It took Long Island police over three decades to finally bring serial killer Rex Andrew Heuermann to justice, after he kidnapped and murdered a stream of local sex workers between 1999 and 2011.
Prior to arresting the perpetrator, however, investigators couldn't have imagined the horror they'd come face-to-face with during a raid on the 59-year-old's family home.
As well as coming across a number of weapons at Heuermann's property, police also seized his computer, which contained a vast number of disturbing Google searches, all of which related to his vicious killing spree.
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The case of the man dubbed the 'Long Island Serial Killer' is now being told on Netflix as part of a gruesome three-part docu-series.
Shannen Gilbert's disappearance
It begins with the 2010 disappearance of Shannen Gilbert, a local escort who'd arranged to meet with a well-known client in the Oak Beach area of the island in May of that year.
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Shortly after her driver dropped her off at the known property, however, a frantic telephone call was made from her phone to 911, hearing Shannen claiming that someone was 'after her' and that 'they' were trying to kill her.
The client in question later told police she'd suddenly become spooked during their interaction and had fled from his home. A neighbour also claimed she'd banged several times on his door before running off into the marshland that surrounds the area.
Following an appeal from Shannen's mother in the months that followed, police orchestrated a mass search along Ocean Parkway - a lengthy stretch of road between Gilgo Beach, Long Island, and Suffolk County, New York.
Whilst they didn't find Shannen, investigators soon came across the remains of four other women.
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The 'Gilgo Four'
Though the skeletons skeleton had been wrapped in disintegrating burlap before being dumped just metres apart from one another, they were later identified as a group of missing sex workers.
The four victims were named as Megan Waterman, Melissa Barthelemy, Amber Costello, and Maureen Brainard-Barnes - all of whom had used Craigslist to meet clients before disappearing between 2007 and 2010.
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Believing they might have a serial killer on their hands, police reluctantly agreed to continue searching for Shannen following appeals from her mother, and the families of the four victims already found.
Six other victims
During the continuing search in 2011, six more sets of remains were discovered between Gilgo Beach and Ocean Parkway.
Two of these victims were later identified as Jessica Taylor and Valerie Mack, both of whom had worked as escorts before their disappearances.
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Another woman's body was discovered, alongside that of her infant daughter - though both remain unknown.
Such was also the case of another female's body, whilst the final victim appeared to be a young Asian man, believed by police to be a cross-dresser or transgender, based on the belongings found beside his body.
In December 2011, Shannen Gilbert's body is discovered in the marshland near where she disappeared. Despite the location of the discovery, police ruled her death as an accident in 2014, as opposed to a homicide.
Stunted investigation
In the years that follow, local police struggle to land on any leads that would identify the killer.
Misdemeanours, corruption and tensions within the running of the Suffolk Country Police Department also prevented anyone from being brought to justice for a further nine years.
During this time, the Chief of Police, Jimmy Burke, and the lead prosecutor Tom Spota were convicted and jailed for obstruction of justice, after reportedly blocking FBI involvement in the Gilgo Beach cases for several years.
Following the appointment of a new police commissioner in 2023, however, a task force was organised which included the FBI, and which carefully went over all the evidence police had compiled in the last 12 years - including witness statements.
Evidence comes together
It turns out that, following the identification of Amber Costello's body, a number of her friends had gone to the police to report a strange client of her's, who had reportedly threatened her in the months prior to her death.
The witnesses told police in 2011 that the man was white, around 6'4-6'6, 'ogre-like' and drove a Chevrolet Avalanche car.
Other locals from the Ocean Parkway area had claimed at the time to have seen a similar vehicle in the area during the years that the murders would have occurred.
It didn't take long for police to match a description of the man and his vehicle to a local Long Island man - Rex Andrew Heuermann.
Heuermann lived in his childhood home in Massapequa with his wife and two adult children. He worked as an architect in New York.
Police found that he'd been adding minutes to a burner phone, which linked up to the movements of the phones used to contact the 'Gilgo Four' victims prior to their deaths.
They also found that that Heuermann's family had been out of town when each of the killings occurred.
After tailing him for several weeks, investigators obtained a pizza box he'd discarded near his NYC office, using the DNA to link him to seven of the bodies found on Long Island.
His hair was also connected to that found at the scene where another escort, Sandra Costilla, had been found in 1993.
Heuermann's arrest and computer obtained
Heuermann was indicted for the murders of Amber Lynn Costello, Megan Waterman, Melissa Barthelemy, Maureen Brainard-Barnes, Sandra Costilla, Jessica Taylor, and Valerie Mack in the summer of 2023.
Despite him allegedly having no association with Shannen Gilbert's death, she is often credited for contacting 911 on the day of her disappearance, with her act of bravery alerting authorities to the discovery of other bodies.
After police raided Heuermann's house, they found a number of alarming discoveries, including several personal devices.
Though his computers had been forensically wiped, investigators were still able to uncover a plethora of evidence, including a list of Heurmann's Google search history.
As the documentary explains, terms like 'why hasn't the long island serial killer been found', 'why could law enforcement not trace the calls made by the long island serial killer', and 'gilgo news' had been searched, along with the victims' names, and the names of several of their family members.
Suffolk County District Attorney Ray Tierney explains in the series: "We saw what his searches were like.
"They were centred around the investigation of Gilgo, the victims, the victims' families, as well as a lot of really disturbing abuse, degradation and torture of women in pornography."
The documentary then lists a number of searches relating to the latter, including 'mature escorts manhattan', 'girl begging for rape porn', '10 year old school girl', 'face porn torture redhead porn'.
Despite all the evidence, Heuermann's trial hasn't yet taken place.
Gone Girls: The Long Island Serial Killer is now available on Netflix.
Topics: Crime, True Crime, US News, News, Netflix, TV And Film, Documentaries
Rhianna Benson