Gilgo Beach serial killing suspect charged in Connecticut woman’s death
Rex A. Heuermann, who is charged in the deaths of three woman whose bodies were found in the Gilgo Beach area of Long Island more than a decade ago, also is responsible for the killing of a Connecticut woman, authorities said Tuesday.
Long Island officials announced Heuermann was arrested Tuesday in the death of Norwich mother Maureen BrainardBarnes, who is believed to have been the first victim in the Gilgo Beach killings.
Suffolk County District Attorney Raymond A. Tierney called BrainardBarnes, “an intellectual, she was a writer and an artistic person who cared very deeply about the people she loved.”
“She fiercely protected them,” Teirney said. “She was a devoted sister, she was a devoted mother, a devoted daughter and she’s sorely missed by those who loved her.”
The four victims were between 22 and 27 years old, Teirney said. A hair from Heuermann’s wife was found with the remains of Brainard-Barnes, connecting him to her murder, court papers said.
Tierney and Suffolk County Sheriff Errol D. Toulon Jr., Acting Suffolk County Police Commissioner Robert Waring and representatives of the Gilgo Beach Homicide Investigation Task Force announced the arrest following a court proceeding Tuesday in Riverhead, N.Y., in the case against Heuermann, the owner of an architectural business in Manhattan.
Heuermann, 59, was charged in July with firstand second-degree murder in the deaths of Melissa Barthelemy, Megan Waterman and Amber Lynn Costello. He initially was not charged in the killing of Brainard-Barnes, who is believed to have been the first victim in the Gilgo Beach killings, according to a Suffolk County police official.
But police revealed in July that Heuermann also was considered the prime suspect in BrainardBarnes’ homicide. He was charged Tuesday morning with second-degree murder in Brainard-Barnes death, court documents showed. He continues to be held without bail, the document said.
Investigators were “able to determine that hairs recovered on three of the four victims are forensically tied to Defendant Heuermann and to members of his immediate family while that family was out-ofstate, lending further support to the conclusion that Defendant Heuermann is the individual who murdered, stripped, restrained, and transported the remains of each of the aforementioned victims to Gilgo Beach until the victims were ultimately discovered in 2010,” a bond document said.
He was charged with second-degree murder in Brainard-Barnes case because her death was not close in the timeline to the other three, Teirney said. The grand jury and a task force are continuing to investigate the discovery of other bodies in the same general location. But he said the investigation into the “Gilgo Four” was complete.
Brainard-Barnes, who went missing in 2007 and was found dead near the beach in 2010, long has been linked to the three other victims, dubbed the “Gilgo Four” for their similar disappearances and killings. Their deaths have drawn national interest through the years, including a Netflix film, but until recently there was little movement in the case.
“Even with this arrest, we’re not done,” Suffolk County Police Commissioner Rodney K. Harrison said at a July news conference in New York, indicating Heuermann was a suspect in the BrainardBarnes case. “There’s more work to do.”
Heuermann was connected with the crimes by several “burner cellphones,” a pizza crust he discarded in Manhattan earlier this year and a “first generation” Chevrolet Avalanche registered to his name in 2010, according to a 32-page court document filed by prosecutors in July.
Heuermann pleaded not guilty to the original charges in July and has been held without bail.
Brainard-Barnes was born July 14, 1982 in New London to Marie Ducharme, of Groton, and the late Robert Senecal, according to her obituary.
She was 25 when she was reported missing to Norwich police on July 14, 2007, according to a database compiled by Suffolk County police on the homicides. She was a former card dealer at Foxwoods Resort Casino, police said.
She is believed to have been the first victim of the serial killer, whom police said preyed on young women. Brainard-Barnes’ remains, along with those of Barthelemy, Waterman and Costello, were found at Gilgo Beach in December 2010, police said.
Heuermann’s wife was out of town when each of the women was killed, Teirney said. In the case of Brainard-Barnes, Heuermann’s wife, daughter and stepson had gone to Atlantic City on July 6, 2007. Heuermann joined the family on July 13, court documents said. BrainardBarnes went missing on July 9, 2007, Teirney said.
During the investigation, authorities seized two more “burner” phones from Heuremann after he was arrested in July that indicated he had been reaching out repeatedly to sex workers and looking up the Gilgo Beach murders, the families of the victims and the progress of the investigation, Teirney said.
He was using the fraudulent name “Andrew Roberts” in his contact with the sex workers, Teirney said. He also destroyed evidence in the case by erasing data on his electronic device, Teirney said.