Rex Heuermann is set to be sentenced Wednesday in Riverhead, Long Island, after pleading guilty to seven murders and one additional killing in the Gilgo Beach case. The 62-year-old admitted killing Jessica Taylor, Melissa Barthelemy, Megan Waterman, Maureen Brainard-Barnes, Amber Costello, Valerie Mack and Sandra Costilla, and also admitted to killing Karen Vergata.
The hearing is expected to bring victims’ families into the courtroom to tell Judge Timothy Mazzei how the killings changed their lives, while Heuermann will also have a chance to speak before the sentence is imposed. Under the plea agreement, he is to spend the rest of his life in state prison without the possibility of parole, bringing the criminal case to its final stage for the families who have waited years for a resolution.
Heuermann was first identified as a suspect in 2022, when a state police investigator linked him to a Chevrolet Avalanche seen the night Amber Costello disappeared. Investigators later used cell phone data, DNA and other evidence to tie him to the killings, building a case around a two-decade spree that began more than 30 years ago and left bodies buried on Long Island.
What remains unresolved is where Heuermann will serve that sentence, a detail that has not yet been publicly established even as the plea agreement removes any possibility of parole. The sentence itself is expected to close the criminal proceedings, but the court will first hear from the victims’ families and from the man who admitted to the killings before Mazzei rules.
