What we know about the women known as the ‘Gilgo Four’

Rex Heuermann has been charged with killing three women whose bodies were discovered along a stretch of Long Island’s Gilgo Beach in 2010, bound with belts or tape and wrapped in burlap.

A married father accused by authorities of leading a double life, Heuermann faces three counts of first-degree murder for the killings of Melissa Barthelemy in 2009, and Megan Waterman and Amber Costello the following year, according to the Suffolk County District Attorney. He has pleaded not guilty and is being held without bail.

The 59-year-old New York architect is also the prime suspect in the disappearance and killing of a fourth woman, Maureen Brainard-Barnes, whose remains were found near the same spot. He has yet to be charged in that case.

Heuermann was first identified as a potential suspect in early 2022, shortly after a multi-agency task force was formed to examine cold cases involving nearly a dozen sets of human remains found along Long Island’s South Shore between 2010 and 2011, including the Gilgo Four.

Here’s what we know about the deaths of those four women:

Maureen Brainard-Barnes

Maureen Brainard-BarnesSuffolk County Police Department

Brainard-Barnes was 25 years old and believed to be a sex worker when she was last seen on July, 9, 2007. She had called a friend in Connecticut, where she lived, and said she had an “out call,” according to Suffolk County police.