Families of eight women killed confront the Gilgo Beach serial killer: ‘Save a spot in hell’

The families of eight women killed by Rex Heuermann spoke at the Gilgo Beach killer’s sentencing in Riverhead, New York, on Wednesday, more than three decades after the 62-year-old Manhattan architect began his killing spree.

Heuermann pleaded guilty to murdering seven women and admitted to the killing of an eighth victim in April. Just before being sentenced to life in prison without parole on Wednesday for his admitted crimes, Heuermann offered a weak, generalized apology for his actions.

“Everything that has been said is true,” he said. “There are no words I can say. The words I would say have no meaning.”

Timothy Mazzei, the judge, exploded in response, calling the serial killer a “disgusting and pathetic, small man, if you are a man at all. You are a coward.”

Those sentiments were echoed in statements made by various family members of Heuermann’s victims. Kimberly Overstreet, sister of victim Amber Costello, called Heuermann “a raging, murdering sex addict”.

Liliana Waterman, the daughter of Megan Waterman, who was three when her mother was killed by Heuermann, recalled learning about what happened to her: “I came across an article about her. That was the moment I truly understood what happened. I remember asking what ‘prostitute’ and ‘pimp’ meant.”

Waterman said her heart had been broken and “for years I tried to find a place where I felt like I belonged.”

Waterman’s aunt, Elizabeth Meserve, told the serial killer: “Begone, you evil demon.”

Jasmine Robinson, a cousin of victim Jessica Taylor, told Heuermann: “You fill me with so much repugnance, I can’t stand it.

“A million years isn’t enough,” Robinson said of Heuermann’s impending sentence. “Nothing will ever make this right.”

“Justice has been done, but it can’t replace what has been taken,” said JoAnn Mack, the mother of victim Valerie Mack. “She had dreams, and you took them all away from her.”

Maureen Brainard-Barnes’s two children and sister were also in court on Wednesday and described how the loss of their mother had affected them. Maureen Brainard-Barnes’s sister, Melissa Cann, said she had lived with “survivor’s guilt” for decades.

“It was a weight I carried everywhere,” Cann said, sobbing deeply. But, she said, that guilt is “not mine to carry. It is for Rex and Rex alone.”

As sentencing concluded, Judge Mazzei said: “All right, get him out of here.” The courtroom then erupted in chants of “ogre, ogre” and rounds of applause.

Earlier in the sentencing, the Suffolk county district attorney, Ray Tierney, told the court that Heuermann was continuing to profit from and control his ex-wife, Asa Ellerup, through her participation in a recent documentary on the case.

“He has sought to enrich and manipulate from behind bars,” Tierney said, adding: “Eight young women were needlessly and brutally murdered at the hand of this defendant.”

He described the effect of the crimes on the victims’ families as “overwhelming” and that their suffering “will never end”.

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“This defendant is incapable of rehabilitation,” he continued.

Tierney slammed Heuermann for calling Amanda Funderburg, the sister of victim Melissa Barthelemy, with Barthelemy’s phone to taunt her. Funderberg described the call, in which Heuermann told her what he had done to her sister.

In one of the most powerful moments of the sentencing, Funderberg demanded that Heuermann, who was seated mere feet away and looking down, look at her while she was speaking.

“I hope you suffer in the way my sister suffered,” she said. “Save a spot in hell, I’ll see you there.”

Outside court, John Ray, the attorney who represents the family of Shannan Gilbert, a young woman whose disappearance led to the discovery of the Gilgo Four, said the victims impacts statements were “extraordinarily well done”.

“They had the impact on us that they should have had,” he said. “But they have absolutely no impact on him, as he himself admitted. They had no effect on him whatsoever.”

Ray also said that Heuermann “very likely murdered in other states”, citing what he called “credible evidence” from women who had come forward to him.

“He was very much into stalking. That was one of his hobbies. He stalked women in Florida, Virginia, Philadelphia and possibly, Anchorage, Alaska. These are people who survived him but there may have been people he killed there too,” Ray said.

The sentencing concludes an investigation that began in 2011 when four sets of remains were discovered along Long Island’s South Shore; they later became known as the Gilgo Four. Remains had previously been found in the area, leading to fears that a serial killer was at work.

All of Heuermann’s victims were sex workers and, for years, Suffolk police faced accusations of carelessness, bureaucratic incompetence and corruption as reasons why investigators had failed to identify a suspect.

A change in police leadership led to a taskforce being established in 2022 and the FBI brought in. Within months, Heuermann was connected to a dark Chevrolet Avalanche, spotted at the time of Amber Costello’s disappearance – vehicle information that had been in police files all along.

DNA and cellphone records shored investigator’s identification of Heuermann as their suspect and he was arrested on a Manhattan street in 2023.

Heuermann has remained largely silent throughout the judicial process. In April, when he pleaded guilty to seven charged murders and confessed to an eighth, he said only that he had used “strangulation” on all his victims – Barthelemy, Mack, Taylor, Waterman, Amber Lynn Costello, Brainard-Barnes, Sandra Costilla and Karen Vergata.