MASSAPEQUA PARK, NY — If anything has been learned from the Gilgo Beach serial killer case, it’s that law enforcement never gives up, just like in other unsolved cases, forensic psychologist Louis Schlesinger told Patch.
“Five years, 10 years, 20 to 30 years — when you think that they’ll never make an arrest — you wake up one day, and they arrested somebody,” said Schlesinger, who studies extraordinary crimes like serial, sexual homicides for the FBI.
Rex Heuermann, a 59-year-old architect from Massapequa Park, was charged July 14 with six counts of murder in connection with the deaths of Melissa Barthelemy, Amber Lynn Costello, and Megan Waterman. He is the prime suspect in the death of Maureen Brainard-Barnes.
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All four women were sex workers whose bodies were found buried along Ocean Parkway in December 2010.
A total of 11 sets of remains, including an Asian male and a toddler, were found along the stretch of roadway. Some of the remains matched others found in Manorville and Hempstead Lake State Park.
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No charges have been brought in relation to those cases.
Heuermann’s attorney, Michael Brown of Central Islip, denied the charges and has said that his client was “traumatized” by his arrest and claims he did not commit the crimes.
Law enforcement authorities have said that there was a major breakthrough in the case last year when an investigator traced a Chevrolet Avalanche to Heuermann. DNA collected from a pizza box that he discarded also matched a victim, as well as burner cell phones that he had been using, according to his bail application.
He was arrested the evening of July 13 in Manhattan, and the news broke the following morning. The news that morning showed the 13-year-old case was not cold, but was actively pursued and a major development was in the works in the form of an arrest.
The Gilgo Beach Task Force — made up of Suffolk police and the district attorney’s office, as well as state police, and the FBI — locked in on Heuermann and the case unfolded before the public eye very quickly.
The last time that happened for a well-known cold case was the Golden State Killer. In that case, Joseph James D’Angelo, a U.S. Navy veteran and former police officer, was sentenced in 2020 to life in prison after being convicted for at least 13 murders, 51 rapes, and 120 burglaries.
He was believed to have taunted his victims and police with obscene phone calls.
Schlesinger, who was interviewed over the years on the case, remembers saying, “‘They’re not going to catch him’ because I thought maybe he’s dead at this point.”
He imagined that the killer, who was profiled to be around 75 years old, would be dead.
The 74-year-old D’Angelo was captured in 2018 using DNA evidence that was traced to him and to a public genealogical database, according to ABC 11.
The first murder attributed to him took place in 1975, more than 43 years earlier.
“They got him,” Schlesinger said. “Law enforcement will never give up.”
Just after taking up his post in late 2021, Suffolk Police Commissioner Rodney Harrison took a walkthrough of the site along Ocean Parkway where the bodies were found.
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At the time, he vowed to bring a fresh perspective to the case and that it would be a priority in the department.
“We will not rest until we bring those accountable to justice,” he said. “I stated this when I was nominated as the commissioner for Suffolk County, that solving this surreal case is going to be very, very important.”
It’s something that seems to have run true.
He gives an enormous amount of credit to investigators in their search, opining, “Believe me, the law enforcement folks that are doing this, they’re not doing it for the tremendous amount of money.”
“They work evenings, nights, weekends, to solve; to clear up these cases,” he said. “They built their day. They never give up.”
As investigators entered the 11th day of sifting through Heuermann’s belongings at his Massapequa Park home, the search had expanded to an excavation of the backyard, The Associated Press reported.
Heuermann has pleaded not guilty and remains in custody in the Suffolk County Correctional Facility.
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