The arrest of Manhattan architect Rex Heuermann for several of the Gilgo Beach murders has drawn attention back to the young women who were killed and left to rot on a remote stretch of marshland in Long Island.
Most of the victims fit a similar profile. They came from out of state, pursuing sex work that paid their rent and bills, some of them with ambitions to create new lives for themselves. They were short in stature and in their 20s. And later, their remains were found along the same beach, four wrapped in burlap.
Here’s a closer look at the women who were killed.
Shannan Gilbert
Investigators have doubted that Shannan Gilbert, a 24-year-old Craigslist prostitute was a victim of a crime, but it was her death that shown a spotlight on the killings.
She was living in Jersey City and traveling frequently to New York with her driver, Michael Pak. Originally from upstate New York, Gilbert was drawn to sex work to support her dreams as a singer.
She disappeared after pulling up to the Oak Beach, Long Island home of client, Joseph Brewer, for a regular call. She stayed inside for hours while her driver waited outside. Around 5 a.m., the client emerged from the house, asking Pak for help. Pak found Gilbert in a panic inside the house, clutching a phone.
Just over a year ago, Suffolk County police released the panicked 911 calls Gilbert made, fearing for her life, repeating “There’s somebody after me” to multiple operators as they tried to determine where she was.
“Can you trace where I am?” Gilbert asked operators on the calls, sounding at times confused and muddled.
Brewer, in the background, can be heard saying to Gilbert “The guy wants to talk to you.”
“No! Stop, no!” Gilbert shouts.
“Are you going to kill me?” she asks later in the call, speaking to her driver, Michael Pak.
Gilbert’s body was later found in a marshy area about a half-mile away and deemed “most likely noncriminal” by Suffolk County police, a finding disputed by Gilbert’s family.
The investigation into Gilbert’s disappearance led to the recovery of eight other bodies in 2010 and 2011.
Melissa Barthelemy
Barthelemy, 24, was the first of the “Gilgo Beach four,” four victims whose bodies were found close together as police were searching the area for Gilbert. Her remains were found wrapped in burlap on the beach. She was 4 feet, 10 inches tall.
She was last seen before her death near her Bronx home on July 12, 2009, and was found along Ocean Parkway, near Gilgo Beach, on December 11, 2010.
“These are poor girls who unfortunately got into this escort business to keep a roof over their heads and feed themselves,” Barthelemy’s mother, Lynn Barthelemy, said at the time.
Unable to reach her daughter for a few days, Barthelemy’s mother reported her missing to the NYPD on July 18, 2009.
After Barthelemy had been reported missing, her teenage sister received several phone calls from someone using Barthelemy’s phone, believed to have come from the killer.
Maureen Brainard-Barnes
Maureen Brainard-Barnes, 25 years old and 4′11, was living in Norwich, Connecticut and, like most of the other victims, working as a prostitute at the time she disappeared. She is believed to be the first killed of the “Gilgo Beach four,” but was the second found on the beach by the cops and cadaver-sniffing dogs searching the area.
She’s believed to have taken a train with a friend from Connecticut to Grand Central Terminal in Manhattan on July 6, 2007, a typical work trip for the escort. She was known to rent out motel rooms in Manhattan to work from. Her friend left early, leaving Brainard-Barnes alone in Manhattan.
She was last heard from late at night on July 9, 2007, when she called a friend in Connecticut, saying she was going to meet someone on an “out call.”
Brainard-Barnes was reported missing on July 14, 2007 and her body was found in December.
Megan Waterman
The Scarborough, Maine 22-year-old whose body was found on the beach in 2010 after her disappearance months earlier. She worked as an escort, advertising on Craigslist.
Waterman was reportedly last seen by her family boarding a bus from Maine to New York.
Videos released by cops last year show Waterman leaving a hotel just 15 miles north of Gilgo Beach on June 6, 2010, at the hotel to meet a client — her killer, investigators believe. She called her pimp, who was later arrested, to tell him she was stepping out to a nearby convenience store.
She was reported missing to a Maine police department on June 8, 2010 after family members concerned that she hadn’t checked in on her three-year-old daughter called the police.
Waterman’s body was found on December 13, 2010, close to the others of the “Gilgo Beach four.”
Amber Lynn Costello
Costello, 27, was living in West Babylon with three roommates at the time of her death. Addicted to heroin, her work as a hooker helped fuel the habit. She advertised on Craigslist and Backpage and would mostly work in the area.
Originally from North Carolina, Costello, who was 4 feet and 11 inches, had lived in Florida before coming to New York.
Costello was seen alive for the last time when she left her home on September 2, 2010 to meet up with a client who was picking her up. Her body was found on December 13, 2010.
Jessica Taylor
Jessica Taylor, 20, went missing in July 2003. Soon after, her remains were discovered by a woman walking her dog off more than 40 miles east of Gilgo Beach. Other remains were found later, on March 29, 2011.
Valerie Mack
Valerie Mack, 24, was long known as “Manorville Jane Doe #6.” The remains of the prostitute were identified by cops 20 years after her disappearance. The woman’s naked torso was discovered in Manorville in November 2000, while other remains were found on April 4, 2011, along Ocean Parkway.
Family members last saw her alive in the spring or summer of 2000 about 14 miles outside Atlantic City in New Jersey. Mack was working as an escort in Philadelphia under the fake name of Melissa Taylor, and was never reported missing.
The remains of the toddler wrapped in a blanket and an unidentified Asian male in his late teens or early 20s were discovered on the same day as when investigators found the second set of Mack’s remains.
Soon after, two more sets of human remains were discovered in the same area.
Jessica Taylor, Valerie Mack, John Doe and the toddler were found in 2011.
Two earlier victims, “Jane Doe No. 7″ and “Peaches,” believed to be the mother of the toddler, were discovered in the 1990s.
