Lengthy Island serial killings: A timeline of the investigation

What started as a seek for one lacking girl resulted in a couple of our bodies and the seize of a person police say is a serial killer. 

Would possibly 1, 2010: Shannan Gilbert disappears

Shannan Gilbert, 23, used to be running as an escort. Within the early morning hours of Would possibly 1, 2010, Gilbert made a frantic telephone name to 911. She were at a shopper’s house on Lengthy Island, and stated she believed any individual used to be after her. She took off operating and instructed the 911 operator there have been other folks looking to kill her. Then, Gilbert vanished.

Police would do an exhaustive seek for Gilbert. Months handed with out a signal of the lacking girl after which, in December 2010, close to Gilgo Seaside, a police officer and his Okay-9, Blue, discovered human stays. Nevertheless it wasn’t Gilbert. As an alternative, they discovered the our bodies of 4 ladies.

December 2010: The Gilgo 4

Police discovered the our bodies of 4 ladies close to Gilgo Seaside on New York’s Lengthy Island.  The ladies turned into referred to as the Gilgo 4 and had been known as Maureen Brainard-Barnes, Amber Costello, Megan Waterman and Melissa Barthelemy. Police say all the ladies had been petite and 3 of them had been wrapped in burlap.  Police started their hunt to discover a serial killer.

The killer had a sort

Dominick Varrone, who used to be Suffolk County leader of detectives on the time, stated there have been placing similarities a number of the Gilgo 4. “Very petite. 5 foot or underneath, 100 kilos,” Varrone stated. The ladies had been additionally all of their 20s and had been all running as on-line escorts.

July 6, 2007: Maureen Brainard-Barnes’ ultimate weekend

Maureen Brainard-Barnes is frequently known as the primary of the Gilgo 4. She went lacking in July 2007.  Brainard-Barnes used to be a unmarried mom of 2 dwelling in Norwich, Connecticut. She had begun running as an escort, posting commercials on Craigslist and different internet sites to fulfill shoppers. On July 6, 2007, her mobile phone used to be contacted by way of a burner mobile phone — a pay as you go telephone that anybody should purchase and use anonymously. Between July 6 and July 9, there have been 16 interactions between the caller the use of a burner telephone and Brainard-Barnes’ mobile phone. 

July 8, 2007: Missy Cann’s final name along with her sister

Maureen Brainard-Barnes’ sister, Missy Cann, won a decision from Maureen overdue at night time from Penn Station in midtown Ny. In an interview in 2020, Cann instructed “48 Hours” Maureen stated she used to be going to take the teach at nighttime. Cann by no means noticed or heard from Maureen once more.

July 2009: The disappearance of Melissa Barthelemy

Melissa Barthelemy, 24, moved from Buffalo, New York, to New York Town to paintings as a hairdresser. In the future, she additionally started running as an escort. In July 2009, just about two years to the day that Brainard-Barnes went lacking,  Barthelemy disappeared.

July 17, 2009: Taunting telephone calls start

Within the weeks following Barthelemy’s disappearance, police say her then 15-year-old sister, Amanda, won a sequence of telephone calls from a person calling from Melissa’s mobile phone. The primary of those calls got here on July 17, 2009 at roughly 12:40 p.m.  Various calls adopted within the coming weeks. In a single, the caller instructed Amanda he had killed Melissa.

June 5, 2010: Megan Waterman

Megan Waterman, 22, a mom from Scarborough, Maine, used to be additionally running as an escort. On June 5, 2010, she used to be contacted by way of a burner telephone which had simply been activated that very same day.

June 6, 2010: Megan Waterman vanishes

At 1:31 a.m., Waterman’s telephone used to be once more contacted by way of the similar burner telephone because the day prior to. Safety video confirmed Waterman leaving a Vacation Inn Categorical in Hauppauge, Lengthy Island, round the similar time. This used to be the final time she used to be noticed alive.

“I will’t convey her again”

Liliana Waterman used to be simply 3 years outdated when her mom disappeared. In her first tv interview in 2020, Liliana (pictured with Megan Waterman) instructed “48 Hours” that if she may communicate to her mother, she would inform her how a lot she loves her. “I by no means were given to in reality say the ones phrases,” Liliana instructed correspondent Erin Moriarty. She stated she misses her mother on a daily basis.

Sept. 2, 2010: Amber Costello disappears

Amber Costello, a 27-year-old escort dwelling on Lengthy Island, used to be contacted by way of any individual the use of a burner telephone. Tomorrow, she left her area to fulfill a shopper and not returned.

After Costello’s disappearance, police say her roommate Dave Schaller instructed them about her shoppers. He described one in all them as taking a look like an “ogre” and having “a first-generation Chevrolet Avalanche.” At the night time she went lacking, Schaller says, a shopper introduced Cistello $1,500 for the night time – six occasions her hourly price.

In 2011, Schaller spoke to Moriarty. “This man used to be so relentless,” Schaller stated. “He known as a number of occasions. He used to be at the telephone along with her for relatively some time each and every time.” He says the buyer were given Costello, an skilled escort, to do one thing she by no means did: go away house with out her handbag or mobile phone and meet him in his automotive. At just about nighttime, Schaller says Costello left the home, walked down the road, and he by no means noticed her once more.

Dec. 16, 2010: Nonetheless no Shannan

During the spring of 2011, investigators persevered a wide-ranging seek for Shannan Gilbert.

Would possibly 2011: Six extra units of stays came upon

Through Would possibly 2011, police had came upon six extra units of stays within the house, bringing the overall to ten — together with the Gilgo 4. Investigators weren’t certain the similar killer used to be accountable for the entire murders.  

• Sufferer No. 5, Jessica Taylor, is an escort who went lacking in 2003. 
• Every other set of stays police known as “Jane #6” has now been known as Valerie Mack, who additionally labored as an escort and went lacking in 2000.
• Quantity 7, to investigators’ wonder they discovered a child lady. 
• Quantity 8 used to be an Asian male wearing ladies’s clothes. 
• Quantity 9 used to be a feminine cranium belonging to Karen Vergata, an escort who disappeared in 1996.
• Quantity 10, feminine stays, from a sufferer law enforcement officials nicknamed “Peaches” as a result of a tattoo on her torso.  Even if her stays had been discovered 6 miles away, police say DNA has showed that “Peaches” is the mummy of that infant. 

Dec. 13, 2011: Shannan Gilbert is located

In December 2011, a year-and-a-half after she went lacking, and a yr after the Gilgo 4 had been discovered, investigators discovered  Gilbert’s stays. However they do not imagine she used to be murdered.

Years later, the Suffolk County Police Division launched the whole audio of Shannan’s 21-minute 911 name on Would possibly 1, 2010, the morning she disappeared. Police Commissioner Rodney Harrison stated in an interview with Erin Moriarty, Gilberts’s demise used to be most likely no longer a homicide. “It is an unlucky incident, however at the moment we imagine that she simply bumped into the marsh and sadly drowned,” Harrison stated.

February 2022: A contemporary take a look at the case

For almost a decade after the invention of the Gilgo 4, the investigation stalled. Till, in February 2022, a brand new job pressure used to be shaped by way of Suffolk County Police Commissioner Rodney Harrison and Suffolk County District Legal professional Ray Tierney. In an interview withMoriarty, DA Tierney stated, “… a trifling six weeks later … Rex Heuermann used to be known for the primary time.”

A tip from the previous

How did investigators get a suspect in six weeks? It seems that within the authentic case information had been a lot of essential clues that the brand new job pressure used to be in any case in a position to glue. Costello’s roommate Dave Schaller had in the past described one in all Costello’s shoppers and the kind of car he drove to investigators. The car used to be a first-generation Chevrolet Avalanche.

With an outline of an”ogre-like” guy, and the make and style of his truck, police took a more in-depth take a look at Costello’s telephone information from 2010. Schaller had instructed them that prior to Costello disappeared, there used to be one shopper that known as her steadily.

The burner telephone clue

Police again then knew the buyer used to be the use of a burner telephone. And so they knew that the Brainard-Barnes, Barthelemy, Costello and Waterman  had all been in touch with burner numbers proper prior to they disappeared.

In 2012, with the assistance of the FBI, police decided that the majority of the ones calls hooked up to mobile towers within a small house of Massapequa Park, Lengthy Island. They known as this house “the field.” In line with DA Tierney, “the field” consisted of a few blocks inside of Massapequa Park.

A suspect in sight

Armed with their small radius of “the field” and the outline of an “ogre-like” guy that drove a Chevrolet Avalanche, the duty pressure now had a first-rate suspect. Police known an architect named Rex Heuermann as the person they believed could have been accountable for the murders.

And once they checked out Heuermann’s non-public mobile phone information, they are saying that his telephone used to be in the similar house as the ones burner telephones once they had been used to touch sufferers. Additionally they say that once the burner telephones contacted sufferers, they had been frequently in Massapequa Park, the place Heuermann lived, or midtown Ny, the place his architectural company used to be positioned. In 2023, they spotted Heuermann going right into a telephone retailer to make a cost on a burner telephone. 

A DNA hit

Police started to tail Heuermann. When he threw out a pizza field right into a trash can in midtown Ny, investigators discovered that Heuermann’s DNA at the pizza crust used to be in keeping with a DNA profile discovered on a male hair came upon with Megan Waterman’s frame. With DNA proof, in conjunction with the mobile phone information linking Heuermann to the burner telephones, officials made an arrest.

July 14, 2023: A suspect in custody

Rex Heuermann, of Massapequa Park, Lengthy Island,  used to be charged with a couple of counts of homicide within the deaths of Melissa Barthelemy, Megan Waterman and Amber Costello. Heuermann is lately the top suspect for the homicide of Maureen Brainard-Barnes, however he has no longer been charged along with her demise.

When requested about Heuermann’s innocence at a press convention, Heuerman’s legal professional Michael Brown stated, “What has my shopper instructed me? He instructed me he did not do that.” 

Digging for proof

Police spent 12 days taking a look thru Heuermann’s area, pulling weapons out of the basement, and digging within the yard. Every other vital piece of proof taken into ownership used to be a first-generation Chevrolet Avalanche registered to Heuermann on the time of the murders. It used to be sitting on belongings he owns in South Carolina once they recovered it.

A possibility to kill? 

A married guy, Heuermann has a daughter and stepson together with his 2nd spouse, Asa Ellerup. Ellerup, who used to be born in Iceland, would take the youngsters to look her circle of relatives there within the summers. It used to be all through those journeys and others, police imagine, that Heuermann killed the ladies.

Heuermann pleaded no longer responsible

Heuermann used to be arraigned in Suffolk County Courtroom in Riverhead, New York. He pleaded no longer responsible to the murders of Melissa Barthelemy, Megan Waterman and Amber Costello. The pass judgement on ordered that he be held with out bail in a Suffolk County prison the place he’s lately looking forward to trial.

Remembering Amber, Melissa and Megan

Investigators hope that the arrest may give sufferers’ households a way of peace. Police Commissioner Harrison instructed Erin Moriarty, “He took away any individual’s mom, any individual’s daughter, any individual’s sister, no longer only one particular person, a couple of folks.” 

Different investigations?

Investigations unfold to South Carolina and Las Vegas the place Heuermann owns belongings, with detectives there taking a contemporary take a look at circumstances of lacking ladies. Heuermann has no longer been charged in any further investigations.

As for the opposite our bodies discovered close to Gilgo Seaside – Jessica Taylor, Valerie Mack, Karen Vergata, “Peaches”, the infant lady, and the Asian male – none of them had been related to Heuermann.