The suspect in the Gilgo Beach murders on Long Island is a twice-married New York City architect, Rex Heuerman, 59, who attended the same high school as Alec Baldwin.
Heuerman, who has a daughter and a stepson, was described by neighbors as a ‘family man’ living in a ‘messy house’ in Massapequa Park, 25 minutes north of the beach where the bodies of ten women and a child were found in 2010 and 2011.
The Long Island resident was taken into custody last night outside his midtown Manhattan office.
He was arrested for the first four of 11 murders in the Oyster Bay area between 2010 and 2011.
The ‘Gilgo Beach Four’ were young prostitutes in their 20s who were all strangled to death before their bodies were found in sacks on the beach in December 2010.
A 1981 Burner High School yearbook photo of Gilgo Beach murder suspect Rex Heuerman (left), who graduated just five years after Hollywood actor Alec Baldwin (right).
Long Island architect Rex Heuerman, 59, was arrested today in a major police breakthrough for his involvement in the Gilgo Beach serial killings.
Six more females and one cub were found in the following months.
Police are investigating whether he has any connection with other murders.
Born and raised on Long Island, he has lived in Massapequa since the 1980s in a ramshackle bungalow worth about $195,000.
Today, the ‘tight-knit’ neighborhood was outraged after police raided the house.
A neighbor who shared a backyard and grew up next door to the murder suspect described him as ‘a family man in a messy house’, adding ‘it’s an eyesore in a beautiful neighbourhood’.
Neighbor Barry Auslander told Newstimesuk.com that he would see the suspect at the train station between 5.30am and 6.30am when he dropped his wife off.
He had seen him a few days earlier dressed in a business suit with a briefcase, ‘like a typical businessman going up the Long Island Rail Road’, he added.
When he heard that the suspect had been arrested, he fell to the floor.
‘I want to know who’s buried in the backyard,’ he said.
Heuerman was arrested last night outside his office in midtown Manhattan
A street in Massapequa Park, Long Island, where a suspect was arrested this morning in the Gilgo Beach murders
A street in Massapequa Park, Long Island, where a suspect was arrested this morning in the Gilgo Beach murders
A map showing where the remains of the victims are located along a barren stretch of Ocean Beach Parkway in Gilgo Beach on the south coast of Long Island
The Irish-Italian neighborhood is best known for featuring on many hit TV shows, including Seinfeld, Friends and Saturday Night Live, as Alec Baldwin and Jerry Seinfeld grew up locally.
In fact, Heuerman and his brother Craig attended the same school, Berner High, as Baldwin and graduated in 1981, five years after becoming Hollywood stars.
Yearbook photographs show Heuerman was part of the school’s drama club.
Alec Baldwin’s brother Billy tweeted that he was a classmate of Human. He said: ‘Woke up this morning to find out that the Gilgo Beach serial killer suspect is my high school classmate Rex Heuerman…
‘Married, two children, architect. ‘Average guy… quiet, family man.’ Upset… Massapequa shocked.’
Heuerman went on to study architectural technology at the New York Institute of Technology, before going into business at Greer Construction Corporation in Freeport, New York.
He married Elizabeth Ryan in 1990, but the couple divorced. He now has an Icelandic wife, a stepson and a daughter, Victoria, 26, from his second marriage.
Victoria works with her father at the architecture firm, RH Consultants & Associates, where she was arrested last night.
Heuermann founded the company in 1994, and its clients included American Airlines and ‘other major tenants’ at JFK International Airport, according to an online biography.
Heuerman (circled) was in Berner High School’s drama club, where he attended with his brother Craig and Hollywood stars Billy and Alec Baldwin.
Actor Billy Baldwin was a classmate of Gilgo Beach murder suspect Rex Heuerman.
Billy Baldwin (right) at Berner High School graduation in June 1981 in Massapequa, NY.
Berner High School’s 1981 yearbook photo of William ‘Billy’ Baldwin
Massapequa Park residents watch in disbelief as police search homes on a quiet residential street
He was a member of a New York City-based networking group known as The Dream Team.
He attended weekly meetings, according to a member of the group, who asked not to be identified, and who described Heuerman as friendly, organized and available.
Dream Team’s website describes it as a referral club for members to grow their business. ‘We don’t let anyone into our group,’ the website says ‘You have to have drive, passion, ethics and above all you have to be a good person.’
‘I knew him as a friend and a colleague,’ he told NBC. ‘And I’m totally amazed.’
Heuermann attended the group’s weekly meetings, and he said he spoke with him on Zoom on Tuesday.
‘I didn’t see that coming,’ she said.
Heuermann boasted of his career success in an interview with a French journalist more than a decade after the Gilgo Beach massacre.
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