Rex Heuermann Update: Chilling New Details on Victims’ Four Days Of Torture

Alleged Gilgo Beach serial killer Rex Heuermann allegedly kept his victims alive to inflict pain and torture them, according to investigators and crime experts.
Heuermann, 60, is facing murder charges in the killings of six women from the early 1990s to 2011. He was initially charged in the deaths of the “Gilgo Four,” Maureen Brainard-Barnes, Melissa Barthelemy, Megan Waterman and Amber Lynn Costello. The four victims’ bodies were found in 2010 near Gilgo Beach in Long Island.
Heuermann was charged with additional counts for the killings of Jessica Taylor and Sandra Costilla in June.
A planning document discovered by prosecutors makes references to torture, captivity, noise control and “play time.” Prosecutors allege that the document is a “blue print” that details Heuermann’s “intent and methodology.”
“That speaks for itself,” Suffolk County District Attorney Ray Tierney said at a June 6 press conference after announcing the finding.
Tierney explained the meaning of “play time” to reporters.
“We allege that the more rest the participants [have], the more you get done,” Tierney said. “The more rested the participants are the more you can get done.”
The planning document had been deleted in 2002, but it was recovered from a device found by officials at his home in Massapequa Park.
Tierney said the remains of Taylor and Costilla show evidence of torture. Costilla’s body showed evidence of mutilation and Taylor was dismembered.
Prosecutors have released evidence showing a potential four-day period where Taylor may have been in captivity, based on the last time she called a family member and the day when a pickup truck was seen near where her body was found.
The planning document also mentions “push pins to hang drop cloths from the ceiling not tape” and “hard point,” which prosecutors claim is a reference to a fixed attachment point on a ceiling to support weight in suspension bondage.
Joseph Giacalone, a retired NYPD detective sergeant and professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, called the planning document “frightening” in a Newsday report.
“Just from reading the [manifesto] document, this is the most sadistic thing around, keeping people alive to torture them. The torture these victims had to go through just compounds things for their families,” Giacalone said.
Former FBI profiler Gregg McCrary told the outlet that it is common for serial killers to keep victims alive in order to torture them.
“The more interaction they can have is the payoff for them,” McCrary said. “They want to keep them alive as long as they can, reasonably. Killing is what they have to do at the end to not be discovered.”
Heuermann’s attorney, Michael J. Brown, said he does not think the document is “that significant” at a press conference in July.
“It all goes into the narrative,” Brown said. “It’s any piece of the puzzle that they can take and they can fit and they can argue that it’s Rex Heuermann, they’ve done it. The things that don’t work for them, you don’t hear about.”
The planning document also references the book Mindhunter, written by FBI profiler John Douglas. Brown said the book is fairly common.
“There are probably hundreds of thousands of people across our country, if not millions, who have read that book and downloaded portions of that book,” Brown said.
Tierney, however, alleged that Heuermann was interested in parts of the book about mutilation and sexual substitution.
“That is when the perpetrator penetrates the victim’s body with an object as a means to substitute the sexual act,” Tierney said.
He said it appears that the action had been performed on Costilla.
The remains of Taylor and Costilla were found shortly after their death, meaning investigators had more physical evidence to observe.
“With regard to the Gilgo Four, they were skeletonized, so we’re left to surmise a lot of things, or we just don’t know, because we don’t have the same amount of evidence that you would on a person who has been deceased for a period of days, as opposed to a period of years,” Tierney said. “With Costilla and Jessica Taylor … we know more about what, unfortunately, what happened to them, because there’s more evidence there.”
He claimed surveillance footage obtained by prosecutors shows Heuermann is not a “horrific, prolific mass murderer.”
“I have seen the video from the beginning to the end,” Brown said. “What you see is a guy walking his dog, a guy going to work in the morning with his briefcase and his sports jacket and coming home.”
Heuermann is being held at the Suffolk County Jail in Riverhead. His next court appearance is scheduled for October 16. A date for the trial has not been set yet.
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