A former NYPD cold case detective is calling on investigators in the Gilgo Beach killings to take cadaver dogs to a six-mile, heavily wooded area just blocks from the suspected serial killer’s Long Island home.
Located on 432 acres, the Massapequa Preserve features a bike trail, a hiking trail, and fishing and nature walks along six miles between Merrick Road and the Southern State Parkway, including a connection to the dimly lit, two-lane Bethpage State Parkway.
Accused Gilgo Beach serial killer Rex Heuermann lived just a short walk away, according to the New York Post.
(Video: YouTube)
Joseph Giacalone, a John Jay College of Criminal Justice professor and retired Long Island sergeant suggested the preserve is the perfect place to dispose of a body.
“There is this long, dark road that you can take and you could just pull off on the side of the road, do what you got to do, get back in the car and go,” he told The Post. “No cameras, nothing like that. No traffic lights. It’s an ideal place.”
Giacalone, author of “The Cold Case Handbook,” noted the many years between the discovery of the remains of three suspected victims of Heuermann in 2010 and the time he was finally arrested last month.
In all, ten bodies were found near the similarly secluded Gilgo Beach, along Ocean Parkway between 2010 and 2011, and then it appeared that the killings abruptly stopped.
“Usually serial killers have a cool-off period, but not 10 or 11 years,” Giacalone said. “It would be kind of unheard of. So it would mean to me that the person would have to find a new place to dispose of his bodies.”
Massapequa Preserve has served as a dumping ground in the past.
“In 2019, a decomposing corpse believed to be a victim of the MS-13 gang was found in the preserve,” The Post reports, “and two years earlier, two members were charged with hacking a teen to death there.”
A married architect and father of two, Heuermann, 59, was arrested on July 13 and charged with three counts of first and second-degree murder related to three of the four victims known as the “Gilgo Four” — Melissa Barthelemy, Amber Costello, and Megan Waterman. He is also the prime suspect in the death of Maureen Brainard-Barnes.
As BizPac Review reported, at the time of his arrest, former FBI profiler Mary Ellen O’Toole suspected that investigators are “probably operating off of the theory that there likely are more victims out there.”
“So now they’re going back and they’re looking at cases that have been described as unsolved over the years and moving outside of New York State and New York as well,” she said, adding that it’s “not likely” that Heuermann waited until he was in his late-30s to “act out.”
Fmr. FBI profiler: Suspected Gilgo Beach serial killer taunted victim’s family, ‘more victims’ likely https://t.co/hrotGoG83o via @BIZPACReview
— BPR based (@DumpstrFireNews) July 16, 2023
If one woman’s encounter with Heuermann just 10 days before his arrest is any indication, the suspect killer’s behavior showed no signs of “cooling off.”
A woman, identified as “Ally,” 25, by The Post, was so unnerved by her run-in with Heuermann on July 3 in Brady Park– also mere minutes from the suspect’s home — she called the cops.
“He had very dirty clothes on,” Ally said. “He popped right out of the woods. Everywhere I went in the woods he would pop out somewhere.”
Woman reveals the recent encounter with alleged serial killer that left her running to police https://t.co/do5jolCMix via @BIZPACReview
— BPR based (@DumpstrFireNews) July 15, 2023
After he continued to ask her questions, Ally called her sister and asked that she pick her up.
“I got nervous,” Ally said. “She had to pick me up. I couldn’t even go home from my bike ride.”
Ally filed a police report and, two weeks later, Heuermann was arrested.
“My mom showed me the picture and I started screaming,” Ally recalled. “I got so nervous because I realized that that was him.”
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Melissa Fine is the former executive editor of Casino Player, Strictly Slots, and Poker
Digest magazines. She is a UCLA graduate, news junkie, and dedicated Stargate SG-
1 fan. Melissa currently lives with her dog and two cats in a tiny town in the Sierra
Nevada foothills.
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