The Unfinished Pizza Crust: How Abandoned Slices Helped Catch a 30-Year-Old Serial Killer

(SeaPRwire) –   A Long Island man responsible for a series of murders known as the Gilgo Beach killings has pleaded guilty to murder charges this week, bringing a conclusion to the long-unsolved case more than 30 years after the first murder occurred.

Rex Heuermann, an architect who led a double life as a serial killer, pleaded guilty on Wednesday to three counts of first-degree murder and four counts of intentional murder in connection with the deaths of seven women between 1993 and 2010.

Heuermann, 62, appeared stoic and did not look at the crowded gallery of victims’ relatives as he entered his pleas. He also confessed to the murder of an eighth woman.

He is scheduled to be sentenced in June and will receive life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Here are some key details from the case:

Heuermann confesses to an 8th murder

The discovery of multiple sets of human remains along Long Island’s South Shore, starting in late 2010, initiated a search for a potential serial killer that garnered international attention. The families of the victims began to lose hope that their killer would ever be apprehended as the investigation continued for over a decade.

Heuermann was apprehended in 2023 following a DNA match.

On Wednesday, he admitted to strangling eight female victims and dismembering some of them before discarding their bodies along secluded areas of New York’s coastline. Many of his victims were sex workers.

Heuermann acknowledged killing Karen Vergata in 1996, though he has not been charged in her death.

The remains of six victims — Melissa Barthelemy, Maureen Brainard-Barnes, Amber Lynn Costello, Valerie Mack, Jessica Taylor, and Megan Waterman — were found near Gilgo Beach along Ocean Parkway. The remains of another victim, Sandra Costilla, were discovered over 60 miles (100 kilometers) away in the Hamptons. Vergata’s remains were found on Fire Island, more than 20 miles (32 kilometers) to the west, in 1996, and then again near Gilgo Beach in 2011.

DNA from discarded pizza crust leads to suspect

Detectives identified Heuermann as a suspect in 2022 by using a vehicle registration database to link him to a pickup truck that a witness had reported seeing when one of the victims disappeared in 2010.

Investigators stated that police obtained cellphone data indicating Heuermann had been in contact with some victims shortly before they vanished. His internet search history also revealed a significant interest in the Gilgo Beach killings.

A surveillance team followed him in Manhattan, where he worked, and observed him discarding a box containing partially eaten pizza crusts into a sidewalk trash can. They quickly retrieved the box and sent it to the crime lab, where the DNA from a hair found on burlap used to restrain one of the victims was matched.

Suffolk County District Attorney Ray Tierney explained on Wednesday how investigators worked to maintain secrecy around the probe to prevent Heuermann from realizing they were closing in on him. Tierney said, “We wanted the one person who mattered, the murderer, to think it’s business as usual.”

As part of his guilty plea, Heuermann agreed to fully cooperate with the FBI’s behavioral analysis unit to assist in apprehending other serial killers.

Victims’ families express relief

Several family members of the victims were present in court on Wednesday, and some shed tears as Heuermann recounted the details of the murders.

Among them was Taylor’s mother, Elizabeth Baczkiel. Her 20-year-old daughter had been living in Manhattan when she went missing in 2003. Taylor’s remains were discovered later that year, 45 miles (72 kilometers) east of Gilgo Beach in Manorville.

“I am glad that this is over as far as him pleading guilty,” Baczkiel stated. “It took a big chunk of stress off of me and my family.”

Melissa Cann, the sister of victim Brainard-Barnes, expressed gratitude for finally achieving justice for her sister, whose body was found in 2010.

“This has been a long journey of hope — hope that one day we would stand here and say her name with justice beside it,” Cann said at a news conference following the hearing. “Today, that long, painful journey brings us to this moment.”

Heuermann’s ex-wife, Asa Ellerup, and their daughter were also in court when he entered his guilty pleas. Ellerup stated that her thoughts were with the victims’ families and requested privacy for her own family. Ellerup and her daughter, Victoria, had no knowledge of or involvement in the killings, according to their lawyer, Robert Macedonio.

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Associated Press writer Hannah Schoenbaum contributed from Salt Lake City.