About this episode

The episode discusses Rex Heuermann's admission to the murders of eight women, detailing the investigation and evidence that led to his guilty plea.

He ate pizza on a Manhattan sidewalk and threw the crust in a public trash can. Investigators were watching. That discarded crust — legally recovered as an abandonment sample — carried DNA that matched a male hair found in the burlap wrapping around Megan Waterman's body on Ocean Parkway. Months of surveillance, one piece of garbage, and the entire Gilgo Beach case broke open. Megan was 22. A mother from Scarborough, Maine, who called her three-year-old daughter every single day. When those daily calls stopped in June 2010, her family reported her missing within two days. Surveillance footage from the Holiday Inn Express in Hauppauge captured her walking out the door at 1:15 a.m. to meet a client. She was found six months later alongside Melissa Barthelemy, Maureen Brainard-Barnes, and Amber Lynn Costello — the Gilgo Four. Rex Heuermann stood in a Suffolk County courtroom and pleaded guilty to murdering all seven women he was charged with killing — Barthelemy, Brainard-Barnes, Costello, Sandra Costilla, Valerie Mack, Jessica Taylor, and Waterman. He also admitted to intentionally causing the death of Karen Vergata, an eighth victim. He confirmed all eight were killed by…

Topics covered

• Gilgo Beach murders
• Rex Heuermann
• true crime
• investigation
• DNA evidence
• missing persons
• court proceedings

Keywords

• Gilgo Beach
• Rex Heuermann
• Megan Waterman
• DNA evidence
• missing women
• true crime
• court case
• strangulation
• surveillance

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Holiday Inn Express

Places: Gilgo Beach, Scarborough, Maine, Suffolk County

More episodes of The Gilgo Beach Murders: The Case Against Rex Heuermann

• Rex Heuermann's Confession to Asa Ellerup Exposed in Gilgo Beach Documentary · April 27, 2026 · 29 min
• Rex Heuermann Married and Killed Karen Vergata the Same Month · April 20, 2026 · 20 min
• Valerie Mack's Son Lost Her at Six — He's Suing the Family That Lived With Her Killer · April 19, 2026 · 1h 24m
• Heuermann Engineered His Plea — Now the Victims' Families Are Coming for His Family · April 19, 2026 · 37 min
• Rex Heuermann: The Calls to Melissa's Sister and the Family Gilgo Killer Left Behind · April 18, 2026 · 27 min
• Asa Ellerup Faces a Jury — What Happens Next · April 17, 2026 · 16 min

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