Gilgo Beach serial killer Rex Heuermann faces life sentence in court

Grief and anger filled Suffolk County Court as relatives of the Gilgo Beach victims confronted Rex Heuermann and denounced him as a “disgusting coward,” a “coward,” an “ogre” and a “repulsive monster.” The sentencing marked the end of a long-running Long Island case that began with the 2010 disappearance of Shannan Gilbert and the discovery of human remains near Ocean Parkway by Gilgo Beach.

Heuermann, 62, had pleaded guilty in April 2026 to murdering seven women: Jessica Taylor, Melissa Barthelemy, Megan Waterman, Maureen Brainard-Barnes, Amber Lynn Costello, Valerie Mack and Sandra Costilla. He also admitted in court to killing Karen Vergata, though he was never formally charged in her death. The remains tied to the case were found over many years and in several places, including Costilla’s in 1993 in the Hamptons, Vergata’s in 1996 on Fire Island, and most of the others between 2000 and 2010 near Gilgo Beach, about 50 miles from Manhattan.

Family members used the courtroom to put the focus back on the women Heuermann targeted. Jasmine Robinson, Jessica Taylor’s cousin, said Taylor would have turned 43 on Wednesday. Amanda Funderburg, Melissa Barthelemy’s sister, said Heuermann called her from her sister’s phone days after the murder to taunt her. JoAnn Mack, Valerie Mack’s mother, said justice could not replace what had been taken from the family.

Heuermann’s ex-wife, Asa Ellerup, and their two grown children did not attend the sentencing, saying through lawyers that they would stay away out of respect for the victims’ families. Prosecutors and police have described the case as one of Long Island’s most consequential homicide investigations, and Suffolk County District Attorney Ray Tierney previously said Heuermann was “play-acting as a normal suburban dad” while secretly targeting women for death.

The case, which police did not solve until Heuermann’s arrest in 2023, became a national true-crime obsession, spawning documentaries, books and podcasts as investigators worked for years to piece together the evidence. Even as the media attention grew, the court’s attention stayed fixed on the women whose lives were cut short and the families still living with the losses.