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Gilgo Beach Murder Suspect Rex Heuermann "Traumatized" After Arrest, His Lawyer Says
Long Island resident Rex Heuermann was charged with six counts of murder relating to three of the women in the Gilgo Beach serial killings.
Accused Long Island serial killer Rex Heuermann, who was arrested in connection with the Gilgo Beach murders last week, looked “traumatized” at his Friday arraignment, his attorney said.
The 59-year-old Massapequa Park resident was arrested last Thursday for the killings of multiple women whose remains were found along the New York island’s South Shore in 2010.
He has been charged with three counts each of first- and second-degree murder in the deaths of Melissa Barthelemy, Megan Waterman and Amber Costello, according to an indictment obtained by Oxygen.com.
RELATED: Hairs Found on Gilgo Beach Murder Victims Led to Arrest of Rex Heuermann, Prosecutors Say
Heuermann was assigned to Suffolk County-based defense attorney Michael Brown, who first met with the husband and father of two at his arraignment Friday, where the defendant looked "traumatized," according to Brown’s interview with ABC News.
"Nothing struck me as unusual about him. He was articulate, he was intelligent, he was soft spoken," Brown said, after Heuermann pleaded not guilty in court Friday.
The lawyer told reporters that his client denies having any involvement in the murders.
What has Gilgo Beach murder suspect Rex Heuermann said about his arrest?
"The only thing he did say, as he was in tears, was, 'I didn’t do this,'" Brown told NBC News Friday. "He's distraught. He's clearly distraught about the charges here."
Brown dismissed the state’s findings against Heuermann, deeming their case mere “circumstantial evidence.”
Investigators’ interest in Heuermann was first sparked in March 2022, when a task force discovered he had owned a Chevrolet Avalanche at the time of the murders, which was the same model an eyewitness saw the night of Costello’s disappearance in September 2010, according to a bail application filed by prosecutors and obtained by Oxygen.com.
The prosecution said other evidence against the Manhattan architect included phone records, internet searches and hairs found on the burlap in which the victims’ remains were wrapped in when they were found lining a Suffolk County beach highway.
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Brown said he hasn't heard anything about eyewitnesses or confessions from his client.
Heuermann’s lawyer also expressed concerns about a fair trial, saying he believes his client has “been convicted in the media already and the media public opinion."
"When you have a high profile case like this, initially you have to be concerned about getting a jury that hasn't been biased, that hasn't convicted him, just based on what they've read in the newspapers and what they've heard on social media,” Brown said. “So that's going to be a challenge.”
RELATED: Who Were All The Victims — And Suspected Victims — In The Gilgo Beach Murders
Heuermann has been charged with the deaths of only three of the 11 people whose remains were found spread along Long Island's southern shoreline in 2010 and 2011. He's also been called the prime suspect in the murder of Maureen Brainard-Barnes, according to police, though he has not been charged in her killing.
It was after 24-year-old sex worker Shannan Gilbert went missing after leaving a client's Oak Beach home in May of 2010 that police searching areas along Gilgo Beach for her began finding other bodies. The first was Barthelemy, on Dec. 11, 2010. Then, two days after that, the bodies of three more victims were found: Waterman, Costello, and Brainard-Barnes, according to NBC News.
Additional bodies continued to turn up for months, for a total of 11. A man and toddler female were among them, but most of the victims were female sex workers, the Associated Press reported. The body of Gilbert was located in December of 2011, but she hasn't been officially classified as a Gilgo Beach murder victim.
Suffolk County Police Commissioner Rodney Harrison told Fox News in an interview Monday that investigators found more than 200 guns stashed in the suspect’s Massapequa home Friday during their search.
"He had an arsenal in a vault that he had downstairs,” Harrison said, describing the 6-foot-6-inch, 275 pound- man as an “ogre.”
