Rex Heuermann, the suspect in a string of Long Island slayings stretching back to at least 1993, was charged Tuesday in the death of a seventh woman.
Authorities say the former New York architect has been linked to the death of Valerie Mack, a 24-year-old Philadelphia mother who disappeared in October 2000.
A hunter’s dog found Mack’s decapitated body wrapped in a black plastic bag the next month. The rest of her remains weren’t discovered until April 2011, more than a decade later, roughly 50 miles away in Gilgo Beach.
In a superseding indictment Tuesday, prosecutors said they found a hair on Mack’s left wrist and were able to link it to Heuermann via DNA analysis. Mack’s own identity was unknown until genetic testing in 2020.
Heuermann, 61, pleaded not guilty to the newest charge. He’s also been charged with killing six other women in the region over the course of nearly four decades, many of whom were sex workers at the time of their disappearance.
Heuermann was arrested in July 2023. But the initial charges ― three counts of first-degree murder and three counts of second-degree murder ― have ticked steadily upward as authorities discover more remains. He now faces 10 counts of murder in the first and second degree.
The other women he’s charged with killing are Melissa Barthelemy, 24; Maureen Brainard-Barnes, 25; Amber Lynn Costello, 27; Sandra Costilla, 28; Jessica Taylor, 20; and Megan Waterman, 22.
In the indictment Tuesday, prosecutors noted that each of the five previously discovered victim remains on Gilgo Beach were recovered from the same side of a stretch of road, and buried at similar depths and distances from the road.
The women were also buried in a similar fashion: bound with belts or tape and often wrapped in burlap material.
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In June, investigators who searched Heuermann’s Long Island home revealed they’d discovered a Microsoft Word “planning document” on a hard drive belonging to Heuermann.
The document described in detail the supplies Heuermann might need, authorities say, including “Booties,” “Rope/Cord,” “Saw/Cutting Tools” and “Bags/Tape.” Other sections on the document include one labeled “Problems,” and what appears to be a list of possible “dump sites” and “targets.”