Right now, 60-year-old Rex Heuermann is sitting in a 60 square foot prison cell in Long Island, not far from where the bodies of his six alleged victims were found.
There are five more bodies police are yet to lay charges over, but as investigative journalist Alexis Linkletter, who has been covering this case closely told Mamamia's True Crime Conversations, "we expect he will be charged with every victim".
Heuermann was supposed to be going to trial in September 2024, but that keeps being pushed back.
There are too many ongoing investigations.
LISTEN: On True Crime Conversations we delve into the case. Post continues after podcast.
For 12 years, police knew they were hunting the 'Long Island Serial Killer', but it turns out the clues were under their nose the whole time.
Heuermann was arrested in July 2023, a year after a new taskforce was called in to tackle the case. As it turns out, some corruption in the local force likely contributed to leads not being followed a decade ago.
In 2011, the bodies of five women were found near Gilgo Beach on Long Island.
All were escorts in their 20s, and at least four of them were murdered. The fifth, police say, died by misadventure, but Shannan Gilbert's family isn't convinced. Gilbert was the reason police were searching the area in the first place, after a frantic 911 call in which she repeatedly told an operator "there's somebody after me".
There was no doubt, however, about the deaths of Melissa Barthelemy, Amber Costello, Megan Waterman and Maureen Brainard-Barnes, who went missing between 2007 and 2010. They were all found strangled, and it was Costello's roommate who gave a clue that could've led police to Heuermann long before he was finally caught.
Costello's roommate recalled seeing an "ogre" of a man driving a first-generation Chevrolet Avalanche — which could have pointed to Heuermann. The roommate also said that the man had been calling Costello relentlessly and offering her six times her hourly rate on the night she went missing.
It was the combination of this witness testimony — as well as DNA extracted from both a discarded pizza crust Heuermann ate and a male hair found on a victim, and finally, Heuermann's activity on a series of burner phones used to arrange meetings with the women — that implicated Heuermann.
A year later, he was charged with two more murders; the 1993 killing of Sandra Costilla and the 2003 killing of escort Jessica Taylor, the latter of whom's body was found among six sets of remains discovered just a few months after the Gilgo Beach bodies.
Costilla, however, was discovered back in 1993 a short distance away.
Heuermann is also the lead suspect in at least one of the remaining four murders, another young escort by the name of Valerie Mack.
"He's not been charged for the murder of Valerie Mack to this point, but he has been named as a lead suspect officially by law enforcement," Linkletter told True Crime Conversations.
"So the idea that now the timeline of when we know he was allegedly killing has expanded by eight years is really alarming, because it means there could be that many more victims."
What the murders of Costilla and Taylor show is that Heuermann's alleged methods evolved over the years. While the 'Gilgo Four' were found strangled, Taylor was beheaded and her hands were chopped off. Costilla's body, while intact, was posed by her killer in a lewd manner.
This brings us to the remaining victims buried on Long Island: a toddler girl, an Asian male dressed in women's clothing, a female skull belonging to Karen Vergara — an escort who went missing in 1996 — and an unidentified woman confirmed as the toddler's mother.
Watch: Investigators have released a rendering of what they think the only male victim looked like.
"His MO evolved, and we know he's been charged with Sandra Costilla, [who] was left somewhere else and murdered in a completely different way. So this guy really is like a chameleon as far as what he does to victims, what he's capable of doing, the locations where he's leaving them and victimology," said Linkletter.
"It's really shocking," she added. "Because we just don't know when it's going to end. We don't know how many he's responsible for, because there's countless unsolved murders all across Long Island, and now we know that he doesn't just leave victims in Ocean Parkway… So he could be responsible for an untold number of victims."
Inside the the life of the alleged Long Island Serial Killer.
Heuermann is a Manhattan architect who has been married twice. From his marriages, he has a 26-year-old daughter, Victoria, and a 33-year-old stepson, Christopher, who has special needs.
A Long Island local his whole life, his family home is just a 10-minute drive from Gilgo Beach.
According to The Independent, neighbours describe him as a "quiet family man" who kept to himself. But they also chose to keep their distance. Kids were told to avoid the house on Halloween, and one local noted he was "not a very nice person".
Heuermann married his second wife, Asa Ellerup, in 1996. She has said that if he did commit the murders, he was "living a double life" she knew nothing about.
Linkletter explained that "while it's not been explicitly stated, evidence shows and there are implications that suggest he used the basement of his house to commit these crimes".
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"He was still going to work, still going to meetings, keeping up a very normal façade of day to day life. Even though he [allegedly] had victims in his basement — probably still alive, because we're learning that this was a prolonged experience for him — this wasn't something that he did quickly. This was something he did over days," she added.
During court proceedings so far, the prosecution has revealed some of their evidence, including the use of more than 100 burner phones, digital shredding software and questionable Google searches — many of which involved checking up on the case itself via the various TV shows and podcasts being made about the 'Long Island Serial Killer.'
But perhaps the most chilling evidence revealed so far, is the "planning document" he is accused of using to select, kill and dispose of his victims.
Investigators found the Word document — that had been created in 2000 and modified over many years — on a hard drive in his basement.
According to a bail application, the document includes descriptions of 'packaging' of bodies for transport, steps to remove DNA evidence, and a sub-heading titled 'Body Prep', which details steps to clean, dismember and move bodies, as well as steps to avoid apprehension.
Marking one year since his arrest just a few months ago, the attorney for Heuermann's estranged wife and children said, "they are collateral damage to the alleged actions of Rex Heuermann.
"It's a matter of piecing their lives back together and how they are going to move on."
Speaking to The New York Post, Ellerup said she has been filled with "anxiety" and that their two children "cry themselves to sleep".
Ellerup was married to Heuermann for 27 years, and filed for divorce a few days after his arrest.
Feature image: AAP/Suffolk County Sheriffs Office