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June 17, 2026Gilgo Beach serial killer Rex Heuermann to be sentenced after admitting to 8 murders
Gilgo Beach serial killer Rex Heuermann to be sentenced after admitting to 8 murders
(NEW YORK) — Gilgo Beach, New York, serial killer Rex Heuermann may address the court when he is sentenced to life in prison on Wednesday.
In April, Heuermann pleaded guilty to killing seven women: Melissa Barthelemy, Megan Waterman, Maureen Brainard-Barnes, Amber Lynn Costello, Jessica Taylor, Valerie Mack and Sandra Costilla. He also admitted to killing an eighth woman, Karen Vergata, though he was not formally charged in her death. Their families will have the opportunity to address Heuermann on Wednesday.
At the April hearing, Heuermann agreed to serve three consecutive life sentences followed by four consecutive sentences of 25 years-to-life, according to prosecutors.
Prosecutors said the New York City architect targeted sex workers, strangled them and dumped their bodies near Long Island’s Gilgo Beach over the course of 17 years.
Heuermann “walked among us, play acting as a normal, suburban dad, when in reality, all along, he was obsessively targeting innocent women for death,” Suffolk County District Attorney Ray Tierney said in April.
The Gilgo Beach cases went unsolved for years, until Heuermann’s arrest in 2023.
Since then, Heuermann has been in custody at the Riverhead Correctional Facility. While in jail, Heuermann has been reading books about murder and serial killers, and he’s communicated with Keith Hunter Jesperson, a 1990s serial killer known as the Happy Face Killer, Suffolk County Sheriff Errol Toulon told ABC News.
Defense attorney Michael Brown said in April that the decision to plead guilty belonged solely to Heuermann.
“There came a point in this defense when Rex said, ‘I want to plead guilty,'” Brown said, adding that admitting his guilt brought Heuermann “a huge sense of relief.”
Brown said Heuermann would likely have more to say at sentencing.
Part of Heuermann’s plea agreement also requires him to be interviewed by the FBI’s behavioral analysis unit.
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