The smoking crust: how reluctance to finish pizza slices captured a serial killer at large for 30 years

A Long Island man who carried out a series of murders known as the Gilgo Beach killings pleaded guilty to murder charges this week, bringing finality to the long-unsolved case more than 30 years after the first killing.

Rex Heuermann, an architect who led a secret life as a serial killer, pleaded guilty Wednesday to three counts of first-degree murder and four counts of intentional murder in the killings of seven women between 1993 and 2010.

Heuermann, 62, appeared unemotional and did not look back at the packed gallery of victims’ relatives as he entered the pleas and also admitted to killing an eighth woman.

He will be sentenced in June to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Here are some key takeaways from the case:

Heuermann admits to an 8th killing

The discovery of numerous sets of human remains along Long Island’s South Shore beginning in late 2010 set off a search for a potential serial killer that drew global interest. Families of the victims grew doubtful that their killer would ever be caught as the investigation dragged on for more than a decade.

Heuermann was arrested in 2023 after a DNA match.

He admitted Wednesday that he strangled eight female victims and dismembered some of them before dumping their bodies along remote stretches of New York coastline. Many of his victims were sex workers.

Heuermann admitted that he killed Karen Vergata in 1996, although he hasn’t been charged in her death.

Remains of six victims — Melissa Barthelemy, Maureen Brainard-Barnes, Amber Lynn Costello, Valerie Mack, Jessica Taylor and Megan Waterman — were found along Ocean Parkway near Gilgo Beach. The remains of another, Sandra Costilla, were found more than 60 miles (100 kilometers) away in the Hamptons. Vergata’s remains were found on Fire Island, more than 20 miles (32 kilometers) west, in 1996, and then near Gilgo Beach in 2011.

DNA lifted from discarded pizza crust

Detectives identified Heuermann as a suspect in 2022 using a vehicle registration database to connect him to a pickup truck that a witness had reported seeing when one of the victims disappeared in 2010.

Police pulled cellphone data that showed Heuermann was in contact with some victims just before they disappeared, investigators said. His internet search history also showed a keen interest in the Gilgo Beach killings.

A surveillance team tailed him in Manhattan, where he worked, and watched as he discarded a box of partially eaten pizza crusts into a sidewalk garbage can. They rushed to grab the box and sent it to the crime lab, which matched the DNA from a hair found on burlap used to restrain one of the victims.

Suffolk County District Attorney Ray Tierney described Wednesday how investigators worked to keep the probe quiet so as not to let Heuermann know they were onto him. “We wanted the one person who mattered, the murderer, to think it’s business as usual,” Tierney said.

As part of his guilty plea, Heuermann agreed to cooperate fully with the FBI’s behavioral analysis unit to help catch other serial killers.

Victims’ families express relief

Several family members of the victims were present in court Wednesday, and some wept as Heuermann detailed the murders.

Among them was Taylor’s mother, Elizabeth Baczkiel. Her 20-year-old daughter was living in Manhattan when she went missing in 2003. Taylor’s remains were discovered later that year, 45 miles (72 kilometers) east of Gilgo Beach in Manorville.

“I am glad that this is over as far as him pleading guilty,” Baczkiel said. “It took a big chunk of stress off of me and my family.”

Melissa Cann, the sister of victim Brainard-Barnes, said she was grateful to finally get justice for her sister, whose body was found in 2010.

“This has been a long journey of hope — hope that one day we would stand here and say her name with justice beside it,” Cann said at a news conference after the hearing. “Today, that long, painful journey brings us to this moment.”

Heuermann’s ex-wife, Asa Ellerup, and their daughter were also in court as he entered the guilty pleas. Ellerup said her thoughts were with the victims’ families and she asked for privacy for her own family. Ellerup and her daughter, Victoria, had no knowledge of or involvement in the killings, said their lawyer, Robert Macedonio.

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Associated Press writer Hannah Schoenbaum contributed from Salt Lake City.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com