Gilgo Beach murders: Rex Heuermann charged with 3 counts of first-degree murder

One key to the arrest of the suspect in the Gilgo Beach murders, a top prosecutor said, was discarded pizza crust — a food that led authorities to identify a California serial killer more than a decade ago. 

In January, after officials started focusing on Heuermann, detectives saw him throw a pizza box into a trash can on Fifth Avenue in Midtown Manhattan, according to a bail application filed in the case. The crust inside was analyzed by two forensic crime laboratories, it states. 

The second lab determined that DNA on a swab of crust matched the mitochondrial DNA profile of male hair found on burlap used to restrain and transport victim Megan Waterman. 

Suffolk County District Attorney Raymond A. Tierney said today that familial DNA was used to connect Heuermann to the other DNA evidence.

Pizza was connected to a high profile serial killer prosecution in 2010, when Los Angeles authorities revealed a discarded crust was used to extract DNA.

The crust was matched to the son of Lonnie Franklin Jr. through a state offender database, and it helped lead to his father’s conviction. Franklin was convicted of 10 murders as the “Grim Sleeper” because of a 14-year gap in his attacks.

Franklin died on death row in 2020 amid a moratorium on capital punishment in California.

Heuermann has permits for 92 firearms, Suffolk County District Attorney Raymond A. Tierney said.

The weapons were yet to be accounted for, he said, but they might be found under a number of search warrants to be filed or executed in the case.

Tierney suggested at Friday's news conference that the guns are in a safe at Heuermann's Long Island home.

"He has a very large safe in which guns are kept," he said. "We’re continuing to execute search warrants, so I’m sure we’ll have that answer shortly."

It wasn't clear if he believes any of the firearms may have been involved in the attacks. Tierney said the victims' remains were in poor enough condition that they may not provide detailed evidence of the victims' last moments.

"Forensically there was not a lot that could be done with the remains," he said.

Heuermann was continuing to seek out sex workers, raising fears from police and prosecutors that he could kill again, officials said.

“This individual was a person that continued to patronize sex workers at all hours of the night,” Suffolk County DA Raymond Tierney told reporters. “He continued to use fictitious email addresses, fictitious identities, burner phones.” 

The moment of pulling the trigger on an arrest was a consensus decision, according to the prosecutor.

“So as we worked through the case and we got closer and closer and we built the evidence, suddenly the balance tips in favor of public safety," Tierney said. "So I think we all wanted, as a task force, to continue it. But I think we collectively thought it was time to strike that balance and take him off the streets."

Suffolk County Police Commissioner Rodney Harrison labeled accused serial killer Rex Heuermann a “demon” and thanked investigators for their work that ended in the suspect’s arrest

“Ladies and gentlemen, Rex Heuermann is a demon that walks amongst us, a predator that ruined families.” Harrison told reporters. “If not for the members of this task force, he would still on the streets today."

The mother of one of the Gilgo Beach victims says she hopes the suspected serial killer will “suffer” in prison.

“I’d like him to suffer at the hands of other inmates,” Lynn Barthelemy said Friday in an interview with NBC News. “Let him receive what the girls received.”

“Death is too good for him,” Barthelemy added. “It’s too easy.”

Among the breaks in the case were calls made on Melissa Barthelemy’s burner phone to her family members in the days after her 2009 disappearance, according to a bail application made public Friday.

The “taunting phone calls,” in which the male caller admitted to killing and sexually assaulting Barthelemy, were traced to a location in midtown Manhattan near Heuermann’s then-office, the bail application says.

NBC News previously reported that officials believed the alleged killer used Melissa Barthelemy’s cellphone to repeatedly call her teen sister after the killing. 

“We knew all along that the phone calls were going to be key,” Lynn Barthelemy said.

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To some neighbors, Rex Heuermann seemed like an "everyday businessman."

Neighbor Barry Auslander, 72, said he'd see Heuermann taking the Long Island Rail Road into work in the early mornings, always in a suit and with a briefcase.

“He doesn’t look like he’s looking for any kind of trouble,” Auslander said.

However, it was "perplexing" to Auslander that Heuermann, who owns a Manhattan architecture firm, would live in a rundown red house some call "creepy."

“How does a man who owns an architect firm live in a ramshackle house with his family?” he said.

After so many years without answers, Auslander said many believed the Gilgo Beach murders would become a cold case.

"Then all of a sudden, technology catches up to you," he said.

Crystal Booker, 30, has regularly been delivering mail to Heuermann’s home for the last several months but said there were times she didn't want to deliver there "because it looked creepy."

She described the suspect’s surrounding neighborhood as “quiet” with “friendly people,” but said she never interacted with Heuermann personally.

“I probably saw him once or twice, but I never actually handed him the mail — thank God,” Booker said.

“I’m a little shaken up because I’ve done this route a few times and to hear it, it’s kind of like, wow,” she added. “I’m just blessed to be here and I’m happy I’m not one of the victims.”

Heuermann broke down in tears in front of his lawyers and insisted on his innocence, the defense team said.

He appeared in a Long Island courtroom, dressed in causal business attire, and was formally told of the multiple murder charges filed against him.

Before he was ordered held without bail, Heuermann pleaded not guilty to three counts of murder in the first degree and three counts of murder in the second degree.

Defense lawyer Michael Brown said he just met his client, who was in tears.

"We just got appointed on this case. There’s not much I can tell you folks at this point in time," Brown told reporters outside the court. "I will say to you folks that it’s extremely circumstantial in nature. In terms of speaking to my client, the only thing I can tell you that he did say, as he was in tears, was 'I didn’t do this.'"

Joseph Brewer, one of the last people to see Shannan Gilbert, whose disappearance led to the discovery to the Gilgo Beach murder victims, praised the arrest of Heuerman.

Gilbert worked as an escort and had visited Brewer, a client, at his Oak Beach home the day she disappeared in May 2010, police said. Calls to 911 reveal she left in a panic and knocked on neighbors' doors before vanishing. 

Her remains were ultimately found in December 2011 in the Oak Beach marshland. 

The search for her remains led to the discovery of the “Gilgo Four.” Heuermann has been charged in connection with three of those slayings, but not in Gilbert’s disappearance. 

“Mr. Brewer & his Family want to convey their deepest sympathies for not only the family of Ms. Shannon Gilbert, but to anyone that has been affected by these mass tragedies. With a suspect now in custody, it is their hope that some Justice will be served to the families of those who were so tragically lost,” a statement by Brewer and his family shared by his attorneys at Ramcharitar Law Firm.

The statement said Brewer has been cooperating with law enforcement since the beginning of the search for Gilbert.

"The onset of the immediate adjudication of Mr. Brewer being involved in these atrocious acts has not only placed an immovable blemish on a good man’s life, but placed him and his family in in a position of stereotypical treatment as one can imagine," the statement said.

"We are fully behind any and all efforts to bring Justice to these families, and will continue to cooperate with law enforcement to any extent possible during these hard times," it concluded.