Gilgo Beach murders update: Rex Heuermann charged with 2 more killings
Heuermann charged in the death of 2 more women
Suspected Long Island serial killer Rex Heuermann was arraigned on Thursday in the deaths of two more women. Prosecutors also unveiled new disturbing evidence that they say was recovered from a hard drive in Heuermann's basement. FOX 5 NY's Jessica Formoso has the details.
LONG ISLAND - Rex Heuermann, the alleged Gilgo Beach serial killer, was back in a Suffolk County Courthouse on Thursday to face additional charges in connection to the case on Long Island.
The alleged serial killer was charged with the killings of Sandra Costilla and Jessica Taylor, two women who were long suspected of being the victims of men preying on sex workers.
Heuermann is due back in court on July 30.
Sandra Costilla
Heuermann was indicted in the November 1993 death of Sandra Costilla, a Queens woman whose remains were found in the town of Southampton over three decades ago.
According to police, Costilla was found lying on her back with her arms outstretched over her head with her uncovered legs spread apart.
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Investigators discovered a "planning document" on the hard drive found in Heuermann's basement that they believe he used to "methodically blueprint" his killings, prosecutors said.
She was also found with sharp force injuries to her face and her body.
Costilla was a native of Trinidad and Tobago but had been living in New York prior to her disappearance and murder.
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New Gilgo Beach murder charges: Who is Sandra Costilla? Jessica Taylor?
Rex Heuermann, the alleged Gilgo Beach serial killer, was charged with two more murders on Long Island: Sandra Costilla and Jessica Taylor.
Costilla had not been included among the so-called Gilgo Beach victims, until now. Investigators suspected convicted serial killer John Bittrolff in Costilla’s death, but he was never charged in her slaying, which remains one of several unsolved Long Island murders, according to the New York Post.
Jessica Taylor
Heuermann was also arraigned in connection with the July 2003 dismemberment death of 20-year-old escort Jessica Taylor.
Courtesy of Jessica Taylor’s family
According to police, Taylor was found decapitated with her arms severed from her body (around July 26, 2003). Police also said a tattoo on her body had been "severely obliterated by a sharp object."
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Who were the Gilgo Beach murder victims?
Most of the victims were young women who had been sex workers. Several of the bodies were found near the town of Gilgo Beach.
During the initial investigation in Manorville in 2003, the victim’s head, arms, and hands were not found at the scene and their location remained unknown to law enforcement for nearly eight years.
According to court documents, The Gilgo Homicide Task Force has established a pattern that Heuermann’s wife and children were out of state at the time of Taylor’s disappearance and murder, "a consistent theme in each of the charged homicides thus far."
Some of her remains were found in a wooded area in Manorville. The rest were located in March 2011 along Ocean Parkway, near those of another sex worker, 24-year-old Valerie Mack.