Left: Crime laboratory officers arrive to the house where a suspect has been taken into custody on New York's Long Island in connection with a long-unsolved string of killings, known as the Gilgo Beach murders, Friday, July 14, 2023, in Massapequa Park, N.Y. Right: Residents try to take a look as police officers search the house where a suspect has been taken into custody. (AP Photos/Eduardo Munoz Alvarez). Inset: Rex Heuermann, suspected serial killer behind the Gilgo Beach murders (image via Rex Heuermann Consultants & Associates).
An arrest has been made in connection with a string of slayings of sex workers whose remains were found along a seaside highway, according to multiple reports.
Rex Heuermann, 59, a Nassau County-based architect who worked in Manhattan, was taken into custody in connection with at least some of the Gilgo Beach murders, the New York Times reported Friday.
Police and the district attorney's office in neighboring Suffolk County are investigating.
New York ABC affiliate WABC reported that Heuermann was arrested Thursday at around 8:30 p.m. near his office in midtown Manhattan. He is expected to be arraigned Friday at 2:00 p.m., and according to WABC, Heuermann's wife is expected to be in the courtroom.
At least 11 sets of human remains have been discovered along Ocean Parkway, near Gilgo Beach, since 2010, according to Suffolk County police.
The victims known as the "Gilgo Four" — Maureen Brainard-Barnes, Melissa Barthelemy, Megan Waterman, and Amber Lynn Costello — were found across a quarter-mile area of the parkway. Each of them had disappeared between 2007 and 2010.
Their bodies were discovered in December 2010 during the search for the remains of Shannan Gilbert, a 23-year-old sex worker living in Oak Beach when she disappeared. According to police, Gilbert was last seen running through the gated community of Oak Beach after leaving the home of a client.
The search for her led to the grim discovery of multiple possible victims in the Gilgo Beach area of the Ocean Parkway. In addition to the Gilgo Four, police discovered partial remains belonging to Jessica Taylor in 2011, as well as the remains of Valerie Mack.
Police also discovered a female toddler, a woman believed to be the toddler's mother, and an Asian male who has not been identified.
This is a developing story.