Prosecutors filed one other homicide cost Tuesday in opposition to the alleged Gilgo Beach serial killer, bringing the variety of alleged victims to seven — all ladies who have been slain close to New York City.
A hair linked to the spouse or daughter of suspect Rex Heuermann was discovered close to the left wrist of 24-year-old sufferer Valerie Mack, in line with court docket paperwork.
Heuermann’s daughter would have been 4 on the time of Mack’s killing and his estranged spouse will not be thought-about a suspect in any of those slayings.
Mack labored as an escort earlier than her skeletal stays have been present in November 2000.
Mack’s killer severed her proper leg, which had a tattoo of her son’s title of on it, prosecutors mentioned.
Notes discovered on the suspect’s pc, which prosecutors have known as his “planning doc,” known as “for the removing of figuring out marks on the sufferer’s physique,” akin to tattoos, “previous to packaging the physique for transportation.”
Investigators imagine the killer minimize off “Mack’s decrease proper leg at mid-calf to inhibit and/or delay the identification of Ms. Mack’s tattoo and due to this fact, Ms. Mack,” prosecutors mentioned in court docket paperwork.
Many of the victims have been sex workers who allegedly met Heuermann after promoting their companies.
“The lives of those ladies matter,” Suffolk County District Attorney Ray Tierney advised reporters in Riverhead.
“We as investigators, we perceive that. Obviously nobody understands it greater than the households. So once more, we’re simply delighted and honored and privileged to have the ability to work with these households.”
Heuermann spoke briefly in court docket on Tuesday and denied involvement within the ladies’s slayings and the dumping of her stays, which have been discovered alongside the southern shore of Long Island.
“Your honor, I’m not responsible of any of those prices,” he mentioned.
Investigators are nonetheless engaged on different close by, unsolved murders to see in the event that they may very well be linked to Heuermann, officers mentioned.
There’s no telling what number of attainable victims may very well be on the market, and an “military” of investigations are pursing quite a few chilly instances within the space, in line with Tierney.
“We mentioned, we’re not limiting this investigation to Gilgo Beach,” Tierney mentioned. “We’ve moved off of the seashore.”
The prosecutors spoke to reporters with family members of a number of victims standing behind him.
“Let’s be clear, not one of the victims need to die,” mentioned legal professional Gloria Allred, representing the households of a number of victims. “They have been all harmless and so they have been simply making an attempt to earn some funds to assist themselves and their households. They have been and they’re beloved and they’re missed day by day.”
Mack’s family members have been stored within the loop on the probe, officers mentioned, resulting in Heuermann being charged.
“They are very grateful,” Tierney mentioned. “They are very grateful for the small little bit of closure that the duty pressure has been in a position to present.”
The cost linked to Mack comes after Heuermann was accused by Suffolk County prosecutors of murdering Melissa Barthelemy, Megan Waterman, Amber Costello, Maureen Brainard-Barnes, Sandra Costilla and Jessica Taylor.
Costilla was killed in 1993, Taylor in 2003, Brainard-Barnes in 2007, Barthelemy in 2009 and Costello and Waterman in 2010, officers mentioned.
Heuermann, a New York City architect, was arrested in July 2023 and initially indicted in reference to the slayings of Barthelemy, Waterman and Costello.
