Suspected Gilgo Beach serial killer Rex Heuermann is due back in court on Wednesday

Rex Heuermann, the suspected Gilgo Beach serial killer charged with murdering six women over a 31-year period, is scheduled to appear in Suffolk County court on Wednesday for his final hearing.

The 60-year-old architect from Massapequa Park has pleaded guilty to the murders of four women known as the Gilgo Four who were found dead in 2010, a woman whose remains were scattered near Gilgo and in Manorville, and a woman who was found dead in 2010 in the Hamptons, pleaded not guilty in 1993. His attorney, Michael Brown, said he wanted the cases to be tried separately.

Heuermann has been held without bail at the Suffolk County Jail in Riverhead since he was arrested near his Manhattan office in July 2023 when he was accused of killing Megan Waterman, Amber Lynn Costello and Melissa Barthelemy. In January, he was charged with the murder of Maureen Brainard-Barnes, the fourth Gilgo victim.

The Suffolk grand jury, which indicted the suspect in those cases, additionally indicted him in June for the murders of Jessica Taylor and Sandra Castilla. Taylor’s dismembered remains were found in Manorville in July 2003, and her skull and limbs were found near Cedar Beach in 2010 during an expanded search for the Gilgo sparked by the discovery of the Gilgo Four. Castilla was found brutally stabbed to death in a wooded area in the North Sea near Sag Harbor.

Suffolk County District Attorney Raymon Tierney said the Gilgo Beach Homicide Investigation Task Force continues to examine evidence in the murders of five additional victims who were found dead in the Gilgo area. Tierney said Heuermann is the prime suspect in the murder of Valerie Mack, whose remains were also found in Manorville in 2000 and near Gilgo in 2010.

Last month, investigators released an updated composite sketch of an unidentified Asian male victim found in the bushes off Ocean Parkway in 2010. Last year, prosecutors also announced that authorities had identified Karen Vergata, the victim known as the Fire Island Jane Doe. Her remains were found near Davis Park in 1996 and near Tobay Beach in 2010.

And the task force continues to investigate whether Heuermann may also be responsible for the murders of the unidentified victim named Peaches, whose remains were found near Hempstead Lake State Park in 1997, and her daughter, who was found near Cedar Beach in 2010 was found.

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