Gilgo Beach ‘serial killer’ was ‘trawling Tinder & calling up dozens of escorts before his arrest’
Gilgo Beach serial killer Rex Heuermann used burner phones to trawl Tinder and call dozens of escort services in the months leading up to his arrest, according to court documents.
Suffolk County prosecutors allege the digital evidence reflected a consistent pattern spanning over 15 years that showed Heuermann was a “sexual sadist.”
One phone recovered by investigators showed that between January 2021 and March 2022, Heuermann allegedly contacted 56 sex workers or massage parlors over 300 times.
Prosecutors also alleged that between December 2021 and February 2023, Heuermann used another phone to contact 61 escort service numbers, reaching out on over 220 occasions.
The hulking architect, 62, from Massapequa Park in Nassau County, Long Island, is charged with the murders of seven women, all of whom were found scattered across Long Island between 1993 and 2010.
The women have been identified as Sandra Costilla, Valerie Mack, Jessica Taylor, and Maureen Brainard-Barnes, Melissa Barthelemy, Megan Waterman, and Amber Lynn Costello – the latter four collectively known as the Gilgo Four.
“This evidence was not offered to ‘vilify’ the defendant for his sexual conduct, as he so claims, but rather to establish the defendant’s identity and modus operandi, as the defendant similarly used burner phones to arrange encounters with the victim sex workers between 2007 and 2010.”
Prosecutors added, “Far from impermissible character evidence, such evidence is directly relevant as it reflects a consistent pattern spanning over 15 years, which the issuing Judge could logically and rationally have inferred was part of defendant’s current and former modus operandi to not only commit these murders, but also to avoid apprehension and prosecution.”
