After almost 15 years of investigation into the discovery of the bodies of sex workers on the beaches of Long Island, east of New York, the number one suspect was accused on Tuesday of a seventh murder, while his trial must begin in 2025, announced American justice.
• Also read: United States: Alleged Gilgo Beach killer described as violent
Rex Heuermann, a New York father and architect who had never been worried until his arrest in the summer of 2023, was charged with the murders of six women between 1993 and 2010 to which he pleaded not guilty.
At a hearing Tuesday in a court in Riverhead, east of New York, he again pleaded not guilty to the 2000 murder of a seventh victim, Valerie Mack, whose remains were discovered in two different locations, first in a wood the same year, then in 2011 along the beaches of Gilgo Beach. Like several other victims, the young woman who died at the age of 24 had a damaged youth and earned her living as a sex worker.
Getty Images via AFP
“The families are grateful for this little moment of respite that our task-force “The lives of these women matter.”
In total, the remains of eleven human bodies, nine women, a man and a girl, were found between 2010 and 2011 along the beaches of Gilgo Beach, Oak Beach, in bramble scrub located between the sand and the road. , among the dunes.
Gilge Beach | Getty Images via AFP
These discoveries had frightened the local population and kept the police and the justice system in check for years.
The investigation focused on the architect in 2022 after the discovery that a vehicle in which a victim had been seen at the time of his disappearance was registered in his name.
From there, investigators discovered DNA and telephone evidence against the suspect, married with two children, notably in his home in Massapequa Park, very close to the beaches where the bodies were found.
For the murder of Valerie Mack, he was charged because DNA analyzes of the victim matched those of the alleged killer’s daughter, who was not charged because she was a girl at the time.
Investigators, seeking to link Rex Heuermann to the discoveries of all the bodies before his trial scheduled for 2025, also extracted files from his computers that they say methodically cataloged his murders.
