Investigators are looking into unsolved murder cases nationwide as a possible connection to the Manhattan architect charged with the Gilgo Beach serial killings.
Rex Heuermann, the alleged Gilgo Beach serial killer, was charged Thursday in the deaths of Jessica Taylor and Sandra Costilla now bringing his total possible body count of sex workers to six.
But his potential victims might not be isolated just to Long Island.
"I wouldn't doubt it," Dr. Rachel Toles, psychologist and host of "The Psychology of Serial Killers," told Newsweek. "It just depends on how intense his appetite was."
Throughout the decades-long investigation, it was discovered that Heuermann has ties to Las Vegas, Atlantic City, Virginia and South Carolina where there are similar unsolved cold cases involving sex workers.
"We're looking at all of them, not necessarily in the context of a particular defendant, including this one," said District Attorney Raymond Tierney at a press conference Thursday. "We're not going to stop. We can't stop. We owe that to the victims. That's the least we can do."
South Carolina
The Chester County Sheriff's Office in South Carolina revealed it had helped New York officials gather evidence about Heuermann.
"The Chester County Sheriff's Office was requested by the Gilgo Beach Task Force to assist in gathering evidence in Chester County relevant to their investigation," the department posted to X, formerly known as Twitter.
Police had taken a first-generation Chevy Avalanche Heuermann once used pursuant to a search warrant. The car was sitting on property Heuermann owns in South Carolina.
Heuermann's brother lives in Chester in South Carolina.
Police in South Carolina are looking into the 2014 disappearance of 18-year-old Aaliyah Bell.
Bell disappeared days before Thanksgiving after leaving her uncle's home in Rock Hill, which is about 20 miles from Heuermann's lots. She never made it back to the house, where she was living with her godmother.
The police department told Newsweek there is no update at this time. Rock Hill Lt. Michael Chavis has said in the past, however, that the department is reviewing a connection between Bell and Heuermann.
Las Vegas
There are deed records for Heuermann at 5499 Tropicana Avenue West in Las Vegas. The condominium's contract is from April 2005.
In 2012, Heuermann and his wife sold a property for $51,000 to Wyndham Vacation Resorts. The property is part of Club Wyndham Grand Desert.
He was known to spend time in Nevada, including at a convention in 2017.
The police department told Newsweek there are no updates to cases potentially relating to Heuermann. It was noted in the past that the department knew Heuermann's connection to the Vegas area.
One case in particular is eerily similar to the Gilgo Beach killings.
A 19-year-old sex worker, Jodi Marie Brewer, went missing from the Harbor Island Club Apartments. The apartment is slightly over four miles from Heuermann's condominium.
Her torso was discovered wrapped in plastic and cloth two weeks later near the California-Nevada border.
Brewer's mother died in 2011, never know what happened to her daughter.
Atlantic City
Heuermann's arrest prompted investigators in Atlantic City to re-examine a cold case murder where sex workers were found lined up dead in a sewage ditch in 2006.
Two women walking in a marsh behind a rows of motels just west of Atlantic City found the scene on Nov. 21, 2006. They found the remains of Kim Raffo, 35. Police found three more women in the pit: Tracy Ann Roberts, 23; Barbara Breidor, 42; and Molly Dilts, 19.
The women were all posed in the same direction and were face down in the water and barefoot.
Similar to the Gilgo Beach victims, those killed by what was called the "Eastbound Strangler" were all believed to be sex workers.
Dilts was originally from Black Lick, Pennsylvania. She does not have a record for sex work but was believed to have been working in the profession. She is believed to have been the first of the four killed.
Breidor was a sex worker and reportedly struggled with a cocaine addiction. She disappeared in October of 2006 and was not reported missing for a few weeks. Her body was so decomposed that a cause of death could not be determined. She was identified through dental records.
Roberts was a former erotic dancer. The Delaware native was also a sex worker in Atlantic City and struggled with drug addiction. She was last seen in November of 2006 when she was hit in the throat and hospitalized.
Raffo was a former waitress from Brooklyn. The mother was involved with sex work in Atlantic City. She was last seen a live a day before the bodies were discovered. She is believed to have been strangled with a rope or cord.
The Atlantic City Police Department would not comment on the case when Newsweek reached out.
Virginia
Heuermann's mother, Dolores, had relocated to Palmyra, Virginia in 1994. His connection to this area is now shining the spotlight on cold cases that could link back to the alleged Gilgo Beach serial killer.
Alicia Showalter Reynolds, a 25-year-old PhD student at Johns Hopkins, was driving to Charlottesville, Virginia on March 2, 1996. She was going to meet her mother to buy dresses for her brother's upcoming wedding.
Reynolds never made it. Her car was found abandoned 50 miles from the mall Reynolds was meeting her mother at.
Several witnesses saw a tall white man in the area, and a couple of sketches were made. He was also said to be in a dark-colored pickup truck. Reynolds' brother Patrick Showalter said the sketch of the "Route 29 Stalker" looks just like Heuermann.
Two months after Reynolds' disappearance, police found her body.
While Richard Marc Evonitz was suspected of killing Reynolds, police never reached a definitive conclusion.
Reynolds was one of five young women who disappeared in that area between 2009 and 2014. Samantha Clarke, 19, was last seen in Orange, Virginia shortly after midnight on Sept. 13, 2010. The Town of Orange Police Department reclassified her disappearance as a murder 11 years later.
Anne Carolyn McDaniel, 20, was last seen leaving a group home in Orange on Sept. 18, 1996. Her remains were found four days later buried 10 miles away.
Julianne Williams, 24, and Laura Winans, 26, were also found dead at their campsite in Shenandoah National Park in May of 1996.
The Orange County Sheriff's Department would not comment on the issue.
Who is Rex Heuermann?
Heuermann graduated from the same local high school as actor Billy Baldwin who tweeted after the news broke about his 1981 classmate's arrest, describing it as "mind-boggling."
After getting a bachelor's degree from the New York Institute of Technology, Heuermann started his architecture firm RH Consultants in 1994. He did most of his architectural work in New York City, according to a company biography and the firm's website.
The 60-year-old was first arrested in July 2023 for the deaths of four women whose remains were found in burlap sacks along the Ocean Parkway in New York over a decade ago.
Detectives finally nabbed Heuermann in 2023 after he tossed a pizza box with leftover crust into a Manhattan trash can after the investigation that took more than a decade. The DNA from his crust matched genetic material found on the women's remains.
Heuermann faces charges in connection to the murders of Melissa Barthelemy, Megan Waterman, Amber Lynn Costello and Maureen Brainard-Barnes - also known as "The Gilgo Four." Taylor and Costilla were announced has Heuermann's fifth and sixth victims on Thursday.
The announcement comes weeks after authorities returned to Heuermann's Long Island home. At least half a dozen law enforcement agents were spotted in Heuermann's driveway on May 20.
Heuermann is currently being held at the Riverhead Correctional Facility in Suffolk County, about 50 miles from his home.
Suffolk County Sheriff Dr. Errol Toulon Jr. said Heuermann busies himself with reading books, reading his discovery, watching TV and sleeping, according to an Oxygen article.
He has been separated from other inmates "for his safety," according to the article. Toulon called him "very compliant."
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
");jQuery(this).remove()})jQuery('.start-slider').owlCarousel({loop:!1,margin:10,nav:!0,items:1}).on('changed.owl.carousel',function(event){var currentItem=event.item.index;var totalItems=event.item.count;if(currentItem===0){jQuery('.owl-prev').addClass('disabled')}else{jQuery('.owl-prev').removeClass('disabled')}if(currentItem===totalItems-1){jQuery('.owl-next').addClass('disabled')}else{jQuery('.owl-next').removeClass('disabled')}})}})})
