An investigator has described a US serial killing suspect as a "demon" and has not ruled out the possibility of discovering more victims in the police probe over the Gilgo Beach murders.
Long Island architect Rex Heuermann was charged last Friday with the murder in the deaths of three of the 11 victims in a long-unsolved string of killings.
It came after detectives pursued a new lead that say they matched DNA from a pizza he ate to genetic material found on the women’s remains.
Speaking with CNN, Suffolk County Deputy Police Commissioner Anthony Carter was asked whether more victims could be found. He replied: "I think in the coming days, as we continue to gather evidence, anything is possible.
“There are still things that we have to do. There are still human remains that have to be investigated further in Gilgo.
"I can’t begin to imagine the pain that these families have had to endure over the last decade and to know that this demon was capable of doing such an evil act to these families, it is just, you know, beyond comprehension."
He told CNN that "the acts that the suspect committed were the worst I’ve ever seen.
“This person intended to do what he did to these victims. And that is why I say that’s one of the worst, if not the worst," Carter said.
"He’s a demon, and it’s really hard to get into the mind of somebody that’s capable of committing the crimes that he committed."
Other deaths remain unsolved, police say
Detectives on Long Island are continuing to hunt for fresh clues about Heuermann, having combed through storage units linked to the architect in order to use DNA evidence to see if he’s connected to other cold cases.
The ongoing work marks an important new phase in a multi-agency investigation that — after years of dead ends and frustrations — led prosecutors to charge the 59-year-old with murder in the deaths of three women whose remains were found buried along a remote beach highway in 2010 and 2011.
Heuermann, who has lived for decades across a bay from where the remains were found, is also considered the prime suspect in the killing of a fourth victim. He has pleaded not guilty. His lawyer said Heuermann denied committing the crimes.
Investigators have said it’s unlikely just one person killed all of the victims, and they insist the probe is far from over after the watershed moment of Heuermann's arrest.
Suffolk County Police Commissioner Rodney Harrison, who spearheaded the creation of an interagency task force last year to solve the Gilgo Beach killings, has vowed that authorities will “work tirelessly until we bring justice to all the families involved”.
“We’re just in the infancy of the work that needs to be done going forward,” Deputy Commissioner Anthony Carter told The Associated Press on Monday (local time).
Detectives executed a search warrant at Omega Self Storage in Amityville on Sunday and searched another nearby storage facility on Monday (local time).
Both are less than a 10-minute drive from Heuermann’s home.
This followed a multi-day search at Heuermann's house in Massapequa Park, about a 25-minute drive across a causeway spanning South Oyster Bay to the sandy stretch known as Gilgo Beach where the women's remains were found.
That search yielded more than 200 guns, Harrison told Fox News.
Investigators were also checking to see if Heuermann's DNA — obtained from pizza crust he disposed and linked to genetic material found on a Gilgo Beach victim's remains — connected him to other unsolved cases.
Heuermann, 59, is charged with killing Melissa Barthelemy, Megan Waterman and Amber Costello. Authorities are continuing to work toward charging him in the death of a fourth victim, Maureen Brainard-Barnes, said Suffolk County District Attorney Ray Tierney.
Most of the victims were young women who had been sex workers. Their deaths long stumped investigators, and the mystery fuelled immense public attention and led to a 2020 Netflix film, Lost Girls.
Task force investigators started working out of a dedicated space at a Suffolk County police facility, an open space with no offices so they could share ideas and information.
Within six weeks of their first meeting, task force investigators identified Heuermann as a suspect — using a vehicle registration database to connect him to a Chevrolet Avalanche pickup truck that a witness reported seeing when one of the victims disappeared.
Some of the victims were believed to have disappeared from Massapequa Park, and their cell phones were found to have pinged towers in the area.
The truck discovery unlocked other investigative tools.
A grand jury authorised more than 300 subpoenas and search warrants, allowing the task force to dig into Heuermann's life.
They collected billing records for burner phones he allegedly used to arrange meetings with the victims, retested DNA found with the bodies, and combed Heuermann's internet search history, which showed intense interest in the Gilgo Beach killings and the renewed investigation.
Additional reporting by the Associated Press
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