In chilling element, accused Gilgo Beach serial killer Rex Heuermann created harrowing “pre-prep” and “put up occasion” checklists that reveal how he methodically deliberate out his kills — which he sickly known as “hunts” — Suffolk County prosecutors mentioned Thursday.
The digital proof got here to mild as Heuermann, 60, was linked to 2 extra chilly case murders on Lengthy Island, one in every of which occurred 15 years earlier than the deaths of the “Gilgo Four.”
Hairs recovered from the stays of victims Jessica Taylor and Sandra Costilla had been linked through DNA proof to Heuermann, who was already charged in the deaths of four women.
His lawyer Michael Brown mentioned the brand new killings his shopper is accused of change “the dynamics” of the speculation of the case.
“You may have 20 years prior, you will have a totally completely different location, you will have dismembered our bodies,” he mentioned. “It’s inconsistent with the preliminary idea. I’d wish to see the proof that they’ve by way of establishing that.”
As they mined an enormous trove of digital units recovered from Heuermann’s residence, members of the Gilgo Murder Process Drive recovered horrific, detailed checklists Heuermann allegedly created to make sure he wouldn’t be caught.
The lists are categorized by provides he would wish, “pre-prep work” and “DS” — dump websites the place he had left victims’ stays — prosecutors mentioned.
The pre-prep work guidelines included mundane duties like getting his car inspected, reviewing climate stories and choosing routes with none visitors cameras. He even wrote reminders primarily based on what he realized from his earlier killings, in line with prosecutors.
“Issues to recollect: Sound travels (IE: Chicken exterior),” Heuermann allegedly wrote. “Get sleep earlier than hunt. Too drained creates issues. Contemplate a success to the face or neck subsequent time for take down.
“Extra sleep & noise management = extra playtime,” the sick checklists acknowledged. “Use heavy rope for neck — mild rope broke underneath stress of being tightened.”
Prosecutors consider “playtime” within the recordsdata, which had been stuffed with misspellings, denoted the purpose at which Heuermann sure and tortured his victims.
Paperwork discovered on Heuermann’s laptop even listed steps he ought to take after disposing of our bodies, together with “change tires” to his car, “have a narrative set” and “destroy” the recordsdata investigators finally discovered, prosecutors mentioned.
The lists had been “utilized by Heuermann to methodically blueprint and ‘plan out’ his ‘kills.’” the indictment states.
“This doc not solely speaks to the energy of the individuals’s case, it additionally demonstrates the heinous nature of this defendant’s actions,” Suffolk County Assistant District Lawyer Nicholas Santomartino mentioned in court docket.
Heuermann allegedly tried to delete the paperwork, in addition to a trove of pornographic photographs that includes torture that dated again to 1994, however investigators had been capable of get well them from his computer systems utilizing state-of-the-art digital retrieval software program, prosecutors mentioned.
Violence depicted within the stomach-churning pornographic photographs “notably and largely coincide with how the stays of Sandra Costilla, Jessica Taylor, and Valerie Mack had been found,” prosecutors mentioned of their indictment.
Heuermann created the Microsoft Phrase checklists on his laptop computer in 2000, modifying them between 2001 and 2002, Suffolk County DA Raymond Tierney mentioned.
“This doc evinces the defendant’s intent in committing the charged crimes,” Tierney mentioned, explaining that the duties outlined within the checklists had been in lots of circumstances “an identical” to the methodology used within the six murders.
“That his intent was particularly to find these victims, to hunt them down and to deliver them underneath his management and to kill them. His motivations, meticulous planning and clear intent is apparent. His intent was nothing brief however to homicide these victims.”
Carrying a blue button-down shirt, a blue patterned tie and grey go well with, Heuermann mentioned nothing as he was indicted on second-degree homicide prices within the two extra slayings in Suffolk County Superior Courtroom on Thursday morning. As prosecutors recounted the circumstances, he seemed down at his toes and twiddled his fingers handcuffed behind his again.
Heuermann has already pleaded not guilty within the deaths of Megan Waterman, 22; Melissa Barthelemy, 24; Amber Lynn Costello, 27; and Maureen Brainard-Barnes, 25. Their stays had been discovered close to one another alongside a stretch of Ocean Parkway generally known as Gilgo Seaside between late fall 2010 and early spring 2011.
Taylor, a 20-year-old intercourse employee, died between July 21 and July 26 of 2003, prosecutors mentioned in an indictment unsealed Thursday. Costilla, 28, was murdered a decade earlier, between Nov. 19 and 20, 1993.
Brainard-Barnes and Barthelemy had been final seen in 2007 and 2009, respectively, investigators mentioned. Waterman and Costello each disappeared in 2010, just some months earlier than their stays had been discovered.
Investigators are attempting to find out if Heuermann killed anybody else within the 10 years between Costilla and Taylor’s deaths, in addition to after the stays of the Gilgo 4 had been recovered, prosecutors mentioned.
Decide Timothy Mazzei ordered Heuermann held with out bail on the brand new homicide prices.
The newly revealed recordsdata embrace a number of references to the e-book “Mindhunter” by former FBI serial killer profiler John Douglas, prosecutors mentioned, although the amount wasn’t present in Heuermann’s residence.
He allegedly flagged pages within the e-book that referenced “sexual substitution, torture and Stockholm syndrome,” Tierney mentioned.
“(He) was referencing that ‘Mindhunter’ e-book to not acquire perception into his personal habits or to switch or change it, however slightly to make use of it as a method of bettering his methodology and to keep away from seize by the authorities,” the DA mentioned.
An individual strolling their canine in Manorville discovered Taylor’s stays on July 26, 2003. Her physique, which was decapitated together with her arms severed under her elbows, remained unidentified for eight years till her head and arms had been present in one other location. A tattoo on her physique had been mutilated.
Taylor’s head and arms had been discovered alongside Ocean Parkway in 2011 — simply east of Gilgo Seaside, prosecutors mentioned.
In April, a hair police discovered underneath Taylor’s physique again in 2003 was genetically linked to Heuermann, prosecutors mentioned.
Costilla’s stays had been present in a wooded space in Southampton by a pair of hunters. Hairs recovered from her physique had been additionally linked through DNA proof to the suspect, prosecutors mentioned.
The brand new indictments got here inside weeks of a search by Gilgo Seaside Process Drive investigators in an space of Manorville the place the partial stays of two victims — Taylor and Valerie Mack — had been discovered greater than 20 years in the past.
Simply two weeks in the past, investigators had been again at Heuermann’s Massapequa Park residence executing a brand new search warrant linked to the case. Police had been seen eradicating a big rectangular object coated in blue fabric and loading it onto the again of a truck parked within the driveway.
In 2010 and 2011, the our bodies of 11 individuals had been discovered on and close to Gilgo Seaside. Heuermann has not, till now, been linked to any of the opposite seven victims.
Cops said it was a Long Island pimp — and pizza crust DNA — that steered investigators towards Heuermann, a husband and father who had been residing quietly within the Nassau County city of Massapequa Park and commuting to Manhattan, the place he labored as an architect.
The pimp described the suspect’s car to authorities, giving them particulars a couple of inexperienced Chevrolet Avalanche throughout a spring 2022 assembly with investigators.
Cops additionally retrieved DNA from a pizza crust present in a Manhattan trash can close to Heuermann’s work workplace and matched it with a hair discovered on Waterman’s physique.
The 350 digital units recovered within the investigation included 27 computer systems, 58 inside onerous drives, 22 exterior onerous drives and 46 cellphones.
Investigators are nonetheless digging by a number of the units, Tierney mentioned.
“We’re not going to cease. We are able to’t cease,” the DA mentioned. “We owe that to the victims.”
Heuermann’s lawyer mentioned Thursday he had simply realized of the alleged “planning paperwork” and that neither he nor his shopper had been knowledgeable of the 2 new murder prices till Thursday morning.
“He’s clearly horrified by new prices, new homicide allegations,” Brown mentioned. “He’s in a nasty place by way of the brand new prices.”
The trial over the Gilgo 4 murders had but to start as of Thursday, when the brand new prices had been added. Heuermann has been in custody since his arrest final July, and no date has been set for his trial.
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