In May 2010, a 23-year-old woman working as an escort called 911 and told the operator there were people trying to kill her. Then she disappeared.
As the search for Shannan Gilbert continued, police looking near Gilgo Beach on Long Island found the bodies of four women - a discovery which sparked an ongoing serial killer case that is now the subject of Netflix's latest true crime documentary: Gone Girls: The Long Island Serial Killer.
The documentary details how investigators continued to find the remains of young women along the stretch of Ocean Parkway in Suffolk County for more than a year, with examinations later determining that some of the bodies had been there for more than a decade.
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Gone Girls: The Long Island Serial Killer dives into the investigation and what happened when Rex Heuermann was arrested as a suspect in the case. As viewers get stuck into the documentary, here's a timeline of the events.
December 2010 - the first bodies
The first of the human remains were discovered seven months after Shannan's disappearance - but none of the remains belonged to her. Instead, they were identified as Maureen Brainard-Barnes, Amber Costello, Megan Waterman and Melissa Barthelemy.
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All of the women, who became known at the time as the Gilgo Four, were described as 'petite' as they were 'five feet or under' and weighed around '100 pounds'. The victims were all in their 20s, and were found to have been working as online escorts prior to their deaths.
Maureen, a single mother-of-two, went missing in July 2007 after her cellphone had 16 interactions with a burner phone.
Melissa, 24, went missing in July 2009, nearly two years to the day after Maureen disappeared. Following her death, Melissa's 15-year-old sister received a series of phone calls from a man calling from Melissa's cellphone. In one, the caller said he had killed Melissa.
Megan, 22, went missing in June 2010 after being contacted by a burner phone. Her disappearance came one month after Shannan's.
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Amber, 27, went missing in September 2010, also after being contacted by a burner phone.
May 2011 - police discover more victims
After the discoveries of the Gilgo Four, police went on to discover six more sets of remains in the same area. There were some differences between these additional remains and the original findings, leading police to wonder whether the same person was responsible for all of the deaths.
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Valerie Mack worked as an escort and went missing in 2000.
Jessica Taylor was an escort who went missing in 2003.
The seventh victim broke the profile, as investigators were surprised to find the remains of a female toddler. DNA has linked the toddler to the remains of another victim found six miles away - a woman police nicknamed 'Peaches' due to a tattoo on her torso.
The ninth set of remains belonged to an Asian male who was dressed in women's clothing.
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Finally, there were the remains of Karen Vergata - an escort who disappeared in 1996. Police found her skull at Gilgo Beach.
December 2011 - Shannan Gilbert is found
A year and a half after Shannan went missing, her remains were found. However, police do not believe she was a victim of the Long Island serial killer.
In an interview with Erin Moriarty, Police Commissioner Rodney Harrison said: "It's an unfortunate incident, but right now we believe that she just ran into the marsh and unfortunately drowned."
February 2022 - a break in the Long Island killer case
For more than a decade, the Gilgo Beach murders went unsolved as investigators found themselves at a dead end.
However, the case got a new lease of life when a new task force was formed by Suffolk County Police Commissioner Rodney Harrison and Suffolk County District Attorney Ray Tierney.
Just six weeks after the task force was assembled, police identified Rex Heuermann as a suspect.
Identifying the suspect
Police were led to Heuermann through a series of clues that had come to light when the case first began, one of which was the description of a first-generation Chevrolet Avalanche car which Amber Costello's roommate claimed one of her clients had been driving.
Another clue was the use of a burner phone, which was a common factor in a number of the deaths. Police had previously tracked the calls to a small area of Massapequa Park, Long Island, and the new task force was able to use this detail to identify Heuermann, an architect who lived by Massapequa Park.
The burner phones were also found to have been used in midtown Manhattan, where Heuermann's architectural firm was located.
In 2023, Heuermann was reported by investigators as having gone into a phone store to make a payment on a burner phone.
A big step forward in the case came after police began to tail Heuermann and managed to pick up his DNA from a pizza crust he threw out. The DNA on the crust was consistent with a DNA profile found on a male hair on Megan Waterman's body - providing enough evidence for an arrest.
Heuermann is charged and enters his plea
After his arrest Heuermann was charged with multiple counts of murder in the deaths of Melissa Barthelemy, Megan Waterman and Amber Costello.
Six months after he was taken into custody, Heuermann was indicted in the death of Maureen Brainard-Barnes after investigators found a female hair in a belt used to bind her legs. The hair had an eight-trillion-to-one match with Heuermann's wife, Asa Ellerup, or daughter, Victoria.
In June 2024 Heuermann was charged with the deaths of Jessica Taylor and Sandra Costilla - a victim who had not previously been linked to the Gilgo Beach case. Heuermann was connected to the deaths of the two victims through DNA from hair found near their remains.
In December 2024, Heuermann was charged with killing Valerie Mack, a 24-year-old from New Jersey who was identified through remains found on Gilgo Beach.
Once police were able to access Heuermann's property, they also found a first-generation Chevrolet Avalanche which was registered to Heuermann at the time of the murders.
Heuermann has pleaded not guilty to the charges against him, and is now being held without bail in a Suffolk County jail as he awaits trial.
A trial date has not yet been set.
Topics: True crime, Netflix, Crime, US News
Emily Brown