This story begins on May 1, 2010 when a frantic 911 call was placed by Shannan Gilbert who then vanished. The search for her led to the findings of nearly a dozen sets of remains & became known as the Gilgo Beach murders.
Shannan Gilbert was living in Jersey City, frequently traveling into New York with her driver Michael Pak & worked as a sex worker to support her dream of becoming a singer. On May 1, 2010 she arrived at a client’s home on Oak Beach, Long Island for a regular call. Neither Shannan nor Michael had ever been to this area or had met this client, Joseph Brewer before. Michael waited for her as she remained inside for hours. At 4:51 am Shannan made a 911 call that lasted 22 minutes. 911 was called two additional times. At this point, her client, Joseph Brewer, came out of the house, asking Michael for help. When Michael got inside, he found Shannan panicking inside, holding a phone. Her 911 calls were frantic & disorganized & she indicated that she feared for her life, feeling like someone was after her. Oftentimes her dialog was confused & her words were slurred, sometimes she screamed & other times she didn’t respond at all. Multiple operators tried to determine where she was but she said she didn’t know & asked if her location could be traced.
Both Michael & Joseph could be heard trying to calm her down & get her to leave Joseph’s house. She ran from the home & at 5:22 am, a neighbor called saying that Shannan was “running around here screaming & there’s some guy trying to follow her.” This man was Michael & he had told 911 operators he’d keep watching until officers arrived. She ran to another neighbor’s house who also called 911. From here she ran off, never to be seen again. By the time officers responded, Shannan, Michael & Joseph were gone & officers assumed she left in the car with Michael which delayed the search. These 911 calls were eventually released by Suffolk County Police in May of 2022.
Her mostly skeletal remains were found nineteen months after she went missing, on Tuesday, December 13, 2011 in marsh reeds that can grow as tall as twelve feet during the time of year that she went missing. Her body was found about three-quarters of a mile from where she was last seen. Her autopsy was inconclusive both on cause & manner of death & her death was ruled accidental. Police believe Shannan got disoriented & followed the path of a trench through marshland, much of which can be impassable from reeds & thorns in the thickets. Her family & friends didn’t believe this idea because her personal items were found far from her remains. Police felt this could be explained by the fact that she was hysterical, potentially discarding her belongings as she moved along. Shannon’s mother indicated that she did use cocaine at times but her toxicology report was negative for drugs. Reports indicate that she had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder & had stopped taking her medication since it made her feel jittery.
The Gilberts hired a private pathologist who also found insufficient evidence to determine a definite cause of death but the pathologist did indicate that there were signs on her remains that were consistent with manual strangulation & deemed the findings consistent with homicide strangulation.
On December 11, 2010, officer John Malia was doing a training session with his K9 partner, Blue along Ocean Parkway in Gilgo Beach when Blue discovered human remains. These were later identified as those of Melissa Barthelemy. Two days later, on December 13, 2010, the search continued & three additional bodies were found, all within a quarter mile of each other. They had been stuffed in bushes along a quarter-mile stretch of Ocean Parkway in Oak Beach. These three bodies were identified as Maureen Brainard-Barnes, Megan Waterman & Amber Costello.
All were determined to be homicides & each were placed in close proximity to one another & 22-33 feet from the edge of the parkway. All were petite females between 22-27 years old, believed to be working as sex workers, all had missing clothing & personal possessions & all had contact with a person using a burner cell phone shortly before they disappeared between 2007-2010. The cell phones of two of the four victims were used by the killer after their deaths. Each of the four victims had been positioned similarly & bound in a similar way with either belts or tape & three of the victims were found wrapped in a burlap material. Shannon’s body was found a year later, three miles from this location. Additionally, in April & May of 2011, the remains of six other individuals were also found. Over the years, police have indicated that they don’t believe that one person is responsible for all the deaths though ideas of a serial killer were theorized. The original four victims found in December of 2010 became known as the “Gilgo Four.”
Maureen Brainard-Baines was 25-years-old when she went missing. She had been living in Norwich, Connecticut & was believed to have taken an Amtrak train from New London, Connecticut to Grand Central Terminal in Manhattan on July 6. 2007. When she arrived in Manhattan, she stayed at the Super 8 Motel located at 59 West 46th Street. She was working as a sex worker & advertised her services on various websites under the name Juliana or Marie. She fell into the routine of traveling to Manhattan for a few days to work as an escort & then returning home to Connecticut. While in Manhattan, she typically stayed in the Motel 8, Red Roof Inn on West 32nd Street, the Carter Hotel on West 43rd Street & the Manhattan Hotel on 8th Avenue.
Maureen occasionally traveled with another female; they would stay at the same motel & work out of different rooms. They often had a male friend who they referred to as their cousin, to accompany them as a level of protection. On the weekend that she went missing, Maureen traveled with her friend though her friend came home early. She was last heard from on July 9, 2007 at 11:43 pm when she called a friend back in Connecticut. She normally worked out of motel rooms, but this night she told her friend that she was meeting someone outside of the motel on an “out-call.”
Maureen was reported missing by a friend to the Norwich Police Department on July 14, 2007. The NYPD assisted the Norwich PD in the investigation & eventually took over. It was ultimately discovered that between July 6-9 there were sixteen interactions between her cell phone & a burner phone. On July 9, the last cell site location for her phone was at 11:56 pm in Midtown Manhattan near the 59th Street Bridge. Her phone had no further activity until July 12, 2007, three days after she disappeared with two out-bound calls checking her voicemail from a location near the Long Island Expressway in Islandia. Her body was discovered on December 13, 2010 on the north side of Ocean Parkway near Gilgo Beach. She was restrained by three leather belts. She is believed to be the first victim in the “Gilgo Four.” One of the belts was black leather & embossed with the letters “WH” or “HM” & was believed to have been handled by & belonging to the killer.
Melissa Barthelemy was 24-years-old when she was last seen at her home where she lived in a basement apartment in the Bronx on July 10, 2009. She was a sex worker & also advertised her services online. Melissa was contacted by a burner phone on July 3 & then again on the 6th, 9th & 10th which was the last day she was seen alive. On this day, cell records indicate the burner phone traveled from Massapequa Park to Midtown Manhattan. Melissa was known to meet clients at bars, restaurants & hotels on the West Side of Manhattan. On the night she was last seen, she told her friend that she was going to see a man & she would see her in the morning though offered no other details. Her cellphone records showed she traveled from the Bronx to Manhattan, likely via taxi. The last location of her cell phone was in Massapequa on July 11, 2009 at approximately 1:43 am. On this day her phone was used to make an outbound call to check her voicemail from a location in Freeport. On July 11 & 12, the phone made two more outbound calls checking her voicemail from a location in Babylon. Melissa’s mother hadn’t been able to contact her for several days so she reported her missing to the NYPD on July 18, 2009, six days after she was last seen.
On July 17, July 23, August 5, August 19 & August 26, 2009, the phone made taunting calls to Melissa’s sister; some resulted in conversation with the caller who was a male & admitted to killing & sexually assaulting Melissa. Melissa’s body was found on December 11, 2010, two days before Maureen was discovered, on the north side of Ocean Parkway just as Melissa was. She was the first victim found though was believed to be the the second of the “Gilgo Four” to be killed.
Megan Waterman was 22-years-old when she was last seen on June 6, 2010 & lived in Scarborough, Maine. She worked as a sex worker & also advertised online, using the names Lexxy & Sexy Lexi. She was last seen by her family boarding a New York bound Concord Trailways bus in Maine, possibly with her pimp. She was staying at the Holiday Inn Express in Hauppauge. She was known to stay at other hotels & motels along Long Island. She left her hotel at 1:30 am on June 6, 2010 to meet a client. She called her pimp who was staying in Brooklyn & told him she was going to the convenience store near the hotel. Her cell phone was contacted by a burner phone on June 5 which had just been activated that day. From there Megan’s phone communicated with the burner phone on June 6 at 1:31 am which is about the time she was seen on surveillance video leaving the Holiday Inn for the last time. After this communication, the burner phone had no further activity. Megan’s phone traveled to Massapequa Park & this was the last location at approximately 3:11 am.
Megan was reported missing to the Scarborough Maine PD on June 8, 2010; family members indicated it wasn’t like her not to check in on her 3-year-old daughter. The Scarborough PD contacted the Suffolk County PD to assist in the investigation & her body was found on December 13, 2010, two days after Melissa & the same day as Maureen & Amber. She was bound by clear or white duct tape. She is believed to be the third victim in the “Gilgo Four.” On April 11, 2012, Megan’s pimp was arrested on federal charges of Interstate Trafficking of Prostitutes & in January 2013, he was sentenced to three years in a federal prison. There is no information to suggest that he had any knowledge or participation in Megan’s murder.
Amber Lynn Costello was 27-years-old & lived in West Babylon when she was last seen by acquaintances. Amber was addicted to heroin & lived in a home with one other female & two other men who were also heroin addicts. She worked as a sex worker & advertised her services online, using the names Carolina or Mia. She had moved from Clearwater, Florida to New York & completed a 28-day stay at drug rehab but had relapsed not long before her disappearance. She & her roommates shared a cell phone & her other female roommate was also a sex worker; the two men they lived with arranged their client meetings. Amber did both “in-calls” at her house as well as “out-calls.” She was last seen alive leaving her home in West Babylon in the late evening hours of September 2, 2010.
The day before, September 1, her cell phone was contacted by a burner phone at 11:33 pm & 11:34 pm & this phone connected to cell towers in West Amityville & Massapequa Park, then traveled to West Babylon in the vicinity of Amber’s house & contacted Amber’s phone at approximately 12:05 am.
According to a witness, around this time, a client came to Amber’s house. As her roommates have done in the past, they staged a ruse where the client pays before services are rendered & then one of the men comes into the room & pretends to be Amber’s irate significant other, thus scaring the client away. This client was described as 6’4”-6’6”, in his mid-forties with dark, bushy hair & “big oval 1970s type glasses.” A witness described him looking like an “ogre” & a Chevy Avalanche was parked in the driveway which he was assumed to have arrived in. This witness said that this client said he was “just her friend” & “tell her I’ll give her a call” & then walked out the front door.
At 1:18 am on September 2, the burner phone texted Amber, “That was not nice so do I get a credit for next time.” Within two minutes of this message being sent, this phone was located in Massapequa Park. That evening, Amber was contacted by this same client who indicated he wanted to see her but not at her house because of her boyfriend. At 9:32 pm, this burner phone contacted Amber using a cell location in Midtown Manhattan & then traveled to Massapequa Park & communicated with Amber again at 10:39 pm & 11:05 pm. At 11:17 pm the phone traveled to the area of Amber’s house. This was when Amber left & was seen alive the last time. Shortly after she left, a witness saw a dark-colored truck pass the house, coming from the direction that Amber walked towards. She didn’t have her cell phone with her & she was never reported missing. Her body was found on December 13, 2010, the same day as Maureen & Megan & she was bound by three pieces of clear or white duct tape. She is believed to be the fourth victim of the “Gilgo Four.”
Shannan’s death is still believed to be accidental.
Years before these five women’s bodies were found, a decade earlier in September of 2000, the partial remains of 24-year-old, Philadelphia mother, Valerie Mack were found in a wooded area in Manorville. Because of the extent of decomposition when she was found, she was initially classified as “Jane Doe #6.” On Thursday, May 28, 2020, nearly two decades later, her remains were able to finally identify her remains through genetic genealogy. Suffolk County investigators found her biological relatives which ultimately led to her adoptive family & son. She also went by the alias Melissa Taylor. Her family was so thankful that after so much time, they were able to have closure in knowing what happened to her.
Additional human remains were also uncovered in Gilgo Beach & in Nassau County, about forty miles east of New York City; these included a female toddler, an Asian male & Valerie Mack. On July 26, 2003, the partial skeletal remains of Jessica Taylor, who was a sex worker in New York City, was located in a wooded area of Manorville, just like Valerie Mack. At least ten sets of human remains have been discovered since 2010.
Arrest
On the night of Thursday, July 13, 2023, 59-year-old Rex Andrew Huermann was arrested & charged with three counts of first-degree murder & three counts of second-degree murder for the deaths of three women – Melissa Barthelemy, Megan Waterman & Amber Costello. He is not yet charged with Maureen’s murder though is considered the “prime suspect” at this time & this is “expected to be resolved soon.”
Rex is an architect & according to his website at RH Architecture Design, he founded RH Consultants & Associates, Inc in 1994 & has extensive experience providing over thirty years of service in Manhattan. The “meet the team” link on the firm’s website has since been removed though his daughter was listed as an employee. He was taken into custody late Thursday night & a large police presence was at his house on Friday morning in the village of Massapequa Park. He was arraigned in court on Friday & pleaded not guilty & the judge ordered him held without bail. He was in tears after his arrest, denying any involvement. He has a wife of about 27 years, a daughter & a step son. Sources indicate he was devoted to his wife who had health problems as well as to his elderly mother.
The case had baffled authorities for more than a decade & the unsolved killings have been the subject of many CBS “48 Hours” reports & the 2020 Netflix film “Lost Girls.”
In February 2022, a task force was formed with law enforcement partners from the Suffolk County PD, New York State Police, Suffolk County Sheriff’s Office & the FBI to investigate the Gilgo Beach murders. On March 14, 2022, two months into the investigation, the review led to the discovery of a Chevy Avalanche that was registered to Rex at the time of the murders. This is significant since Amber Costello was said to have been seen in this type of car when she disappeared.
This discovery led to an investigation of Rex which consisted of over 300 subpoenas, search warrants & other legal processes to obtain evidence. Court documents indicate that much planning & forethought went into these crimes. Over a fourteen-month period, he had over 200 searches pertaining to the Gilgo Beach investigation & had been compulsively searching for images of the victims & their families, clearly trying to locate these individuals. Disturbing content was found in his browsing history that included women being abused, raped & tortured as well as child pornography.
Cell phone records for Rex correspond to cell site locations for the burner phones used to arrange meetings with three of the four victims. At the time of these murders, Rex lived in Massapequa Park where each woman was believed to have disappeared from. He worked in Midtown Manhattan in the vicinity where the taunting calls were made to Melissa’s sister. His American Express records showed numerous times he was in close proximity from the burner phone used to contact Melissa.
Rex is believed to be the person who used the burner phones to communicate with each of the four victims before they disappeared & used Maureen’s & Melissa’s phones after their deaths. When Amber disappeared, Rex was 46-years-old, 6’4”, 240# with dark bushy hair & wore large glasses just as the witness described her client. His wife was out of town during the times that Melissa, Megan & Amber disappeared; it’s undetermined at this time if his wife was out of town when Maureen disappeared & was murdered. His children were also out of town during these times.
Rex had a number of online accounts & burner cell phones which he held using fictitious names. One character with the username springfieldman9 on this AOL account revealed a selfie taken by Rex & sent to others to solicit & arrange sexual activity which further linked him to a specific burner phone. He was seen on May 19. 2023 at a cellphone store in Midtown Manhattan to purchase additional minutes to add to this burner phone.
Female hairs were recovered on three of the victims & on or about July 21, 2022, an undercover SCPD detective recovered 11 bottles from the garbage of Rex’s house & DNA profiling shows with near 100% certainty that these are a match for Rex’s wife. Again, his wife was out of town during the murders so it’s likely these hairs were transferred from his belongings. Hair recovered from the skeletal remains & burlap found on Megan were compared to the DNA from a recovered pizza box that Rex threw away on January 26, 2023 with residual pizza crust left in the box & suggests that he is a match.
His next door neighbor indicated they were stunned by the news of his arrest, saying they’ve been there for thirty years & he’s quiet & never bothers anyone though some found him menacing & creepy in appearance. A man who went to high school with him said that he was bullied as a teenager but he sometimes fought back. The house that police raided in the suburb 40 miles east of midtown Manhattan was said to “stick out like a sore thumb.” The converged small red house was in disrepair with overgrown shrubs & wood piled up in front of the house; it was a house that neighbors instructed their kids to avoid on Halloween. His backyard neighbor indicated that as he & his friend enjoyed beers on the back porch, they commented toward the dilapidated home, “He probably has bodies there.” He was raised in this house which is only a few miles across the bay from the beach where the bodies were found. A neighbor reported that Rex wore a suit & tie & commuted into Manhattan via train daily & found it strange that he looked like a businessman though lived in a “dump.”
According to a timeline released by prosecutors, Rex kept a busy work schedule even as the victims were vanishing. When Melissa’s family received the menacing calls from her phone, these were placed during lunchtime & after work hours from locations near his office.
He is known to be years late in paying hundreds of thousands of dollars in taxes & has reportedly filed lawsuits accusing drivers of injuring him in car accidents; he filed four lawsuits between 2014 & 2022, claiming “serious & permanent personal injury.” He has permits for 92 guns & a very large safe where he keeps them. He was hired to renovate a Harlem apartment building & in September 2007 it was declared unsafe by fire officials who ordered two dozen families to evacuate. He was known by the local Whole Foods as the “orange guy” after he got into an altercation with an employee when he put clementines left out for children into his pocket.
Actor Billy Baldwin Tweeted that he went to high school with Rex, graduating from Massapequa’s Berner High School in 1981.
New York Governor Kathy Hochul made a statement on Friday, July 14, “Yes the day has finally come, when someone so depraved of heart – who would kill individuals, innocent individuals in the prime of their young lives, is finally brought to justice.”
References:
- CNN: New York remains are identified as those of Shannan Gilbert
- ABC 7: Who are the victims known as the ‘Gilgo Four?’ Investigation timeline
- CBS News: Shannan Gilbert’s family speaks out: “Something happened to her that night. She ran for her life. She was in fear.”
- NBC 4 New York: Gilgo Beach murders timeline: A search for missing woman turned into serial killer case
- CBS New York: Dormer Speaks out about Shannon Gilbert, Gilgo Beach murders on 48 Hours Mystery
- CNN: In the NYGilgo Beach killings, remains identified 20 years later
- RH Architecture
- SCRIBD: Rex Huermann, Gilgo Beach murder suspect, bail documentation
- CBS News: What we know about Rex Heurmann, suspect in Gilgo Beach murders that shook Long Island more than a decade ago
- NBC 4 New York: ‘Somebody’s After Me:’ Shannon Gilbert’s long-secret 911 calls are out. Listen here
- CNN: Police release photo of belt handled by suspect in New York’s Gilgo Beach killings
- CNN: July 14, 2023 – New York architect arrested in Long Island serial killings
- The New York Times: Suspect in Gilgo Beach Killings Led a Life of Chaos & Control
- Odd Stops: The location where Shannan Gilbert was found
