In a crowded courtroom on Long Island Wednesday morning, Rex Heuermann, a tall, heavyset man accused of seven grisly murders, put an end to the twists and turns of a seemingly endless case with three brief words.
“Do you feel it is in your best interest to plead guilty?” Judge Timothy P. Mazzei asked him.
“Yes I do,” Mr. Heuermann replied brusquely, nodding as he spoke.
Then the Suffolk County prosecutor, Raymond A. Tierney, asked Mr. Heuermann, 62, how he had killed each of his victims.
Melissa Barthelemy?
“Strangulation,” Mr. Heuermann, 62, said in the same matter-of-fact way.
Megan Waterman?
“Strangulation.”
And Amber Costello?
“Strangulation,” Mr. Heuermann said once more.
Soon, he had confessed to eight murders — the seven he had been charged with, plus one more. Twenty minutes after it began, the extraordinary hearing was over and the courtroom and overflow rooms began to empty.
Attendees, including news media, victims’ families and the simply curious, shuffled out of the courtroom. Conversations were kept to a murmur. The loudest utterance in a packed hallway was the astonished words of one spectator: “He admitted it.”
It had been almost three years since Mr. Heuermann, an architectural consultant with a successful practice in Manhattan, was arrested for the deaths of the women initially known as “the Gilgo Beach Four.” In court appearances during that time, he had maintained his innocence, carrying himself with an aloofness bordering on arrogance that maddened police officers and victims’ family members alike.
But on Wednesday, Mr. Heuermann’s story changed, if not his terse, authoritative demeanor. Dressed in a dark suit, white shirt and blue patterned tie, he told the judge that he was entering his guilty plea willingly.
He said he had hired women as escorts, killed them, bound them in burlap and left them along Ocean Parkway. He admitted to eight murders as if ticking off what he’d eaten for breakfast.
Outside the courthouse, Mr. Heuermann’s lawyer, Michael Brown, took a few questions. He was asked whether his client felt remorse.
“I hope so,” Mr. Brown replied.
Later in the afternoon, Kevin Catalina, the Suffolk County police commissioner, spoke at a news conference.
“The calm, serene, almost grandfatherly image that Rex Heuermann portrayed since his arrest was a lie,” Mr. Catalina said. “Today he was exposed for exactly what he is — a sadistic, soulless, murderous monster.”
Corey Kilgannon and Nate Schweber contributed reporting.
Claire Fahy reports on New York City and the surrounding area for The Times.
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