Who Were the Gilgo Beach Victims? What to Know About the 7 Women Rex Heuermann Is Charged with Killing

Rex Heuermann has been charged with the murders of seven women — but he may be responsible for more. 

The suspected Long Island serial killer was first arrested in July 2023 after DNA from a discarded pizza crust linked him to the murders of Megan Waterman, Melissa Barthelemy and Amber Costello. Evidence later tied him to the homicides of four more women: Maureen Brainard-Barnes, Sandra Costilla, Jessica Taylor and Valerie Mack. 

All seven of the women were working as escorts when they disappeared between 1993 and 2010. The remains of Waterman, Barthelemy, Costello and Brainard-Barnes were discovered in Gilgo Beach, an oceanside neighborhood on Long Island, N.Y., in 2010, while police were investigating the disappearance of another escort named Shannan Gilbert. 

Her remains were also found in Gilgo Beach a year later, and though police believed she died accidentally of exposure or drowning, forensic pathologist Michael Baden concluded that her death was consistent with homicidal strangulation.

In addition to the seven women Heuermann has been charged with killing (he’s pleaded not guilty), police discovered the remains of four other people in the same area. Three of them have not yet been identified. 

Heuermann’s alleged killing spree and the resulting case are covered in Netflix’s Gone Girls docuseries, which premiered on March 31.

Here’s everything to know about the Gilgo Beach victims. 

Sandra Costilla

Costilla is the Gilgo Beach killer’s earliest alleged victim and was living in New York at the time of her disappearance in 1993, according to court documents obtained by NPR.

The 28-year-old’s remains were found in a wooded area in November 1993, by two hunters. Prosecutors believe she was killed on the day of or the day before her body was found, CBS reported.

Though convicted killer John Bittrolff was previously thought to be a suspect, DNA later linked Heuermann to her death. He was charged with her murder in June 2024.

Melissa Barthelemy

In July 2009, Barthelemy was spotted leaving her apartment in the Bronx and was never seen again. Her body was found along the Ocean Parkway in Gilgo Beach in December 2010 when a Suffolk County Police Department officer was on a training exercise with his K9 partner Blue.

Barthelemy’s sister said in Netflix’s Gone Girls documentary that she had graduated from cosmetology school and “wanted to get a job at a nice salon.”

After her disappearance, Barthelemy’s family claimed that they received disturbing calls from an unknown man who said he was her killer. Police allegedly traced these calls to midtown Manhattan where Heuermann had an office.

He was charged with her murder in July 2023. 

Maureen Brainard-Barnes

On July 9, 2007, Brainard-Barnes went missing after a night of working as an escort in New York City. Days after the 25-year-old disappeared, much like Barthelemy’s family reported, her sister and a friend also claimed to have received calls from an unknown man.

When police found Brainard-Barnes’ body in Gilgo Beach, days after Barthelemey’s remains were found, she was bound with a belt.

DNA evidence later linked Heuermann to her killing and he was charged with second-degree murder in connection to her death in 2023.

Megan Waterman

In June 2010, Waterman disappeared from a hotel on Long Island. At the time, the 22-year-old was working as an escort. 

Her body was found around the same time as Brainard-Barnes, Barthelemy and Amber Costello, and all four women had been wrapped in burlap. Heuermann was charged with her murder in July 2023. 

“Megan was loved by a lot of people,” her aunt Elizabeth Meserve said in Gone Girls. “And this affected a lot of lives.”

Amber Costello

On Sept. 2, 2010, Costello went missing from West Babylon, N.Y., after she left her home to meet a client. Police discovered her remains three months later in Gilgo Beach. 

Prior to her disappearance, the 27-year-old escort’s roommates had removed a client from their home after he had allegedly threatened her. These roommates also assisted police by describing the Chevrolet Avalanche Costello left in on the night of her disappearance, which was the same kind of car Heuermann drove.

He was charged with her murder in July 2023. In Gone Girls, a friend of Costello remembered her “quirky” and “goofy” personality, adding, “[She would] give you the shirt off her back.”

Jessica Taylor

Taylor, who was working as an escort in midtown Manhattan, was last seen on July 19, 2003, per court documents. Two days later, she called her mother and made plans to visit her for her birthday the following week. When her daughter didn’t show up, she notified police. 

The 20-year-old’s partial remains were found on July 26, 2003, by a person walking their dogs. More of her remains were later recovered in 2011 along Ocean Parkway in Gilgo Beach, per NPR.

Prosecutors believe that Taylor was killed between July 21 and July 26 in 2003. Male hairs found on her and Costilla’s remains were found to be a likely DNA match to Heuermann, and he was charged with her murder in June 2024.

Valerie Mack

Mack, who also went by the alias Melissa Taylor, worked as an escort in Philadelphia and Atlantic City. Police theorized that she was killed between Sept. 1 and Nov. 19, 2000, when the 24-year-old’s partial remains were found in the same place as Taylor’s.

She was bound with rope and left inside a black plastic bag that had been wrapped in duct tape. Her hands and part of her right leg were missing and were later found along Ocean Parkway in 2011. 

Police discovered hair that matched Heuermann’s wife and then-preschool-aged daughter in the sealed garbage bag that held some of Mack’s remains. He was charged with second-degree murder in her death in December 2024. 

Four additional victims 

The remains of four other victims were found at or near Gilgo Beach in 2011 but only one of those bodies has been identified. 

Karen Vergata was working as an escort when she disappeared from Manhattan on Feb. 14, 1996. Two months later, some of the 34-year-old’s remains were discovered on Long Island’s Fire Island, though her identity was unknown at the time. More of her body was found on Tobay Beach in 2011, less than five miles from Gilgo Beach.  

Police were finally able to identify the remains through genetic genealogy in 2023 and are still working to find the names of the other three victims.

During a 2024 press conference, detectives said that one of the victims was Asian, wearing women’s clothing, may have been working as an escort and was between the ages of 17 and 23. The other two victims were an African American woman and her toddler.

Heuermann has not been charged in the deaths of Vergata or the other three unidentified victims.