Rex Heuermann.Photo:Suffolk County Sheriff’s Office
Suffolk County Sheriff’s Office
•Rex Heuermann is now facing a second-degree murder charge in connection with the 2007 killing of Maureen Brainard-Barnes
The Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office announced on Jan. 16 that the 59-year-old former architect from Massapequa Park has been linked to the killing ofMaureen Brainard-Barnesthrough DNA evidence and has been charged with second-degree murder, according to authorities,ABC New Yorkreports.
Brainard-Barnes was one of four women found buried in the same marshy, desolate area in Gilgo Beach in Long Island, N.Y., in December 2010, all within about 500 feet of each other. The other victims were identified asAmber Costello,Melissa BarthelemyandMegan Waterman.
All four women had worked as online escorts and were missing between 2007 and 2010. Heuermann, who was previously charged with the murders of Costello, Barthelemy and Waterman in July, has pleaded not guilty to the killings.
Brainard-Barnes was last seen on July 9, 2007, in New York City after checking out from a Super 8 Motel. She was found bound with three leather belts, one of which was used to tie her ankles.
In Tuesday’s filing, prosecutors claimed that burner phones were discovered that connected Heuermann to online searches for sex workers as well as porn searches, audio accounts of rape and a search that read: “autopsy photos of female.” He allegedly used the alias “Andy” to communicate with sex workers online, authorities said.
Prosecutors further alleged that Heuermann was alone while his now-estranged wife was out of town with their children when Brainard-Barnes was killed in July 2007, ABC New York reports.
This allegedly fit a pattern of him being alone during the other alleged murders which granted him “unfettered time to execute his plans for each victim without any fear that his family would uncover or learn of his involvement in these crimes,” prosecutors said in the court documents released Tuesday.
Maureen Brainard-Barnes; Melissa Barthelemy; Megan Waterman; Amber Lynn Costello.Suffolk County Police Department; Barthelemy family; Suffolk County Police Department (2)
Suffolk County Police Department; Barthelemy family; Suffolk County Police Department (2)
He was also traced to a Chevrolet Avalanche registered to him that was allegedly seen at the time of Costello’s disappearance. In searches, authorities also found evidence that Heuermann was allegedly obsessed with the case and searched for articles about the task force that was formed to investigate the murders.
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“We saw all this, really sort of concerning searches that he was undergoing,” Suffolk County District Attorney Ray Tierney previously alleged. “In a 14-month period, over 200 times, he’s searching for information about the Gilgo investigation. He’s trying to figure out what we’re up to.”
Investigators also allegedly found hundreds of internet searches about raping and torturing women, child porn and rape porn as well as searches for his victims and their families.
“He was obsessively looking at the victims, but he’s also looking at the victim’s siblings,” claimed Tierney.
Tierney said Heuermann was “pretty surprised” when he was arrested on July 13 near his office building in Manhattan.
“I think he lived this double life, and he used the anonymity of phones and computers to shield himself from the rest of society," he alleged. “Unfortunately for him — and fortunately for the rest of us — he wasn’t successful.”
Bob Macedonio, the attorney for Heuermann’s wife’s Asa Ellerup, previously told PEOPLE that Ellerup was “blindsided” when the arrest happened.
source: people.com
