An architect who has lived for decades across a bay from where the remains of 11 people were discovered has been detained in connection with a long-unsolved run of crimes on Long Island known as the Gilgo Beach murders.
Rex Heuermann, 59, was detained in Massapequa late on Thursday, according to a law enforcement official who spoke to The Associated Press on Friday.
This is close to where authorities were seen searching Heuermann’s home on Friday.
The official spoke under the condition of anonymity because it was against his or her authority to publicly discuss the investigation’s specifics. Heuermann will be formally charged in state court in Riverhead on Friday.
His attorney was contacted for comment and left a message.
There were voicemails and emails left at Heuermann’s Manhattan office.
Heuermann resides in Massapequa Park, a neighborhood near South Oyster Bay and Gilgo Beach, where skeletal remains were discovered in 2010 and 2011 along a secluded seaside route.
Investigators have long been perplexed by the deaths. Young sex workers made up the majority of the victims.
The matter has received a great deal of public interest. The murders went unexplained for many years, and the mystery served as the inspiration for the 2020 Netflix film “Lost Girls.
Through multiple changes in police leadership, a number of seasoned homicide detectives have struggled to figure out who killed them and why.
An interagency task force comprised of detectives from the FBI, state, and local police departments was established last year with the intention of cracking the case.
Police officers flocked to a little red house that had been searched early on Friday in a community 40 miles (64 kilometers) east of Manhattan.
A half-dozen investigators in protective suits conferred outside the front porch, which was in ruin with its roof supported by 2-by-4s, as dozens of people mixed with the police and the journalists.
Neighbors claimed that the house belonged to a family that had long kept to themselves and noted that the run-down building stood out among the little town’s rows of single-family homes and immaculate lawns.
“This house is a complete outlier. The front of the house constantly had wood, and there were overgrown plants, according to instructor Gabriella Libardi, 24.
It was quite unsettling.
My kid wouldn’t go there, either.
Another neighbor, Barry Auslander, claimed that the man who resided in the home commuted daily to New York City by train while donning a suit and tie and toting a briefcase.
“It was strange.
He appeared to be a businessman, according to Auslander. However, his home is a ruin.
Heuermann, a certified architect who is married with two kids, works for a modest Manhattan-based company that, according to its website, has completed shop buildouts and other renovations for important merchants, workplaces, and residences.
A Gilgo Beach task group was established by Long Island law enforcement agencies last year, demonstrating what Suffolk County Police Commissioner Rodney Harrison described as a renewed determination to find the killers.
We’re glad to see the cops are finally taking action and getting something done. Let’s see where it all goes,” said John Ray, the lawyer for the families of Shannan Gilbert and Jessica Taylor, two victims.
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