Sandra Costilla, an immigrant native of Trinidad & Tobago who had been living in New York for several years, has been identified as the possible first victim of Rex A. Heuermann, a 60-year-old architect known as the “Gilgo Beach Killer” in Long Island (NY ).
Heuermann was arrested in July of last year and accused of three brutal murders of young sex workers, a figure that later rose to four: Megan Waterman (22), Melissa Barthelemy (24), Amber Costello (27) and Maureen Brainard Barnes (25). . His remains were found near Gilgo Beach along Ocean Parkway between 2009 and 2010.
Yesterday two new young women were added to the long accusation against Heuermann: Costilla (28) and Jessica Taylor (20). There has been a wide expansion of research. At least 11 sets of human remains have been found in Long Island’s Suffolk County and Heuermann has pleaded “not guilty” to all charges he faces.
Taylor disappeared in 2003 and her remains were found that year in a wooded area in Manorville, where Heuermann’s Massapequa Park home is located. She was decapitated and her arms were cut off. Investigators now believe the mutilations “were acts perpetrated by Rex A. Heuermann to inhibit identification of the victim through facial recognition, fingerprints, and/or tattoo identification,” according to a newly unsealed court document.
Costilla had been found dead twenty years earlier, in November 1993 near Fish Cove Road in the city of Southampton, making her so far the first of the 6 homicide victims for which Heuermann has been charged.
According to police, Costilla was found lying on her back with her arms extended above her head and her legs bare and spread. She had sharp force injuries to her face and body. Costilla was initially suspected of being the victim of another convicted serial killer, John Bittrolff, but he was never charged in that case, he recalled. New YorkPost.
Heuermann was 29 years old and had not yet obtained his architecture license when Costilla was found dead. Detectives believe that the young woman was killed on November 19 or 20, 1993, when hunters found her severely battered and mutilated body.
At the time Costilla lived on Gates Avenue in the Ridgewood section of Queens (NYC) and sometimes used the last name Cutello. She had been arrested in 1992 for jumping a Metro turnstile, so her fingerprints were recorded. But journalists who visited the block where she lived could not find any residents who knew her.
Prosecutors charged Long Island serial killer Rex Heuermann with two additional murders, revealing evidence that expands the murder investigation timeline to over three decades. @AaronKatersky reports. pic.twitter.com/vIksA4eC2p
— Good Morning America (@GMA) June 7, 2024
Prosecutors yesterday also revealed disturbing “planning” documents that they say the suspect used in his murders and disposal of victims, he said. ABCNews.
At the time of his arrest, Heuermann was a licensed architect since 1996 who worked in Manhattan and lived on Long Island as a husband and father of two children, with no police record. But he allegedly “meticulously planned and executed six separate murders” over the years, Suffolk County District Attorney Raymond Tierney said at a news conference yesterday.
Heuermann appeared before a judge on Long Island yesterday to face new charges for the murders of Taylor and Costilla. In a court filing prosecutors said they were able to use new forensic testing methods to match hairs found on or near Taylor and Costilla’s remains with a DNA profile that likely matched Heuermann. They also recovered a “planning document” on a hard drive in his basement used to “methodically plan” his crimes.
The document, written in capital letters, presents a series of checklists with tasks to complete before, during and after the homicides, as well as practical lessons for “next time.” Among the dozens of written entries are reminders to clean up bodies and destroy evidence, “sleep before hunting” and “prepare the story.”
Since July 2023 Heuermann has been in preventive detention without the right to bail. His next court date is July 30. All charges are mere accusations and those charged are presumed innocent until proven guilty in court.
Long before Heuermann was arrested, the cases of these dead young women had been a complicated and long mystery that made national headlines, appeared on true crime television shows and was the subject of a 2020 Netflix movie, “Lost Girls,” based on in a book by Robert Kolker (2013).
In 2022 Heuermann was interviewed for the YouTube portal Bonjour Realty, being the owner of the consulting and architecture firm “RH Consultants & Associates”. But after his arrest the video was deactivated.
The authorities were on his trail. In January 2023, a surveillance team observed and recovered a piece of pizza discarded by Heuermann in Midtown Manhattan. In June of that year, forensic laboratories were able to determine that the male hair found on Waterman’s body and the pizza crust swab had DNA profiles that were “the same.” This led to Heuermann’s arrest near his New York City office on July 14.
The authorities do not rule out that Heuermann is linked to other homicides. “There may be up to 50 more unsolved murder cases that could be linked to him based on this time period and his modus operandi,” he told NBCNews Joseph Giacalone, retired NYPD sergeant and professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in Manhattan. “Before this is all over, he could become one of Long Island’s most prolific serial killers.”
Anyone with information should call 1-800-577-TIPS (8477) and in Spanish 1-888-57-PISTA (74782). Also through the website crimestoppers.nypdonline.org or by text message to 274637 (CRIMES), followed by TIP577. All communications are strictly confidential.