The suspected Gilgo Beach serial killer Rex Heuermann has been indicted on new charges in Long Island, New York, of second-degree murder in the killings of two women.
The charges were brought by the Suffolk county district attorney, Ray Tierney, and come in addition to charges Heuermann faces in the killings of four women whose remains were discovered in scrub and marshland on the Long Island coast nearly 14 years ago.
The new charges include the killing of a resident of Queens, New York, whose remains were found more than 30 years ago. Heuermann, 60, of Massapequa Park, had not previously been charged in a killing committed earlier than 2007.
In court documents released ahead of the hearing, prosecutors said they had discovered a “planning document” on the hard drive found in Heuermann’s basement that they believe he used to “methodically blueprint” his killings.
The document, the filing said, includes Heuermann’s concerns about leaving behind forensic evidence, guidance for cleaning and washing bodies, and notes on how to improve “next time”.
Tierney alleged at a press conference that Heuermann “planned out his kills” using the document and had used it to “locate, hunt down, bring under his control, and kill them” – referring to his alleged victims.
In addition to the murders of four women – Megan Waterman, Melissa Barthelemy, Amber Lynn Costello and Maureen Brainard-Barnes – Heuermann, who was arrested on a midtown Manhattan street last summer, is now charged over the July 2003 dismemberment death of Jessica Taylor and the November 1993 death of Sandra Costilla.
Investigators said in court records that DNA matches from hairs found on the remains of Taylor and Costilla matched Heuermann. They also said they had recovered violent bondage pornography that was “notably and largely coincide with how the remains of Sandra Costilla, Jessica Taylor and Valerie Mack were discovered”.
Prosecutors allege Taylor was found “decapitated” and that both of her arms were cut off. Afterward, Heuermann allegedly mutilated Taylor’s body to hinder her identification. The body of Costilla, a native of Trinidad and Tobago, was found placed in a lewd manner, investigators said.
Heuermann has not been charged in death of Mack, 24, who disappeared in 2000 and was last seen by her family in New Jersey. Some of her remains were discovered in the same woodland area as Taylor. More of her remains were found in 2011 in the search around Gilgo Beach.
Heuermann has pleaded not guilty to the first set of murder charges and is being held without bail.
Suffolk police and prosecutors had long associated the murder of Costilla with a different suspect. Her remains were found in North Sea, close to the fashionable Hamptons resort towns, on 20 November 1993.
The indictment over the killing of Jessica Taylor, who was 20 at the time of her disappearance, marks the first time Heuermann, a Manhattan architect, has been charged with dismemberment in addition to murder.
Prosecutors have said they believe Heuermann acted alone in the first four killings he was charged with, and linked him to those deaths through cellphone tower data, burner phone records and DNA evidence.
Taylor’s torso was found in Manorville, in central Long Island, days after she disappeared in 2003. Her head, hands and forearm were found in March 2011 40 miles away and close to where the Gilgo Beach victims were found. Her remains were identified in part by a tattoo.
The new indictment suggests that Heuermann’s alleged reign of sexual violence and murder was far longer than previously suspected, and more geographically dispersed.
Costilla’s murder was previously linked to the killings of Colleen McNamee and Rita Tangredi. In 2014, police arrested a man named John Bittrolff and charged him over those deaths. He was later convicted and is serving a 50-year-sentence in Dannemore prison in upstate New York.
Bittroloff was not charged with Costilla’s murder because DNA present in the murders of McNamee and Tangredi was not present. He denied the crime.
Last month, investigators with the Gilgo Beach taskforce spent six days searching Heuermann’s home, and nine days searching woodland where the remains of Taylor and Mack were discovered in April. Tierney called the searches a “necessary investigative step”.
