Rex Heuermann on Wednesday pleaded guilty to killing eight women in a sprawling case that began in 2010, when investigators started to find remains along the Long Island shore.
Seven of the women whom Mr. Heuermann admitted to killing were found along Gilgo Beach on Long Island; another was found in Southampton. Six of them worked as escorts and advertised on sites like Craigslist and Backpage.
Here’s what we know about the women Mr. Heuermann admitted to killing.
Megan Waterman
Megan Waterman was 22 years old and lived in Scarborough, Maine, but disappeared after traveling to Suffolk County in June 2010.
Ms. Waterman, who worked as an escort, left a hotel around 1:30 a.m. to meet a client, the police said. Ms. Waterman was reported missing to the Scarborough Police Department two days later by family members, the police said.
Ms. Waterman’s remains were found on Dec. 13, 2010, on the north side of Ocean Parkway, near Gilgo Beach, and her death was ruled a homicide.
Melissa Barthelemy
Melissa Barthelemy, who also worked as an escort, was 24 years old and lived in the Bronx when she went missing in July 2009, the police said.
On the night she disappeared, Ms. Barthelemy told a friend she was leaving her home to see a man and would return, according to the police. Her mother reported her missing on July 18.
After Ms. Barthelemy was reported missing, her younger sister, Amanda, began receiving short calls from an unidentified male caller, the police said. The caller repeatedly taunted her and confessed to Ms. Barthelemy’s killing.
Ms. Barthelemy’s remains were discovered on the north side of Ocean Parkway, near Gilgo Beach, on Dec. 11, 2010. Although she was the first of the four women who became known as the Gilgo Four be found, the police said it was likely that she was the second of the women to be killed.
Amber Lynn Costello
Amber Lynn Costello, a 27-year-old resident of West Babylon, Long Island, disappeared on Sept. 2, 2010. Ms. Costello and her roommates, a woman and two men, were addicted to heroin, according to the Suffolk County police. To support their addiction, Ms. Costello and her female roommate worked as escorts.
Ms. Costello was last seen leaving her home on foot, without her cellphone, to meet a client. She was never reported missing, the police said. Her remains were found on Dec. 13, 2010, on the north side of Ocean Parkway, near Gilgo Beach.
Maureen Brainard-Barnes
Maureen Brainard-Barnes was 25 years old and lived in Norwich, Conn., when she disappeared. Ms. Brainard-Barnes was reported missing to the Norwich Police Department by a friend on July 14, 2007, about nine days after the police believe she took an Amtrak train to Manhattan.
Ms. Brainard-Barnes worked as an escort, according to the police, and it is likely that she traveled to Manhattan for work. She was last heard from on July 9, 2007, when she told a friend that she was leaving her motel room to meet someone, the police said.
Valerie Mack
For years, Valerie Mack was known only as Jane Doe No. 6, until investigators identified her remains in 2020. Born as Valerie Fulton, Ms. Mack disappeared in 2000, and her partial remains were found in 2011 near Gilgo Beach.
Eleven years earlier, investigators found other parts of her body in Manorville, Long Island, after being alerted by a group of hunters, prosecutors said.
Jessica Taylor
Ms. Taylor, who grew up in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., began working in her late teens as an escort. She was 20 in 2003, when she was last seen near the Port Authority Bus Terminal in Manhattan. She died shortly after she went missing.
Her partial remains were found near Gilgo Beach in 2011 and were later linked to other partial remains found eight years earlier in Manorville, a 45-minute drive east.
Sandra Costilla
Ms. Costilla’s remains were found in the Hamptons in 1993. She had not been associated with the Gilgo Beach investigation until June 2024, when Mr. Heuermann was charged with her murder.
According to the authorities, two hunters in Southampton in 1993 found Ms. Costilla partially nude with “numerous sharp force injuries” all over her body. Her injuries were similar to the kind exhibited in a collection of pornographic images that prosecutors said Mr. Heuermann had kept.
Karen Vergata
Ms. Vergata, who lived on West 45th Street in Manhattan, was last seen alive on Valentine’s Day 1996. She was 34 and working as an escort at the time, investigators said. She was born and raised in Glen Head on Long Island.
After some of her remains were found in Davis Park on Fire Island in 1996, she was known as “Fire Island Jane Doe” for years. In 2011, her skull was found near Gilgo Beach. More than a decade later, the F.B.I. was able to identify her.
Prosecutors had not previously linked Ms. Vergata to Mr. Heuermann.
Hannah Ziegler is a general assignment reporter for The Times, covering topics such as crime, business, weather, pop culture and online trends.
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