Who is Maureen Brainard-Barnes, last 'Gilgo Four' victim to be linked to Rex Heuermann?
LONG ISLAND - Suspected Gilgo Beach serial killer Rex Heuermann was formally charged with the murder of a fourth victim: Maureen Brainard-Barnes on Tuesday.
The Gilgo Beach murders – the deaths of 11 people whose remains were found in 2010 and 2011 – have left investigators baffled for years.
Courtesy of Maureen Brainard-Barnes's family
The architect has been charged in a string of slayings -- now he's being charged with the death of a fourth woman, a 25-year-old Connecticut mother of two who vanished in 2007 and whose remains were found more than three years later along a coastal highway in New York.
She is believed to be the first victim in what is known as the ‘Gilgo Four’.
"This indictment marks a change in the investigation. The grand jury investigation of the so-called 'Gilgo Four' is over…" Suffolk County District Attorney Raymond A. Tierney announced Tuesday.
Heuermann was formally charged in the killing of Brainard-Barnes, months after being labeled as the prime suspect in her death when he was arrested in July in the deaths of three other women.
Courtesy of Maureen Brainard-Barnes's family
Brainard-Barnes was reported missing by a friend to the Norwich Police Department on July 14, 2007. Brainard-Barnes was found on December 13, 2010, on the north side of Ocean Parkway, near Gilgo Beach.
Maureen Brainard-Barnes was 25 years old when she went missing and was living at 180 Prospect St. in Norwich, Connecticut. She is believed to have taken an Amtrak train from New London, Connecticut to Grand Central Terminal in Manhattan on July 6, 2007.
Most of the victims were young women who had been sex workers. Several of the bodies were found near the remote town of Gilgo Beach on the southern shore of Long Island.
She is believed to be the first victim in the "Gilgo Four."
Graphic via Suffolk County Police Dept.
While in Manhattan, she was staying at the Super 8 Motel, located at 59 West 46th St. At the time, Brainard-Barnes, who was 4 feet 11 inches tall, was working as a sex worker, advertising on Craigslist, Backpage and other websites. She was known to advertise under the names Juliana or Marie. Her routine was to travel to Manhattan for a few days to work as an escort, and then return home to Connecticut. While in Manhattan, she was known to stay at The Super 8, The Red Roof Inn on West 32nd Street, the Carter Hotel on West 43rd St. and the Manhattan Hotel on 8th Avenue.
On occasion, Brainard-Barnes would travel with another female who worked out of a different room at the same location. They both may have used a male friend, who they would refer to as their cousin, to accompany them and offer a level of safety and protection. Brainard-Barnes traveled with her female friend the weekend she went missing, however her friend returned home early and Brainard-Barnes stayed behind. Brainard-Barnes was last heard from on July 9, 2007 at 11:43 p.m. when she called a friend in Connecticut. Although she was known to work out of motel rooms, on the night of July 9, 2007, she told her friend she would be going to meet someone outside of the motel on an "out-call."
Brainard-Barnes was reported missing by a friend to the Norwich Police Department on July 14, 2007. The NYPD assisted the Norwich Police Department in the missing person investigation, eventually taking it over. Brainard-Barnes was found on December 13, 2010 on the north side of Ocean Parkway, near Gilgo Beach, during the search for Shannan Gilbert, who had gone missing from Oak Beach.
Who are the 'Gilgo Four'?
Most of the victims were young women who had been sex workers. Several of the bodies were found near the remote town of Gilgo Beach on the southern shore of Long Island.
The bodies of the "Gilgo Four" were located within a quarter-mile of one another near Gilgo Beach in December 2010.
In 2022, Suffolk County Police released new information on victims Maureen Brainard-Barnes, 25, Melissa Barthelemy, 24, Megan Waterman, 22, and Amber Lynn Costello, 27, including personal information and their last known whereabouts.
Police arrested Heuermann outside his Manhattan office in July for the murders of three women, Melissa, Megan and Amber.
Hair DNA found in the burlap sack containing Waterman's remains matched a sample that police collected from a discarded pizza box outside Heuermann's Manhattan office, according to prosecutors.
Tierney said after the arrest that Heuermann was investigators' "prime suspect" in at least one more murder, the slaying of Maureen Brainard-Barnes, 25, whose remains were found near the others.