Long Island serial killings arrest brings both pain and relief to victims’ families
NEW YORK — The trail had gone cold as clues suddenly dwindled. For a time, doubts swirled about whether a killer who dumped the remains of his female victims along remote stretches of coastline on New York’s Long Island would ever be caught.
Then finally, after more than a dozen long years, bereaved families of the victims were provided with a whiff of relief Friday when authorities announced the arrest of a 59-year-old architect who they believe is responsible for the deaths.
The arrest rekindled anger and grief — but also brought the prospect of closure — for family members including Amy Brotz, whose cousin, Melissa Barthelemy, was the first of the victims to be discovered, found accidentally during a search for another woman.
“I can’t wrap my head around this,” Brotz said, just hours after being startled by the unexpected news of an arrest. “God has brought peace to the families,” she said. “Maybe we can start the healing.”
The yearslong ordeal was especially unnerving for Brotz and her family because prosecutors say the suspect used Barthelemy’s cellphone to torment her relatives with calls soon after her disappearance, including one in which he said he’d killed her.
To accelerate the search for Barthelemy’s remains, her family hired a psychic who provided tantalizing clues that would prove prophetic: She would be found in a shallow grave along the shore, near a sign with the letter G.
Gilgo Beach would become the focal point of the long-stalled investigation into the discovery of 11 sets of remains, including that of a toddler, all discarded along the parkway that cuts the length of a thin strip of white sand, dirt, brambles and marshes known as Jones Beach Island. The toddler and three other victims have yet to be identified. All 10 adult victims, including the toddler’s mother, were sex workers, police said.
But investigators say the suspect, Rex Heuermann, 59, might not be responsible for all of the deaths. In addition to the Barthelemy case, he has so far only been accused of killing two others, Megan Waterman and Amber Costello, who were reported missing in 2010. He is also the prime suspect in the death of a fourth woman who disappeared three years earlier, Maureen Brainard-Barnes. Heuermann says he is innocent, according to his lawyer.
Barthelemy, who grew up in Buffalo, New York, was found on Dec. 11, 2010, more than a year after she went missing. Two days later, the bodies of three other young women were found nearby.
The killer provided clues, including strands of hair, the burlap used to wrap the bodies and a belt embossed with possible initials.
And there were the phone calls, including one made from Barthelemy’s cellphone on the day she was last seen alive. It was traced to the Long Island town of Massapequa, about 20 miles (32 kilometers) from where her body would later be found, not far from Heuermann’s house.
If convicted on all charges, Heuermann would face multiple life sentences without the possibility of parole.
“Death is too good for him,” the victim’s mother, Lynn Barthelemy, told NBC News.
“I’d like him to suffer at the hands of other inmates,” she said.
But the grieving parent expressed relief that a suspect was finally in custody.
A key question lingers, however: Why did it take so long? That was a question the suspect apparently had too, when prosecutors say he went online to ask, “Why hasn’t the Long Island serial killer been caught.”
Waterman was found near Gilgo Beach in December 2010, six months after she boarded a bus from Maine to New York. Her mother, Lorraine Ela, died last year never knowing if her daughter’s killer would ever be found.
