Live Updates: Rex Heuermann Pleads Guilty to Gilgo Beach Serial Killings
nytimes.com • • nation
Key Points:
- Rex Heuermann pleaded guilty to multiple murders, admitting to strangling women he had hired as escorts and leaving their bodies along Ocean Parkway near Gilgo Beach, Long Island.
- The victims, whose names were read in court, included eight women ranging in age from 20 to 34, many of whom had worked as escorts and disappeared between the 1990s and 2010.
- The investigation began in 2010 after bodies were found near Gilgo Beach, but was hampered by police dysfunction and delays, with Heuermann only arrested in July 2023.
- Heuermann's lawyer stated that his client chose to plead guilty to avoid a lurid trial and spare the victims' families and his own family additional trauma.
- Some victims, such as Sandra Costilla and Karen Vergata, were only recently linked to Heuermann, with remains found in different locations over decades and identifications made through forensic advances.
