Gilgo Beach killings: Why would Rex Heuermann plead guilty? Experts point to strategies.

Alleged Gilgo Beach serial killer Rex A. Heuermann's apparent plan to plead guilty, perhaps ending the mystery of who was killing sex workers and dumping their bodies across Long Island, has left many who have followed the case asking a simple question: Why?

Legal experts who spoke to Newsday expressed surprise at the apparent turn of events after Newsday broke the story that the families of the victims had been notified by authorities Heuermann was planning to plead guilty at his next court appearance, scheduled for April 8.

While a lawyer's role is to advise a client on the benefits and risks of going to trial, it's ultimately up to the client alone to decide to enter a guilty plea. And they agreed it’s highly unlikely that Suffolk prosecutors would offer Heuermann, or any alleged serial killer, a shorter sentence or any other benefit in exchange for a guilty plea. The details of an agreement have not been disclosed. 

Heuermann has pleaded not guilty in the killings of seven women from 1993 to 2010 and has maintained his innocence through his attorneys since his July 2023 arrest.

"I don’t see any value in Rex Heuermann pleading guilty," said veteran defense attorney Steven Politi, of Central Islip. "He’s not going to get a sentence that is ever going to allow him to see the light of day. ... You make the government prove their case."

Circumstantial evidence

Heuermann, 62, an architect from Massapequa Park, has denied any role in the killing of seven young women, despite significant circumstantial evidence — including DNA apparently linking him to the killings and an alleged "planning document" on how to kill and get away with it that authorities found on a hard drive in Heuermann's basement — that prosecutors say shows otherwise, vowing through his attorneys for the last two years to fight the murder charges at trial.

Michael J. Brown, Heuermann's lead defense attorney, did not return a phone call Friday. Suffolk County District Attorney Ray Tierney declined to confirm Newsday's reporting and said Friday he was taking a "wait and see" approach to Heuermann's plans. Tierney said he would be content with either a guilty plea or proceeding to trial.

Heuermann has been in virtual isolation in the Suffolk County jail in Riverhead since investigators cornered the architect on a midtown Manhattan sidewalk and took him into custody on July 13, 2023. He might want to forgo a lengthy trial for the sake of his family, some legal experts said.

His adult daughter, Victoria Heuermann, turned on him publicly last year, saying in a Peacock documentary her father "most likely" committed the murders.

While the opinion of his daughter, or anyone else, isn't evidence in a trial, the loss of support from her could impact Heuermann's calculation.

But members of the tight-knit family, which had lived in the ramshackle home where Heuermann was raised, expressed their confidence in his innocence.

His ex-wife, Asa Ellerup, who divorced Heuermann for financial reasons, has not publicly changed her supportive stance.

It's unclear whether Heuermann has seen the documentary, which Ellerup was paid in excess of $1 million to participate in.

When defendants plead guilty

"It's pure conjecture, but serial killers don't have a lot of sympathy or any sense of compassion for their victims, so maybe it's because his family is pushing him, maybe because he's had it with the system," said Ray Perini, a veteran defense attorney with a practice in Islandia who is a former prosecutor. "But I can tell you this: I know Ray Tierney. I've known him a long time. I think he's an excellent DA. He's not giving him any kind of a deal. He's going to spend the rest of his life in jail and he's going to plead to each and every murder."

Perini said the presiding judge — in this case State Supreme Court Justice Timothy Mazzei — plays an important role. When defendants plead guilty, judges question defendants in open court to determine whether they're making the decision of their own volition, to make sure they're not being promised anything in return, and to make sure they're of sound mind.

"A defendant has an absolute right to plead guilty, and the judge's role in that is to talk to him at the day he's going to do that to make sure he's not being coerced, to make sure that he understands exactly what he's doing, to make sure he's not under the influence of drugs or alcohol," Perini said. "And if he's making a knowing decision, that's his absolute right."

The alleged crimes

Prosecutors have alleged Heuermann killed seven women — Melissa Barthelemy, Megan Waterman, Amber Lynn Costello, Maureen Brainard-Barnes, Jessica Taylor and Valerie Mack, whose remains were all found at Gilgo Beach, as well as Sandra Costilla, whose body was discovered more than 65 miles away in the Southampton hamlet of North Sea — from November 1993 to September 2010.

Partial remains of Taylor and Mack were also found in wooded areas north of the Long Island Expressway in Manorville, prosecutors have said.

The victims, all petite young women, were sex workers, officials said.

Gloria Allred, the Los Angeles-based attorney who is representing family members of three of the women Heuermann is charged with killing, declined to comment on a potential guilty plea.

John Ray, who has long represented the estate of Shannan Gilbert, the New Jersey woman whose disappearance set off a law enforcement search that led to the discovery of the bodies of several of the victims, said Friday he's been representing the son of Mack, Benjamin Torres, for the past two months.

Ray said while he'd be satisfied with Heuermann pleading guilty, he would be disappointed that there was not a trial, where evidence would be presented and tested and witnesses would testify — the venue that provides the closest possibility of getting to the truth.

When defendants plead guilty in court, they're placed under oath and must provide an allocution in open court — admitting to the crimes and some of the details as to how they were carried out.

"That will give you some insight as to what really happened in each case, but it will be quite truncated," Ray said. "You know, it's not a trial. You don't have witnesses and so on. So it won't be the full truth, and we are going to continue to seek the full truth."

Ray said he plans to pursue a civil suit against Heuermann and his family, who the district attorney's office has previously said were out of town and unaware of his alleged conduct when Heuermann allegedly committed the killings.

"We're sitting here contemplating which cases of action to bring on behalf of Benjamin," Ray said. "We're going to use whatever legal tools are necessary for us to get to the bottom of this. We’re going to go after any assets that Heuermann and his [ex-] wife have."

Robert Macedonio, a lawyer for Ellerup, didn't respond to calls.

Up to the defendant

James DiPietro, a former Nassau County prosecutor and veteran defense attorney in Brooklyn who spoke to Newsday months ago about the possibility of Heuermann pleading guilty, said given the incredible amount of attention the case has gotten — in part, because of how long it went unsolved — any potential benefit for Heuermann pleading guilty was probably out of reach.

"I don’t think there is any plea that would be acceptable to the public except a plea to the top count and a maximum amount of jail," DiPietro said then.

Hermann Walz, an adjunct professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in Manhattan, a criminal defense attorney and former prosecutor in Queens and Brooklyn who also spoke to Newsday previously, said a plea   didn't seem likely for several reasons, including that prosecutors wouldn't likely offer Heuermann a chance to ever get out of prison, usually a driver for defendants. And no elected district attorney or judge would want to be viewed as giving a break to a convicted serial killer, he said.

But any guilty plea is ultimately solely up to the defendant.

"Somebody like him might just say, 'I'm done, you know, give me the time. I'm out of here. I don't want to deal with this anymore," Walz said then. "Maybe for his family, or whatever."

Perini, meanwhile, said Heuermann is the only one who can answer that. "Why he's doing it? Only he knows the real reason. "