clear if those remains were linked to the Gilgo Beach case.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.