Shannan Gilbert

The Gilgo Beach serial killings were a series of murders spanning from the early 1990s until 2011.

With this advent, the timeline of the case reached back to the early 1990s, much further than previously thought by police.

Two more bodies were found in Nassau County: Karen Vergata, whose partial remains had previously been found on Fire Island in 1996, and an unidentified woman with a distinctive tattoo of peaches who was later found to be the mother of the unidentified toddler found in Suffolk County.

According to his indictment, Heuermann is under investigation for the 2000 death of Valerie Mack.

Eight years earlier, in 2003, other parts of Taylor's remains had been found in Manorville, a town in Suffolk County.

Many of the victims' remains were found over a period of months in 2010 and 2011 during a police search of the area along Ocean Parkway, near the remote beach towns of Gilgo and Oak Beach in Suffolk County, New York.

The search was prompted by the disappearance of Shannan Gilbert, who, like many of the known victims, was a sex worker who advertised on Craigslist.

The perpetrator in the case is known as the Long Island Serial Killer, or the Craigslist Ripper.

The remains of four victims designated "The Gilgo Four" were found within a quarter of a mile of each other near Gilgo Beach in December 2010.

Police believe the latter sets of remains predate the four bodies found in December 2010.

Gilbert's remains were found a year after the remains of "The Gilgo Four" were discovered and the cause of her death remains contested.

Rex Heuermann, a resident of Massapequa Park on Long Island, has been charged in the murders of six women: each of "the Gilgo Four" victims, Megan Waterman, Melissa Barthelemy, Amber Costello, and Maureen Brainard-Barnes, as well as Jessica Taylor and Sandra Costilla.

The investigation was prompted by the search for Shannan Gilbert, a 24-year-old woman who disappeared in the area in May 2010 after fleeing from a client's home.

Human remains were discovered by the side of Ocean Parkway in Oak Beach on December 11, 2010.

Gilbert disappeared after making a 23-minute-long emergency call to 911, saying, "They are trying to kill me."

A month after her disappearance, the Suffolk County Police Department's missing persons bureau asked Officer John Mallia to search for Gilbert with his trained cadaver dog, a German Shepherd named Blue.

Over the course of summer 2010, Mallia unsuccessfully searched the gated beach community where Gilbert had last been seen.

Mallia made a new attempt at a search on December 11, 2010, staying close to the shoulder of the parkway.

The officer based his choice of search area on FBI data indicating that dumped bodies are frequently found close to roadways.

Despite thick vegetation and a light layer of snow, Mallia's cadaver dog alerted to a scent which the pair tracked to a skeleton wrapped in disintegrating burlap.

The remains were later identified as Melissa Barthelemy.

Police discovered three additional bodies while searching the scene for further evidence.

The bodies of the four victims – Maureen Brainard, Melissa Barthelemy, Megan Waterman, and Amber Costello – were found approximately 500 ft from each other.

Six more sets of remains were found in March and April 2011 in Suffolk and Nassau counties.

In March 2011, partial remains of Jessica Taylor were found along Ocean Parkway.

The next month, in April 2011, police discovered three additional sets of remains: an unidentified female toddler, an unidentified Asian person, and Valerie Mack, partial remains of whom – like those of Jessica Taylor – had been found in Manorville years earlier in November, 2000.

On May 9, 2011 police speculated that because of similarities in the cases, Valerie Mack (who at the time was unidentified) and Jessica Taylor may have been murdered by a second, separate killer.

On November 29, 2011 police announced that they believed one person to be responsible for all ten murders and that the perpetrator is almost certainly from Long Island.

The single killer theory stems from common characteristics between the condition of the remains and forensic evidence related to the bodies.

In June 2011, Suffolk County police announced a $25,000 reward for information leading to an arrest in the Long Island murders.

Shannan Gilbert's remains were located in Oak Beach in December 2011, 19 months after her disappearance.

The cause of her death is contested.

In June 2024, Rex Heuermann was charged with the 1993 murder of Sandra Costilla, whose case had not previously been linked to the Gilgo Beach murders.

On December 10, 2015 Suffolk County Police Commissioner Tim Sini announced that the FBI had officially joined the investigation.

The announcement came one day after former police chief James Burke was indicted for civil rights violations and conspiracy.

Burke, who resigned from the department in October 2015, was reported to have blocked FBI involvement in the Gilgo Beach cases for years.

The FBI had previously assisted in the search for victims but had never officially been a part of the investigation.

In November 2016, Burke was sentenced to 46 months in federal prison for assault and conspiracy.

There was considerable other inter-agency friction and failures to cooperate in law enforcement that hindered the investigation over the years.

On January 16, 2020 Suffolk County Police Commissioner Geraldine Hart released images of a belt found at the crime scene with the letters "HM" or "WH" (depending on the orientation of the belt) embossed in black leather.